Interviewer
I think pride in work is not actually difficult to inculcate if the atmosphere within which it is happening is approving and that means management who know how to clap on the back as well as to criticise. We were talking earlier about morale, in a way it is the most difficult thing to get right but once you have got it right, a lot of the things that you are describing follow. You do not actually have to set targets on them all because people know that they want to do the job well and that is the most important thing of all.
One of the things I was hoping I might be able to ask you on-the-record at some point would be about education, that it does seem to me that the core curriculum is a way of setting standards which we can all recognise as employers as well as parents. I would like to ask how you think you are doing on that front. I was very keen to follow what has been going on on the history report and we ran a story last week, and the dailies of course have it in full today, but I gather there is still a degree of concern on your part? [end p1]
Prime Minister
The core curriculum, as far as we have got the English one out, the mathematics and the science, now that originally was what I meant by a core curriculum. Everyone simply must be trained in mathematics up to a certain standard, you must be trained in language and I would say some literature up to a certain standard, you really must. It is your own tongue, it is not enough to be able to speak it, you must know some of the literature. And you simply must have a basic structure of science and you must not be allowed to give those up before you are sixteen.
So you have got it in, particularly with the science and the mathematics. If you build them in, they can be retrieved any time if they want to go back to. And the language, you just must get used not only to writing essays and maybe letters, but being able to articulate your case, you must.
Now that is to me the core curriculum, the basic core curriculum, and it is so important that you simply must be tested on it. For example, people have said to me: “Is seven not too young to test a child?” I have said, look if a child is not reading by the time that child is seven, you have got to know, the teachers have got to know, the parents have got to know and something has got to be done about it because after that your education is on the basis that you can read and therefore you will fall further and further behind. It may be you are dyslexic, it may be as happens in reading sometimes that you are just slow at reading. Quite a number of very bright children are slow at reading. But you cannot let it go longer than seven, so you have got to know. Your basic maths [end p2] you ought to know. Science obviously not so much, they are just ideas at that stage.
And then going on to other things in the curriculum, when we first started out on this I do not think I ever thought that they would do the syllabus in such detail as they are doing now. Because I believe that there are thousands of teachers who are teaching extremely well. And I always felt that when we had done the core curriculum, the core syllabus, whatever you like to call it, there must always be scope for each teacher to use her own methods, her own experience, the things which she has learned and he or she really know how to teach. And so I did not really feel that the core curriculum or any subject should take up all the time devoted to that subject because otherwise you are going to lose the enthusiasm and the devotion and all of the extras that a really good teacher can give out of her own experience.
Now history was always going to be a difficult one because at the beginning we were not decided whether to put things like history and geography in a core curriculum or not or in such a detailed foundation course, let me put it that way. Because it is obvious to me that you must have some history and you must have some geography, that is your general knowledge and you are not a complete person unless you have that general knowledge. And to me your history, whatever else you do, you simply must know roughly chronologically how things happened, what their significance was and why. That is whether it is the reigns, whether it is the treaties, whether it is the repeal of the Corn Laws, whatever it [end p3] is and you must have some facts to think with.
You go to geography and I remember one teacher saying to me: “Oh, do you mean to say we have got to teach by rote?” and I said: “First, you will never have a memory unless someone does teach you to train it. Secondly, however did you learn your A, B, C? And, thirdly, how are you going to know what the seas are, where the rivers are, what the mountain ranges are unless you sit down and learn them? But do not be afraid of putting the information in, you have got to put that in before you can think with it, do not be afraid of it. But what is more, do not be afraid of teaching children what we were taught, to learn poetry, to learn prose. Some of us would never know very much Shakespeare or many poems, we can still repeat them. What happened if you ever found yourself suddenly in an acute situation and were alone a lot and you could not run through some of these early things which you had learned? They stay with you for the rest of your life. You should not run away from putting in the cornerstones, the architecture of facts with which you then build in the building bricks and embellish your building.”
Now the history one has come out. It is very very detailed. There were not many secondary school teachers on the syllabus-forming committee, I think it really must be put out to great consultation and consideration. I think many teachers and many people will want to express their views on it quite vigorously. My worry is that I wonder whether we should put out such a detailed one. [end p4]
You see you are coming up to subjects which are different now from your core subjects. Once you go to put out an approved curriculum, if you have got it wrong, the situation is worse afterwards than it was before because there will be I should think at any given time a large number of teachers teaching a subject extremely well. But if you are going to take them off what they know has worked for years, far better than anyone else's syllabus, to put them on someone else's which is not as good as theirs, then you wonder were you doing it right.
Interviewer
(Inaudible)
Prime Minister
Oh no, this is secondary work.
Interviewer
I know, but I am saying that you are saying that you have a little bit of unease about getting too detailed and too constricted at this point.
Prime Minister
I think it is easier to get a fuller syllabus on your mathematics because you know of a certain amount that has got to be done. On your English language and on your literature there may be a good deal of room for argument. But I would have thought it was [end p5] easier to build up a basic syllabus on your mathematics and your language and literature. You can always add to it, goodness me, for ever more and a day. And your science, you have got certain laws which you have simply got to learn and to apply.
Once you go to history and geography and you come into languages and there will be battles about how to teach, there are battles about how to teach English, do you teach them grammar or not. Oh, the battles that are fought out over that!
Interviewer
Many of them fought by parents, not just by governments.
Prime Minister
Oh yes. However they have got now a history one which is very detailed, the syllabus is very detailed and yet it leaves out some very big things. Now it really must be thoroughly looked at because if you are going ever to say that whole thing is an approved syllabus, you have got to think, well now are there not quite a lot of teachers out there who will say: “Well, I cannot teach but in the way that I have taught and yet I got some of the best results on history that anyone could ever have and I have got parents and pupils lined up for years”.
So it is very very important they should have that. And it may be in the end that your syllabus or your curriculum is a basic certain number of things, the basic sweep of history, and then that you leave some other things to the teachers who have been teaching. [end p6]
I would hate to have teachers feel that out of all of the creative work they have done, and you do not just go into teaching to teach standard things, you go into it really to fulfill your need to teach young people and often if you get a few really quite unusual pupils you know you want to add to the things.
So I do not know, we shall see what comes out of it, I think it is going to be very interesting. But I think you know people have got into a few grooves, you must never teach by rote, good heavens, thank goodness I was taught something by rote. How can you have anything to think about if you have not put some facts in to think with?
And so it will be put out and my guess is that there will be quite a lot of comment about this. The geography one I have not seen yet.
Interviewer
Do you think that will be quite so controversial?
Prime Minister
If you start to teach anything by saying: “Now look, here are some facts and you have got to learn them”, you will find some people - whoomph, “No”! - to which people like me say: “Well, how did you learn your A, B, C?” The fact is that some people did not. “How did you learn some of your Shakespeare? How did you learn some of your poetry?” and you can still recite some of the poetry that you learned at school. And that was not bad, it was good. [end p7]
And also memory training is good, you will find young people will need that. I do not think we have yet got the language, there will be a battle about how best to teach languages, as there always are. I do think there is something to be said for learning your verbs and your irregular verbs and I do not see how else. They will say that you could do it as a child learns, but most of us learn a second language long after you are a child, a tiny child, and one would have thought that with the right course we could have learned more quickly. I have not seen anything about that yet. I am not a naturally gifted linguist.
Interviewer
I learnt English more or less as a second language because I grew up abroad and when I came to school in England I was easily top of the class all the way through my school days because I had actually already learnt all about the basics of grammar which the English traditionally have tended to take for granted.
Prime Minister
That is a battle which has been fought out recently over the English syllabus. Me, I believe in grammar, but I did not really know all about grammar until I learnt Latin and that is an absolute gift, a gift. Everyone, if you want to learn about grammar you do a little bit of Latin. [end p8]
Interviewer
My wife is very sore that that is not on the core curriculum.
Prime Minister
That was interesting because you knew the structure of a sentence because you had been taught it. But you see my point, if we are going to a curriculum which everyone must have, because it obviously makes sense that if you move from Yorkshire to Cornwall then you want to plug into something which is not totally unknown to you. But I think the question is: how detailed and how much, particularly as you get on to the extra subjects. History is not an extra subject, obviously, it is a vital subject and at least half of it should be the British history because you know British history well, you know quite a lot about Europe because half our history has been with the balance of power in Europe and either we held some of their territory or they held some of ours. And you will also know about the Crusades, so you will know a little bit about the Middle East, you also know about India, you also know about exploration.
It is fascinating, it is only a question of how do you teach it. But all of it, if you start to learn this you will learn so much more besides. And you can make it so exciting, but you cannot make it terribly exciting if a teacher is given something to which there is no possibility of her using her creativeness. So that is really my concern. [end p9]
And also, it should stimulate young people, these things are exciting. Science is a great mystery, unravelling great mysteries, and it is exciting as it unfolds and of course it gets more and more complex. I often look at my little scientific gallery there and think gosh, weren't they lucky, there was so much to discover then, because there is still so much to discover, it is just that we do not know how much is still left.
Interviewer
Do you ever have a secret wish that you were still doing it?
Prime Minister
No, I do not. I love turning to some of the environmental science, some of the latest science. We have several seminars here and a Chief Scientific Adviser, and I will say please get me the half dozen young scientists who are working right on the frontiers of knowledge and it will come in in nuclear, it will come in particularly in biology these days, it might be on the latest discoveries about acid rain - you know it is not what comes down there so much, it is the ground that it falls on, the rock it has come through, the channels it has found before it gets into the roots of the trees, and so on. And it is a great joy to me, it is really a sort of relief, it is a real hobby. But I do not have any wish myself to do it, I much prefer reading about what others have done because that is when it becomes very interesting. [end p10]
And so therefore I find it very interesting to go around to some of the Interdisciplinary Research Centres and they are highly complex but they are so good now. These young people who are doing some of the frontier knowledge, they are articulate enough to be able to explain it quite simply and that really is a great advance. Because if you are writing scientific reports you must learn economy, and economy in language really must be second only to that of a poet. These are the facts, this is the problem, this is our way of testing the problem, this is what we did, this is what we found, these are our deductions. It is really very much like law, first find the facts and then apply the law.
Interviewer
We could go on on this subject but I really wondered whether I could ask you now about the police, whom you said you were talking to the other day. We will obviously in the Sunday Telegraph, as will others, be looking back at the riots and looking at what has happened at Strangeways. In both the Sunday and Daily Telegraph we have occasionally had a go at the suggestion that we should have something more like an Officer class in our police force and the subject raised itself on Saturday. Several of our reporters who were out in the streets, including an ex-soldier who said that it struck him that some of the people actually giving the orders on the ground looked rather old, overweight and out of condition and he again thought that there ought to be a sort of platoon structure with much younger chaps doing the ground work. [end p11]
At the same time, this subject of whether we are training our police in the right fashion, whether allowing them to rise up, so to speak, through the Sergeant's Mess and beyond, is really the best way of training a police force in an increasingly difficult and sophisticated society to look after.
Prime Minister
I must say I thought those young people on Saturday were superb and some of the young ones, the really young ones, comparatively new, were absolutely superb. Restrained, Now if they had not had very good training they would not have learned restraint. Restraint, and some of the girls too were extremely good. One of the girls out there was knocked off her horse and the others immediately surrounded her, but they were very very good, the general training stood up very well.
Of course that was a riot of such viciousness and brutality that we have not seen the like of that for a very long time. And people saw it, because all those television cameras were on from helicopters and the traffic cameras, so a lot was seen and people saw it. I thought the police were superb.
It is very easy to criticise and it is just what we said at the beginning. You know, life is a good deal better when you are encouraged for what was well done and that I thought was very very well done. [end p12]
They have had a time, you know. I said in the House the other day that there were over a thousand injured during the coal strike; between four and five hundred at Wapping. That is not democracy, that is people trying to outflank democracy by intimidation and violence.
When you come to training it is a very very sensitive subject. They had Hendon College in pre-war days and then they went back. I do not know. I think they have done an extremely good job. If we reduce the number of people in the Armed Forces gradually when we are starting to put into effect the Vienna Agreements, I do not know, they may think then, they may think, and I think would have to do it only if they were fully prepared and willing, that they might attract some very very good late entrant recruits, just as we do in the Civil Service, late entrant recruits and put them through the training, all the way through, they might think that that might help them. I think you would only be able to do it really with their consent. But they might be able to do that if they wished to do so. But they really have been so superb that right at this moment I think that a little praise is in order.
Interviewer
Oh sure. No, I think they got plenty of praise.
Bernard Ingham?
(Inaudible). [end p13]
Interviewer
I was just going to ask that question.
Prime Minister
Oh yes there are, yes there is a very good system, I wanted to say that there is a very good system of fast promotion. That someone, whatever their background, and it is not always the graduates, but someone who has been dedicated and wants to go into the police force, they have got a good fast promotion. And whoever you are, if you have the aptitude for that kind of work and for climbing the ladder fast, you are put through a fast promotion. And they are getting more and more graduates, it is very interesting. [end p14]
Interviewer
But you have not been talking about some sort of equivalent to Sandhurst?
Prime Minister
No, they tried that with Hendon College.
Bernard Ingham?
I think with Hendon College they were bringing in people who were going to become Assistant Chief Constables rather than starting off as PCs.
Prime Minister
They go to Bramshill College now, I have been down there. But that is not necessarily for your top officers. [end p15]
Bernard Ingham?
No.
Prime Minister
They do send them on other management courses you know.
Interviewer
What I was suggesting rather than proposing was rather different, which is an entry system where you actually avoid life as a private soldier, so to speak, altogether, which I know was talked about between the wars.
Bernard Ingham?
You did have some colonels and brigadiers becoming Chief Constables.
Prime Minister
I think you would find that you would probably have to put them all through the system. But there are such things as trainees being put through the system. But it is just for consideration if at a time when we have some highly trained young people, possibly available for late entrance, they might wish to have a special arrangement for them. [end p16]
Interviewer
I would like to ask a provocative question. The police, besides doing their job extremely well, do attract obviously from certain quarters a certain amount of oppobrium as well as injury to themselves by having to do a lot of this heavy riot policing. Has it ever crossed your mind that one could actually do with a professional riot police service, such as they have in France and parts of the continent?
Prime Minister
It has been mooted many times and we have always thought that the system we have in the end is better, much better, much better, and I think that that has proved to be the case.
Interviewer
The sort of secondary there is that a lot of us encounter the police only in traffic situations and the police have to carry out protection and look after regulations on the streets, which we all agree with, but of course every motorist has had some sort of brush with the police. Would it be something that you would consider interesting as an idea to separate the traffic police from the ordinary police?
Prime Minister
I would not at the moment, without discussing with the police, substitute my judgment for theirs. To some extent you have got the traffic wardens doing that but I think you would find it [end p17] very difficult. Do not forget the Traffic Police might have to book you for quite serious criminal offences and I do not think that it would be a very good idea just to separate them completely. I think that they have done very well with an all round police training.
Interviewer
I think they do a brilliant job but for householders we want to say why is it not safe for my little girl to run up to the end of the street to play with her friend?
Prime Minister
And you know full well what the answer is, because there are evil people around and there are always going to be evil people and we cannot rely on the police to do everything.
Interviewer
Oh, I know we cannot, I was going to say, do you think after ten years in government that governments can actually affect a nation's morality?
Prime Minister
I think you can refrain from undermining it. One of the things where we undermine the idea of the rule of law is to say disobey the law if you do not like it and that way there is no law at all. If you say: “I do not like that law, therefore I am not [end p18] going to obey it”, you will soon have no law at all. And therefore you are undermining. You cannot simply, as a teacher, say to a child: “Look, you must do this or that or the other.” And then you say: “I am not going to, I am either going on strike or I am going to not obey that law because I do not like it.” There would be no law then at all and there would be no civilisation.
So yes, people can undermine it by saying and doing the wrong thing, very much so. They can also uphold it by teaching that you must observe the law and that you must have regard to your neighbour. In other words, years ago, whether people accepted Christianity or Judaism or not, they accepted a certain set of principles and that those were right and that was the acceptability of those and not only the acceptability of them as such, but acceptability implied that those were the right principles to guide your general behaviour over and above the legal law, to observe the legal law. But that was not the end of your duty or responsibility or your way in which to make life more tolerable, more kindly and a better environment of values, because there is no point in talking about a physical environment if you have not got an environment of values, there just is not, you have not got a civilised society.
But you had that kind of environment of values, that atmosphere that these are the values which we uphold. I am not quite certain whether we have it in the same way now and indeed I doubt very much whether we do, whether it is as universally accepted as it was. Although I still think that the majority of [end p19] decent men and women accept it and the majority are decent men and women and that that is accepted.
And indeed the response to the police after this weekend was superb. No-one had any sympathy at all with some of the thugs, even those who were pleading police provocation. You know we heard all the old stuff. What did people say? “Tommy rot, poppycock, codswallop!” - whatever the appropriate phrase is.
Interviewer
Can a government actually set out to replace those values?
Prime Minister
No, no, no. A government can only do what a government can and must do. Parents can only do what parents can and must do and schools and all of the other institutions of the state. We have an established church, that is why for years the only compulsory subject in school was religious education, the only single one, religious education and the Ministry of Education had nothing to do with the syllabus, the syllabus was made up by local clergy. And you know what happened, it got more and more comparative religions until we had a look at it again and you know some of the debates were really quite heated because I think in 1944 it was said that this is the established church and the predominant religion in this country is Christianity, that is the religion which predominantly must be taught. Some people in those days were Jewish and some people had a particular sect of Christianity. But it was not [end p20] necessarily taught well and I hope it will be taught better now.
And also, all of the other voluntary organisations, things like the St. John's Ambulance, they are 100 per cent voluntary; things like the Scouting movement, half a million young people belong to the Scouting movement. They have certain standards and values of what you and I would call the old-fashioned virtues. They are taught to do things, they are taught to take responsibility and they are willing and keen to take responsibility and are good at it.
It is all there still, there are half a million Scouts now, they are doing a fantastic job. Though all of the voluntary organisations, there are your trade unions and they should stand up for certain things, there are certain things they will have nothing to do with and if anyone does: “Right, you are out, that is not the way we do things.”
Interviewer
But I suppose your critics might say the Victorian virtue that has got through most successfully …
Prime Minister
Look, they are known as Victorian values, they are far older than Victorian, they are fundamental values, they are basic values. You go back to the Ten Commandments if you like. [end p21]
Interviewer
Let us call them human or civilised values then.
Prime Minister
Yes, civilised values is much the best phrase.
Interviewer
I did say your critics, they might say the Victorian value that has got through is the spirit of enterprise and self-motivation …
Prime Minister
Those are hard work, thrift, yes, self-reliance, responsibility.
Interviewer
The ones I suppose that ordinary families might worry about are those of public decency, a sense of community, and all those things, which all of us who live in towns feel have been terribly damaged?
Prime Minister
Yes indeed but those go back to fundamental values, it is do as you would be done by, that is your fundamental duty to your neighbour, your fundamental responsibility. You cannot exert your talents and abilities except in relation to your neighbour. You cannot do it to thin air. [end p22]
You cannot be enterprising and do well in your paper except in relation to your readers. The individual and the community are inseparable. The idea that they are different is quite absurd.
Interviewer
And yet people have stopped thinking like that to some extent.
Prime Minister
And an awful lot of artificial propaganda. You cannot, how can you, show your generosity or exercise your concern for others without others. How can you make anything to sell without someone to sell it to? How can you give anything without someone to give it to? And the person who is very keen on having a good home for their family is the person who is very keen on having a good neighbourhood and teaching them not to throw things down and teaching them not to desecrate other people's property.
Interviewer
Prince Charles has suggested, I think, at some point that we ought actually to teach citizenship. When I grew up, which was in a Roman Catholic country, Anglican pupils did not get religion at all, we got something called morality which we all thought very funny but actually was rather good and showed that the teachers in that country thought it was a good thing to have a solid period during the week when you were actually taught about the things we have just been discussing. [end p23]
Prime Minister
That should be done in religious education. Indeed you cannot do religious education without doing morality, that is its basis, without doing human rights, that is its basis. It is the worth of the individual and the two great religions - Judaism and Christianity - are the two which really are based on the worth of the individual. You will not find it in some of the Far Eastern religions. Islam is at least based on the common God of whom [sic] regarded I suppose Jesus as a Prophet and Mohammed as another one. Mohammed was the greatest Prophet.
But the two religions that are based on the fundamental worth and accountability, accountability of the individual, are Judaism and Christianity. It is the accountability of each individual, the worth of each individual, each individual matters, his accountability for his actions and the accountability of nations which comes through very strongly in both the old and new Testament. Very interesting.
Interviewer
Will this be taught in our schools again in the way that you think?
Prime Minister
I do not know. Certainly I was taught, we only had one period of religious education and I think you take an awful lot by example. But that is the origin of your fundamental morality. [end p24]
Otherwise, if it merely becomes, “Oh well, this is the courteous way, makes it much better for one another to live with,” that of itself is I would think a virtue because the rules of courtesy which many people try to undermine and pooh-pooh and suggest one was prudish if one ever observed them, the rules of courtesy are what makes the environment and atmosphere of living much more pleasant, of course they are.
But do you need to have something called morality? First, I would have thought you learnt in your religious education, secondly, I would have thought your basis was learned when you came from home, and thirdly, certainly if you are not taught it, and many companies will tell you that the first thing they have to do when they take young people on a foundation course is to teach them that they have got to turn up tidy and on time, they have got to be polite to their fellows and they have got to be able to articulate certain thoughts.
Certainly some of them come out of school without knowing that and that is why we have had to go to a national curriculum. Although let us face it there are some teachers that have a very difficult time in some schools and one must not expect a teacher to make up for everything that the parents have not done. And there are whole areas in inner cities where you will find that a large part of the school is made up of single parent families so they are not brought up in the building brick of society which is the family, as we understand it. And you cannot expect your teachers to do for that. [end p25]
But they do pick up the certain standards and certain things which are done. The way the news is reported on television, I would have thought also can uphold or destroy some of those values. It is vital. Here we are all talking about the SO2, the NO2 and CO2 and really the general behavioural aspects of human nature are the ones which often we come up against.
Some of those young people that you see rioting, some of the young people that go on drugs, some of the young people who are the great destroyers, they are not poor, they have come from a reasonable home, some of them had a reasonable education, good health, a reasonable income. It is too much sometimes.
All the four things that we thought were the fundamental social things, they have got. You are up against human nature. In a smaller town, the town has its own taboos - “We do not do those things here”, “You are not going to do that so long as you put your feet under my table” - there is no substitute for those, no-one else can provide them.
Interviewer
I do not know that the big city can manage that.
Prime Minister
I think some of the big cities are managing it. And now you come to football and all your football clubs they now know that it is the players who have to give the example and they know they are going to have to drum out the others who come and are interested in [end p26] hooliganism and we are going to all seater stadia so we shall get better and higher standards. And unless people insist on those we shall not eradicate the other, because the other elements must be unacceptable, not unacceptable to the law but unacceptable to ordinary men and women - “You are not coming to this club if you are going to do that - out.” There is no law I can pass which can say that. “None of that in here - out”.
Interviewer
Do you not think that some of these people have been a self-appointed, to use an American phrase, underclass? They actually do not mind if you say out, because they are out already.
Prime Minister
It is an awful phrase. I only saw it first in the Sunday Times and we have dismissed it ever since then. Just when we are getting everyone in the middle in this country, I do not want to hear that again at all. Most people if you ask them will say: “Look, well, we are somewhere in the middle.”
What you have got is people who were born with all the things which those who were born two or three generations ago would have longed to have and it is the use you make of them. It is one of John Wesley's things, from his sermons: “Do not impute to money the faults of human nature.” [end p27]
Interviewer
One final question, Nelson Mandela said in an interview with Lord Bethnal [sic: Lord Bethell?] in our paper the other day that he would rather like to be invited to the Party Conference in September and indeed was very keen to meet you. Do you have an official response to that?
Prime Minister
Nelson MandelaHe is coming here in April and we said certainly we would receive him if he would wish to come but I think then that he says he must ask the ANC.
Interviewer
They will say no this time, I am sure.
Prime Minister
There is an invitation out to Nelson Mandela to come here. Yes, right at the beginning as soon as he was released.
Interviewer
It was the Tory Conference I was thinking of in particular.
The following off the record material at end of interview was omitted from the CD-ROM edition; released in December 2019.
Prime Minister
Many people came as observers but I was thinking that if he came here one would like to see him. This is not for quoting but I hope the day will soon come when he can make his own decisions and be his own man which is what we have all been expecting of him. [end p28] And then I am certain that he would come, knowing that we could have a very interesting conversation and knowing that we would both be interested in the sane thing. I recognise that when he came out I watched that speech and at first I was a little disappointed in it and then I thought, come on, that is not reasonable, that is not reasonable. This man has gat to pay his ritual obeisance to the ANC, of course he has. So I imagine his armed struggle, nationalisation and sanctions, we shall not hear any more about that after today, maybe tomorrow, that will be that, be has done his ritual obeisance, now he will get down to …
Interviewer
He will say a bit more during the Easter weekend surely?
Prime Minister
Well it is going on a little bit longer than I thought. But armed struggle - no. What is going on now is going to hold up the lifting of the emergency, he is going to hold it up. And of course do not forget you have had more people killed since it became blacks versus blacks. And it is going to hold up, and the moment you espouse armed struggle ...
Interviewer
That is sanctioning every kind of awfulness, I agree.
Prime Minister
It is sanctioning murder, it is sanctioning murder and I think it is a pity and I hope that he will soon drop it. Why should people go and put their money in South Africa to provide capital for others if it is going to be taken over. So that will not work either. Sanctions, I do sometimes say to thank when they have done all their negotiations and have gat a satisfactory government in which everyone is involved, they will inherit. unless they destroy it between now and then, the best economy in the whole of Africa and I will have had something to do with keeping it, not everything, but just a little, so that it could not be destroyed. You never get people at a better standard of living and education if you destroy the economy. But I just hope that soon, and I most earnestly hope that it will soon change because I feel that many people had higher hopes of Mr Xandela being released and le Sisulu than are being realised. And I can understand he has not been out for a long time. But I think that the tine when he becomes his own man is the sign of the kind of leadership that we expected. But that is just how I feel about it.
Interviewer
But is the reply to my question of whether the Party will invite him to the Conference: "We do not know yet?'"
Prime Minister
If he wishes to cone as an observer we have many people coming as observers, but how else would he wish to come?
Interviewer
Suppose your international section could invite hint as an honoured guest.
Prime Minister
He has bean invited as an honoured guest to come here.