Thatcher: "We Shall Win'

While James Callaghan was making his plea to the trades unions for moderation, Tory Leader Margaret Thatcher was flying off for an eight-day visit to the U.S. Buoyed by recent by-election triumphs and polls showing her party well ahead of Labor, Mrs. Thatcher is confident that she will soon become Britain's first woman Prime Minister. Partly because of a casual commitment made on his visit to Britain last May, Jimmy Carter is making an exception in her case to a new White House practice that opposition leaders are received by the Vice President. While in Manhattan last week, she discussed some of Britain's problems with TIME's London bureau chief Herman Nickel.

Q. How long can the government put off elections, and how will that affect your chances?

A. In our system, the government can choose when it calls an election at any time within five years. Therefore, the present government can go on as long as the Liberals or one of the other minor parties will support it. But I take the view that some of the things this government has done are such that their own people have lost confidence in them. So whenever there is an election, we shall win, and I hope with a good majority. Inflation, a drop in the real standard of living, no increase in our manufacturing output in three years, a taxation system so heavy that many ordinary people say there's no incentive to work--those sources of resentment [will not] disappear.

Q. In recent months the government's policies of controlling the money supply, resisting a consumer boom and restricting public expenditures could almost be described as conservative. How would your policy differ?

A. It wasn't until we came under the authority of the International Monetary Fund that discipline was applied. But one of the real problems is that a Labor government positively prefers public expenditure to leaving the money in the pockets of the people. If you go on spending money you haven't got, you go on having inflation. We used to think you could use inflation to cut down unemployment, but if anyone wants a future in politics, they'd better learn one of the lessons of the past. And that is: if you let your public expenditures rise too much, you'll not only have higher inflation, you'll have higher unemployment as well.

Q. What will North Sea oil mean for Britain?

A. It's like winning a large amount on the football pools. You can use it to have a period of easy living, or you can use it to build up something for the future.

Q. How would a Tory government be able to get on with the unions?

A. I hope well, and for a number of good reasons. We already have strong support from union members--about one in three voted Conservative in the past election, and many more are doing so now. Then, under a socialist government, they have suffered oppressive taxation and cuts in their living standards, and they have seen their unions become part of government. It's under the Conservatives that they will be better off and regain their independence. The question to be answered by the union leaders is: Will they accept the people's verdict in an election, or will they make a mockery of democracy? Are they really saying that it is impossible to be a socialist and a democrat at the same time? In fact, our union leaders have publicly stated, as you would expect, that they will work with any properly elected government.

Q. In Britain, unlike the U.S., Parliament is supreme. Can it still be relied on to protect individual liberties, or do you share the view that an American-style Bill of Rights and judicial review have become necessary?

A. So long as Parliament is supreme and one Parliament can therefore change any law passed by a previous one, there is no way of entrenching a Bill of Rights by legislation. If a government wants to pass laws that might infringe some rights, and has the necessary majority, it will do so. At the moment I see no way of challenging the supremacy of Parliament. In theory, it might be possible that we could set up a special court, along with a Bill of Rights, and to use the argument that if a government then legislated to change that position, its purpose would be obvious to the people. But I see very little possibility of such a court being established.

Q. Do you generally agree with the David Owen-Andrew Young approach to the problems of southern Africa?

A. It's a bit early to say how the new proposals for Rhodesia will work out. But we have taken two very firm views. First, democracy in any country is about the people inside the country determining what sort of government they themselves want. Secondly, we believe that if the Rhodesian security forces were to be disbanded, that could introduce a destabilizing factor. They have in fact maintained security, and we believe they would serve any new government that had properly been elected, obviously with black Rhodesians having their full chance to vote. So it would be most unwise to disband them. Beyond that, I do believe we have to regard a threat to southern Africa very seriously. After all, in the U.S. you're almost self-sufficient in your main raw materials. We are very far from being self-sufficient. We have to get many of our strategic materials from southern Africa. There is no major source for chrome other than southern Africa, apart from Russia, and about 80% of the oil required by the Western countries has to come around the Cape.

Q. How has life in the tough, male-dominated world of politics affected you personally? Have you ever had any regrets about choosing a career in politics?

A. Not at all. Sometimes wounding things are said, but in the end it's your own conscience that you have to live with. I think we can get much too sensitive about these criticisms. You have to have your own convictions, and you have to have the courage of them. If you have that, then you should stay in politics. If you haven't, you ought not to be in politics anyway.

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