"We Are Building a Property-Owning Democracy"

By Christopher Ogden and Frank Melville

After only four hours of sleep and a day spent thanking campaign workers and consulting with colleagues, Margaret Thatcher welcomed TIME London Bureau Chief Christopher Ogden and Reporter Frank Melville upstairs at No. 10 Downing Street to talk about her plans for a third term. Wearing a blue suit and her trademark double strand of pearls, she sat at a small table in an oak-paneled room. Behind her were congratulatory baskets of flowers. Excerpts from the interview:

Q. How do you interpret the election?

A. It means that the policies we were pursuing, which we put openly and frankly before the people, were thought to be right for Britain. They were policies which were a partnership between government and people -- namely, we do the things which only governments can do, running the finances in a sound way, keeping inflation down, cutting controls and giving tax incentives. And we got the response in an increasing enterprise and competitiveness from the British people. And that produced a higher standard of living.

Q. Why do people accuse you so bitterly of lacking compassion?

A. Some people think that to be compassionate and caring you have to talk a lot about it. We've always taken the view that you should be judged by what you do and not by what you say, and we're prepared to be judged on that -- any day of the week.

Q. What are the most important accomplishments of your first eight years?

A. First, we have reduced the fantastic number of controls that there were over the life of our society. The greatest driving force in life, which is individual energy and effort, was becoming really cocooned. Secondly, people do need incentives to encourage them to work harder, and if you take too much away in tax, then you will not get that driving incentive. Plus the trade union law. When we took over, it seemed as if the left-wing trade union leaders were more powerful than the government of the day. All of this has been replaced by different systems. We now know that the spirit of enterprise is there. The economy is doing well and catching up with our European competitors.

Q. What are your plans for a third term?

A. I will extend opportunities to people who never had them before. As you know, we are building a property-owning democracy. Far more people own their own homes now. We are nearly up to the United States -- not yet quite -- but now one in five of our people owns company shares. Far many more people have savings accounts. That's all extending opportunity ever more widely.

Q. How far will you extend privatization?

A. Some of our water has been supplied to people by private companies for years. The great amount of it is done under public authorities, and many of them tell us they would be able to run very much more efficiently if they were able to run their own operation. Also we shall then embark upon privatizing electricity, which you ((in the U.S.)) are used to. And then we'll have a look at other things and see how best we can bring them onto the market -- always, I must say, giving the people who work in those enterprises the first chance to purchase shares at an advantageous price. Our policy is that every earner shall be an owner.

Q. Is there increased anti-Americanism in this country at the moment?

A. You will hear a good deal of it on the left wing of the Labor Party, but in almost every speech I give, I say this ((Conservative)) Party and these people are pro-American, and before I finish the sentence a round of applause breaks out. People are enormously appreciative of the generosity of the American people and of their fundamental love of liberty. I tend to regard the United States as Europe on the other side of the Atlantic, which of course is really very much what it is.

Q. What's your sense of the Moscow-Washington relationship?

A. I think we shall get the first agreement actually to reduce nuclear weapons. And we shall have gotten it by being very firm. As long as you are always firm in safeguarding your liberty and in defending it, then you do very tough negotiations, watching at each stage that everything you do is verifiable. You don't take anything on trust. The Soviet Union is a closed society and it's much bigger than the United States, so it would be much easier for them to conceal things.

Q. Do you think Reagan and Gorbachev understand each other?

A. I think it is easier for us to see a closed society than it is for those who live in a closed society to understand what an open society is all about. I don't think you always have to agree with the person you are negotiating with. What you need is a common interest. And it is a common interest between the free world and the unfree world that the two shall never come into warlike conflict.

Q. Would you consider a fourth term?

A. I can't see what is going to happen in four or five years' time. We've just won this election. We'll implement the policies that we've put forward in this election. And let's just see exactly where we get to.

Q. When it comes time to write the definitive analysis of Margaret Thatcher, what would you like it to say?

A. That we had the courage to tackle the things which other governments had run away from, and therefore transformed Britain from a declining country to one which could again be proud of her spirit of enterprise and proud as a reliable ally and an influential nation. In other words, to have restored the British character to its vitality.