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Documentary, Thatcher A Very British Revolution 2of5 Power
#MargaretThatcher#Margaret #Thatcher
#MargaretThatcher#Margaret #Thatcher
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00:00Britain has swung decisively to the Conservatives in the general election and later today Mrs Thatcher will become Prime Minister
00:14Mrs Thatcher is just coming out at this minute to an enormous cheer
00:18Police have been doing a superb job here trying to keep both the press and the public back
00:23They're now forming a channel so Mrs Thatcher can get through to her car
00:29Mrs Thatcher has 390 seats now in the new House of Commons
00:36Britain is about to enter a new political era with a Conservative government and its first woman Prime Minister
00:46Her mission nothing less than the transformation of Britain
00:53There's never been a woman Prime Minister of Britain or of any other Western country
00:59I would just like to remember some words of St Francis of Assisi which I think are really just particularly apt at the moment
01:14Where there is discord may we bring harmony
01:17I was just inside the door and we heard her quoting Francis of Assisi
01:21Where there is discord let us bring harmony
01:28And I was astonished I thought what this is not the Maggie Thatcher that I knew this is not what she was about
01:36Where there is error may we bring truth
01:51She must have known deep down that a Thatcher government was going to produce a struggle, a conflict
01:55And so this rather schmaltzy stuff this wasn't really her
02:02Where there is doubt may we bring faith
02:07She was not a compromiser she was a confrontational politician by design by belief
02:13And where there is despair may we bring hope
02:16For a little moment there I thought we'd lost her
02:18But the rest as they say is history
02:21Finally there is now work to be done
02:25And it is time to be done
02:55I think Mrs. Satcher, to be fair, came to office in 1979
03:03with many, many people doubting whether she would make a difference
03:08or conceivably make it worse.
03:12In 1979, of course, being the first woman prime minister,
03:16she faced an enormous challenge in a world of men.
03:20She was coming into an office that was male-dominated.
03:25I think we could all feel it was an historic time for us all.
03:36It was like a whirlwind coming in.
03:50What do you think of the likeness?
03:52Well, I think you're the best judge of that.
03:54I think she looks quite formidable like that, don't you?
03:57In 1979, I don't think many people would have given a thought for her
04:03staying the pace, as it were.
04:05The interesting thing about this photograph is that only four were still alive.
04:19This is Satcher's first cabinet.
04:21And there's David Howell, Michael Hesseltine,
04:25and the chap who's now Speaker of the Lords.
04:29What's his name?
04:29Norman Fowler.
04:30Norman Fowler.
04:31I don't think anybody else still exists.
04:34There we are.
04:36There was a fairly good division between strong supporters of the prime minister
04:41and those who had been in the old Ted Heath government,
04:46and who could remember Margaret from that time.
04:48I think she was wary of some of the others,
04:52particularly perhaps wary of those who had been in cabinet with her in the old Heath days.
04:58The conservative newspaper, the Sunday Telegraph, yesterday described the new government
05:03as one that is encouragingly full of hereditary peers, self-made and hereditary millionaires,
05:09headed by a lady who has married money.
05:12Going along the front row, Ian Gilmore, he was never with her.
05:18He was a nightmare.
05:19Soames was a good chap, but no, he was very anti-Thatcher.
05:24He wasn't an acolyte, that's for sure.
05:26So I don't think in the ideological sense of the true believers, he was one of them.
05:35Whitelaw, Whitelaw became a very close supporter.
05:39He always agreed with Margaret Thatcher, whatever she said,
05:43which was ridiculous really, because often she was talking nonsense.
05:46I liked Jim Pryor, but he wasn't on Thatcher's side.
05:52This first cabinet was dominated by Etonians.
05:56I have to admit that I sent my two sons to Eton, but I have a low opinion of the place,
06:00and I had to suffer the Etonians in this first cabinet.
06:05They had an attitude of supercilious disdain to Margaret.
06:10Michael Hesseltine was not a Thatcher supporter,
06:13but he was as loyal as Michael could be, really.
06:17People, I think, don't really take on board the fact that you're not friends.
06:23You're colleagues.
06:24You may have quite different views.
06:26You may have a very different background.
06:28There are all sorts of differences.
06:31David Howell was in Cambridge with me, a good chap.
06:35He was a Thatcher supporter.
06:38One could see there was going to be some argument,
06:40but here was this powerhouse at the centre, Mrs Thatcher,
06:44and you felt that whatever resistance there was,
06:47and whatever arguments, and whatever doubts, things were going to change.
06:51John Knott, he looks rather odd.
07:05I've supported Thatcher.
07:07Margaret had a determination that she was going to sort out the economy of the country.
07:14And she wasn't prepared to be diverted.
07:16It's less than six weeks since the country voted very clearly for a big change in direction.
07:28I must say that for me, it's been quite a six weeks.
07:30What I...
07:31When we won in 1979, it took some time to realise how bad the economic position of the country was.
07:37Inflation was roaring ahead, and one had to deal with that.
07:40And Geoffrey had very difficult task indeed to cope with it.
07:43Let me take government spending and borrowing first.
07:48They're right at the heart of the problem of inflation.
07:51And at the moment, they're both too high.
07:53And inflation is too high.
07:56And we've got to get that down and keep it down.
07:58All the indicators seem to be going wrong.
08:00Inflation was going up, unemployment was going up, public borrowing was going up.
08:05Let's go over now to Hugh Scully for a summary of the main points of the budget.
08:09There are to be big cuts in public spending and cuts too in direct taxation.
08:15The major change was his announcement on VAT.
08:19And with me is a Treasury Minister, Nigel Lawson MP, Financial Secretary to the Treasury.
08:24Mr Lawson.
08:25There was nothing good you could say about the British economy.
08:29The trade unions have become a political force.
08:32Management had ceased to manage.
08:35Is 14% going to be enough?
08:37The picture could scarcely have been worse.
08:40The question is, what is going to happen to our economy as a whole?
08:44What is going to happen to this country as a whole?
08:47Something new was needed.
08:48Some different approach was needed.
08:50And that was going to be tough.
08:52And that was going to be difficult and probably painful.
08:54It's a change of direction.
08:57And I'm sure we'll all find it turns out to be a change for the better.
09:01Andrew, how do you see the budget as a whole?
09:03I think this has got the imprint of Margaret Thatcher all over it.
09:06And I think she's played a very big part in this.
09:08This is a Thatcher Howe budget, not just a Geoffrey Howe budget.
09:11It's not a tax cut.
09:12The country was declining very fast and it needed someone like Margaret Thatcher.
09:17She was a Tory radical.
09:19She wanted to change everything.
09:20How is society to be improved?
09:31By millions of people resolving that they will give their own children a better life
09:37than they had themselves.
09:39I think she wanted to restore the kind of Methodist Protestant values of discipline,
09:47hard work, doing better than your parents did, getting on in life.
09:52This is the true driving force of society.
09:58The desire of the individual to do better for himself and his family.
10:03If you look at her family background and her upward mobility and her hard work,
10:08you'll see it made sense.
10:10She was bringing middle England into the forefront of England.
10:15And that was new.
10:20From here in Paris, she's going 500 miles to visit one of France's most up-to-date nuclear complexes.
10:27The first two or three years, the pressure was very, very intense.
10:34And she worked her socks off, she really did.
10:39Chairman Choir's visit will produce some very real benefits for Britain.
10:42And I'm sure that your own visit will make a major contribution to the further...
10:48Mrs Thatcher spent the best part of last night writing letters to the relatives of the 18 soldiers
10:53who were killed in the bomb attack near Warren Point the day before yesterday.
10:56She had, you know, such capacity for work.
10:59She could spend all day dealing with Downing Street.
11:04Then in the evening, wonder whether she'd be sending a special message to the Chancellor of Germany.
11:10She could do all that.
11:12The West German Chancellor, Herr Helmut Schmidt, was greeted outside by Mrs Thatcher
11:16and congratulated her warmly on her election success.
11:20If there was a foreign visitor of real importance,
11:22Margaret would be rushing round number 10, sort of adjusting flowers and dusting a bit here and there.
11:28I went up to the flat.
11:31I was surprised to find that she was there.
11:34She had her sleeves rolled up and she was dusting.
11:37She was very keen on dusting.
11:38She would walk into a room and almost automatically run her finger along the mantelpiece.
11:44And then look at it, you know.
11:47This is the largest, isn't it beautiful?
11:51I mean, she was a woman with a mission.
11:53Prime Ministers have the opportunity to make an impact through changing the art on the walls.
12:00She really wanted the art that was on public view to tell a story that reflected well on Britain.
12:07Now, when I came here, we had no original pictures of Nelson or Wellington, only copies.
12:15And I thought we ought to have original ones.
12:17You know, if the portrait represents Wellington in splendid profile and it's a terrible painting,
12:24that didn't matter because she wouldn't have noticed that.
12:28She would have seen it as an icon, which it was for her.
12:31She had a sense of mission and she used everything that she could to advance her mission.
12:37We do in this room a great deal of discussion.
12:39All ministers come here and see me, various leaders of industry, other statesmen.
12:45Oh yes, we have to make time for it.
12:48And you often go on until two in the morning.
12:50Quite frequently, indeed usually.
12:52Her work rate was quite phenomenal and it was very hard to keep up with her.
12:57I know that some of you might think that the first year has been a little breathless
13:01and I understand that some of my staff have been left a little breathless,
13:05but I've still got a lot of puff left.
13:09And I want to tell you...
13:11She never looked back. She always looked forward.
13:14We have a goal in sight and we mean to achieve it.
13:17Sometimes I find that a little frustrating because there were times when clearly
13:22mistakes had been made, but she certainly didn't want to discuss it with her staff.
13:26She might have discussed it with Dennis Thatcher, her husband, who was very important to her.
13:33Being the add-on to the Prime Minister was not a role that Dennis Thatcher had ever been born to or briefed about.
13:42He was a successful businessman. He had a good war record.
13:46He came from an almost Edwardian background in many ways.
13:51And the last thing he expected to do was to be thrust into the spotlight behind a woman like Margaret.
13:59It's a very difficult role for a spouse to have.
14:03He played it without any training, without any background, but formidably well.
14:08It was always the safety valve, the ultimate safety valve.
14:12Because when Margaret got too pent up, he, at the end of the day, was capable of saying,
14:18Margaret, stop.
14:22In combat jacket and a sombre mood, she was the first Prime Minister to visit Cross McGlynn.
14:28A place that's been called the heart of the bandit country.
14:31She was a very resilient woman. But there weren't many days, I would have said, in that first period,
14:44when she was totally relaxed. Problems were coming at her, you know, right, left and centre.
14:50A walkabout in Donegal Place, Belfast's main shopping centre, was certainly the highlight of the day.
14:55Please stand still and I will move, all right?
14:59We won this block, wait till we don't have it!
15:02She has lost her battle to get a real reduction in Britain's thumping £1,000 million contribution
15:08to the common market budget. Patience is not one of my most obvious characteristics,
15:13but I'm trying hard to learn it now. There was an electric atmosphere in Downing Street that,
15:20you know, things were not always going right. Do you have any doubts at all about
15:28your ability to measure up to the job of Prime Minister?
15:31Do I have any doubts? Well, I look at some of the other people and I really,
15:36of course you have doubts. Of course you have doubts.
15:40Do you have any doubts? And you're tremendously aware of responsibility.
15:51Inflation has now doubled to over 21% since Margaret Thatcher came to power.
15:55Wages have exploded with settlements running at over 20%.
16:02Sterling's rise has been meteoric since the Conservatives came to power, buoyed up by record
16:07interest rates. Manufacturing industry was in deep trouble. High exchange rate, high interest rates,
16:14wage increases coming through the system. It was terrible.
16:18There are fears of a wage price spiral, pushing inflation up even higher.
16:22It's inevitable that petrol prices will rise this year as the oil producers apply the law of supply
16:27and demand. British shipbuilders will be forced to cut over 8,000 jobs in merchant shipbuilding because...
16:33The key to success, let me define it in my way, is first, sound money. That means,
16:39don't print more money. You call it monetarism. It's as old as the hills, it's as old as money itself.
16:46Mrs. Thatcher placed an enormous emphasis on the sort of monetarist dogma that you could,
16:53if you could control the money supply, somehow everything would magically come good.
16:58The economic theory behind this trend has come to be known as monetarism.
17:04The Thatcher government is a kind of an experiment in whether it will be possible in a democratic society
17:10that has gone as far as Britain has gone, to change course in an orderly, effective way,
17:16to set Britain on a new road.
17:18Mrs. This government, unlike so many of its predecessors, will face up to economic realities.
17:29Pennies don't fall from heaven. They have to be earned here on earth.
17:36I don't think she realised quite how difficult managing the economy would be.
17:41But by the time we got to 1980, because others had already been in power for a year,
17:46and problems were continuing to be very serious.
17:50You really had to look to yourselves to find out, you know, have we got this right?
18:11Cut away first.
18:12Right, we're recording again now.
18:19Prime Minister, you're pursuing a clear-cut, a radical plan to end our national economic decline.
18:27It's part of what you would call the Thatcher experiment.
18:31There isn't a pot of gold to draw on. There is either your own extra effort,
18:38working machinery better, or you're taking something from your fellow citizens.
18:43And I am saying to you, as I said at that speech, which I did in the Guildhall,
18:48pennies don't come from heaven. They have to be earned here on earth.
18:52Now, there are plenty more pennies to be earned, but get on and earn them,
18:56because that is the way to increase prosperity.
18:58It won't surprise you. I don't suppose it surprises anybody that your political opponents think
19:03that your economic strategy is going to fail. Well, they're failed. So we have to do something very,
19:09very different. We haven't got time to go into that.
19:11But anyway... I wouldn't have this large number of loss-making industries if they'd succeeded.
19:16I've been a steelworker for all of my life. I've scratched out a pittance for my darling wife.
19:27But now they have told me no more I may toll. Condemned with my sons to a life on the door.
19:36We didn't promise you instant sunshine. We pointed out over and over again that a nation can't accelerate
19:51downhill for years and then jam the brakes on and suddenly return to prosperity,
19:56as though the past had never happened. We had to start by slowing down before turning round and
20:04beginning the long slow climb back up the hill to recovery. Change can't be painless.
20:13With the nation's finances in chaos, you couldn't go on. Something had to be done.
20:21And unfortunately, as usual, the ordinary people pay the price for a time.
20:27This is what would normally be a working day. And we're now down in this plant to
20:32one week on, one week off. But the government would say,
20:37just hang on and stop making such a fuss now. Yeah, all I can say is that the government
20:41isn't standing where I'm bloody well standing.
20:45When I was Trade Secretary, I'll give you an example. There were one and a half million people
20:50working in the textile industry. That's in 79. By the time I ceased to be Trade Secretary and moved to
20:58defence. That number halved.
21:04My wife's family owned three textile mills on the Lancashire-Yorkshire border.
21:11And Mrs Thatcher came down to the office and she said, how's the family firm doing?
21:17And I said, I'm afraid it's gone into liquidation. And she was absolutely shocked and horrified.
21:23I said, oh, that's terrible. Then she said, well, is there anything we can do? I said, no, I don't think so.
21:30It now looks as if Concert Steelworks in County Durham may close earlier than expected
21:35and 3,700 jobs will go.
21:40These industries were declining. They couldn't compete in the world.
21:43You just can't keep a bad economy together.
21:49It wasn't entirely our fault. Sterling was very high, which meant that the traditional industries of
21:55shipbuilding and steel, they just simply couldn't compete.
22:01Mrs Thatcher had a Darwinian view. I think she felt that our traditional industrial base was,
22:08as it were, a species that should probably die.
22:17I know that we have to go on absolutely with the policy which we came in with.
22:23Britain will not be prosperous until her industries are efficient.
22:28And that is why I have to continue to be tough.
22:30She got a reputation for harshness and her memory is still loathed by a large proportion of the
22:38population. My theme will be that the virtue of a nation is only as great as the virtue of the
22:45individuals who completed.
22:47The
22:48The
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23:13now you see why I fight these people I have no reason to suppose that she was
23:24never ever concerned about unemployment but my job she had to be destroying it
23:38the number of unemployed has risen above two million about one in twelve of the
23:43nations workforce is now idle I mean that was one area where people didn't get the
23:52whole thatcher because she was always wary about this hypocrisy of appearing
24:02compassionate she once said to me she said all these politicians showing
24:08compassion with other people's money sniff
24:21Prime Minister welcome to our program thank you I've been very much looking
24:26forward to it you all look marvelous let's have a question from our audience
24:29Ernest wasu how do you act to the Russians calling you the Iron Lady I think it's
24:37rather a compliment don't you because so often people have said to me if you're
24:42in your job all right you've got to be soft and warm and human but you've got to
24:46have a touch of steel you do need to be pretty firm I mean the thing is that Mrs.
24:54actually she wasn't the one-dimensional figure that some people either remember
25:01her as or imagine she was she wasn't like that at all she was she had several
25:05dimensions she was relentless highly demanding but also and sometimes
25:12unpredictably she could be quite cautious pragmatic down-to-earth kind
25:21if you were close to her in work terms she was extraordinarily considerate I think on reflection
25:32far more than any minister I ever worked with before or since there were perhaps approaching
25:38100 people altogether working in and around 10 Downing Street if any of them had a serious
25:44family problem a bereavement or a seriously ill child or whatever we had to think very hard
25:50before we told her if we told her she would stop whatever she was doing and ask us a lot of
25:56questions about whether we'd done the right thing whether we've been in touch with the right people
26:00whether we'd given all the support we could it was genuine it was real it was not synthetic it was who
26:06she was I felt like she was a bit like a mother to me I mean she was always asking about my family and
26:14stuff and she always said to me or whoever was in charge make sure the boys are eating
26:19and the drivers are looked after we were able to speak to her in a way that most women speak to other women we
26:28talked about clothes and hairstyles and all that sort of thing she was very very much a person you could
26:35actually talk to easily I was a proper human being as well as everything else she was approachable if
26:45you dared to approach her and too few people dared
26:50certainly the sort of iron lady approach was not one that as a member of her private staff you
27:13were conscious of because we were there all the time remember in the bad times and the good times
27:20so you saw the chinks you you saw the moments when an issue you know really bothered her and and
27:27worried her I've seen her weeping I've seen her desperately anxious that's not the iron lady image but
27:40it was very much part of her there seemed to be two mrs. thatchers sometimes three at least what are the
27:47three there's a very logical one there's an instinctive one and there's just one at home
27:53people say she was very sympathetic with close members of her staff well the people around her
28:01are achievers whether it was their driver their driver would be chosen because they're very good
28:06drivers their secretaries will be chosen because they're very good secretaries these are all achievers
28:10and so if they had a problem I think she could understand it the illness or maybe other problems
28:18and that was within her her understanding the weakness in her character the weakness in her prime
28:26ministership is she never ever really understood that there are a lot of people maybe ten twenty
28:35percent of the population who need help at various stages she was deaf and blind to a big chunk of the
28:46population good morning good morning now let's go in I wouldn't have said she was a greatly empathetic
28:52she was sympathetic but not empathetic which is different
28:56leading party figures are starting to sound a warning that if there's too much of a recession
29:07to not only damage the economy it could cost the government the next election senior conservatives I've
29:13talked to make it clear that the damage can't be allowed to continue for more than a year from now or
29:18two and three-quarter million people unemployed is not an acceptable figure for a modern society it's
29:24one that we cannot tolerate for more than a short period of time and one we shouldn't tolerate at any
29:29time at that time there was this sort of block of opinion in the cabinet Jim Pryor my father and
29:46others who were very anxious about the way domestic policy was proceeding there was a lot of unhappiness
29:54there was a lot of leaking to the to the press lobby encouraged by those in the cabinet who didn't
30:02agree with her if you were to split the cabinet into convinced monetarists on the one hand and agnostics
30:10and outright antics on the other mrs thatcher would be very much in a minority there was a great tirade in
30:17the press of wets versus dries which damaged her and damaged the government
30:22between five and six thousand demonstrators were in Brighton to support the right to work March
30:37protest about government policies some of the protesters became angry and tried to break through
30:43the police lines in Brighton she was really on her own with Geoffrey Howe and three or four others the
31:01majority were either neutral or highly skeptical they couldn't see how it could work ladies and gentlemen
31:09it used to be the custom the big division was between those who say right public spending should
31:17be brought down and that will give us room for tax cuts in the future and those who said tax cuts take
31:24second place to measures that can be taken to protect employment and to reduce unemployment that
31:33was the big division when I'm asked for a detailed forecast of what will happen in the coming months
31:39or years I remember Sam Goldwyn's advice never prophesy especially about the future nevertheless nevertheless
31:55never mind it's wet outside I expect they want it to come
32:04you can't blame them it's always better where the Tories are
32:07she was a gutsy lady and you know it one notices in life that women have more courage than men men tend to dither around decisions but women have a lot of guts
32:33to those waiting with bated breath for that favorite media catchphrase the u-turn
32:41I have only one thing to say you turn if you want to
32:46the ladies not for turning
32:59the phrase was reaching to three different audiences it was reaching certainly to the audience in the hall
33:08and the faithful chair around loved it it was reaching out to the country and I think our immediate cabinet
33:16colleagues who were grouped together as the wets because that's where the greatest percentage of turners
33:23u-turners were people who wanted her to soften her economic policy wanted her to turn
33:38not long ago mrs thatcher gave a party here and when things had livened up a bit she was persuaded to
33:45make a speech she kicked off her shoes and jumped onto a chair and during the speech she said something
33:51very revealing about herself i'm the only rebel in the cabinet of squares she said that ultimately
33:58is how she sees herself the unorthodox grammar school girl who's fought her way to the top through sheer
34:04determination the outsider in a group of conventional tory barons and she owes them nothing
34:14i think the greatest difficulty in that period she had was with james pryor employment secretary
34:23he was a consensus man he believed probably in the old sort of 1970s idea that things could be
34:29achieved through consensus and through negotiation
34:34jim was a toughie he used to shout and argue with margaret thatcher and they used to have stand-up
34:40balls sitting rows together jim didn't like mrs thatcher they weren't each other's cup of tea
34:48but as i got on with her she once came to me and said i like jim and i like the way he argues with me
34:56to my face where so many of the others just mutter behind my back how many minutes about 30 seconds
35:03well when you're ready we're ready when prime minister's i'll give you a cue too you'll give
35:08us a warning cue won't you yes yes finally prime minister may i come to the state of your cabinet
35:14at the moment does it not appear to be in deep disarray on a number of these important matters today it's
35:20not in disarray if i haven't had a cabinet of yes men of sycophants you would be the first to attack me
35:26yes we do have arguments you've argued with me over the years you know i love an argument i'm right in
35:31the middle of it i expect us to argue and then when we come to a decision loyally to defend it outside
35:37prime minister looking at your economic strategy i always wondered whether she could turn on anger
35:43synthetically i don't think so i did i think she felt things very deeply and strongly and remember she
35:53she was a woman who felt quite threatened a lot of the time because so many of her colleagues didn't
36:00agree with her
36:01as a woman she had to deal with i wouldn't say misogyny exactly but a certain patronizing attitude
36:11of not just a cabinet but many people outside
36:17she liked a good argument she liked things to be thrashed out and she came from a generation of men
36:23and most of her colleagues were male who were not used to her own age group arguing with women
36:28they said sort of yes dear and and did what they wanted i was a sort of british middle-class public
36:36school boy and and i brought up in a background where there was a deference to women um you were
36:43courteous polite you got up and they came in the room and to find yourself being sort of hectored by
36:49this prime minister every instinct was to be polite and courteous but you knew that if you did that
36:58you were finished
37:02ladies and gentlemen will you welcome this is margaret thatcher
37:12she was an actor in a sense i mean she knew that to retain the aura of leadership she had to show
37:20that she was in control and she she did that i possibly read it somewhere that you are
37:27in fact a very dominant woman certainly not and stop fidgeting
37:34the tigress emerged no one was safe from the lash of her tongue and that included not just the younger
37:40cabinet ministers such as myself but the truly senior and eminent figures
37:44she could be very tough with jeffrey howell she bullied him mercilessly and he never answered
37:56back so she bought him more and more jeffrey was extraordinary he took it on the chin he had his
38:03ways too i mean sometimes when she blasted him at meetings he would open his briefcase and start
38:08reading papers until the storm had passed the particular skill was to divide us all against
38:16each other if we have been friends before election day or at least on friendly terms we were now all
38:22foes better to stay quiet and let the other chap sink alone each for himself not a very friendly
38:29round table atmosphere and nor it seems was it intended to be a pasting from margaret thatcher
38:39meant that she attacked you straight on face to face frontal attack and you just had to reply and if
38:46you didn't reply you just went under with margaret if you had to put your case it was very
38:55frequent that you got about three words out before she interrupted and uh argued with what you she
39:02thought you were going to say i must say the adrenaline flows when they really come out fighting at me i
39:08really fight back and i stand there and i know now come on maggie you're wholly on your own
39:13no one can help you and i love it we had to wait until she drew breath and you'd start again
39:21and she'd intervene again you wait until she drew breath and you start again what you never did
39:28was to give up do you think she respected you for that well i've heard subsequently from other people
39:35that she did actually you know it's not for me to say these things but i have heard from people who
39:40knew her well that actually by the early 80s she thought i was her natural successor
39:46i used to sit in this chair when i was first a member of the cabinet then i graduated to this
39:56chair which is the only chair in the room with arms and is of course the prime minister's chair
40:03it's the one where winston sat and many of his predecessors before him
40:17good evening yes in many ways it's a tough budget and times are tough for a lot of people i know
40:24because in the last year i've been to a lot of the places where people are suffering most from the
40:28recession today's budget can't bring quick results at the moment it is an uphill slog but uncomfortable
40:38as that may be i'm sure it's better to stick at that and to go back to the old downhill slide
40:48good night
40:48on the day of the 1981 budget i happened to go into the chamber of the house of commons at about
40:581 30. but the one person there was jim prior and he looked very worried and very flushed
41:04and i said jim what's the problem he said well wait till you hear what the budget is today
41:09in this great crisis we're actually cutting public expenditure
41:12well it was dangerous in the sense that there was a possibility that having such a tight budget
41:19could actually aggravate the recession there's no doubt from the soundings we've taken tonight
41:25that a substantial number of tory mps do regard the budget with dismay who are these uh these rebels
41:30and kevin well we're talking about the fairly familiar names um james prior we're talking about
41:36uh peter walker we're talking about ian gilmore the sort of hard line wets if we're going to use that
41:43rather old-fashioned expression now what really gets me is this that it's very ironic that those who
41:50are most critical of the extra tax are those who were most vociferous in demanding the extra expenditure
41:58and what gets me even more is that having demanded that extra expenditure they're not prepared to face
42:08the consequences of their own action and stand by the necessity to get some of the tax to pay for it
42:15and i wish some of them had a bit more guts and courage than they have as things move towards the
42:21summer we're going to see a greater amount of anxiety even than we've seen already and really what we've
42:26seen yesterday and today is is virtually unprecedented within the conservative party
42:341981 was a terrible year it got worse and worse i remember one senior uh ex-minister coming up to me
42:42and really picking a fight on the whole subject we were looking after if you like the uh the the rich
42:49and actually turning our backs um on the port
42:52this is what you need when the prime minister opens a factory these days 250 policemen a section
43:01of police horses crowd barriers the full trappings of personal protection and a distinctive feature
43:07on these occasions someone who can afford to waste a couple of eggs throwing them at a passing car
43:12we went to glasgow which was enemy territory it looked quite nasty it was only one way in and one
43:22way out and that's always very dangerous suddenly i was taking her out everything started to happen
43:32eggs were being thrown i was worried about bricks
43:35i managed to catch a few eggs that were aimed at her face which was good but it was a worrying time
43:51first i could start with a couple of listeners and mr bright of yorkshire says with unemployment close
43:56to three million acute social deprivation and a disenchanted electorate would the prime minister
44:01please explain exactly what our economic policies have achieved they're very telling questions
44:06aren't they what we've done is to lay the foundation is it's always for future prosperity it's always
44:13difficult in the interim but you know it is sometimes painful and difficult to get things right but you
44:20have to do it
44:31you have to do it
44:33over a thousand police were battling with rounds
44:38fifty shops were looted and a hundred and twenty people arrested nine buildings were demolished
44:43and 110 damage ten-year-olds set police car on fire in bricks
44:52southall and 1500 on rampage
44:54within an hour 200 skinheads were battling with 500 asian units
45:03at least 80 people were injured in the fighting half of them police
45:07what more can be done to remove the underlying despair among young people in britain cities
45:12this shouldn't have happened you were horrified at brixton now to have got south or shocks us all deeply
45:21of course we're very concerned concerned i think both of it should happen and concerned with the things that occurred to the police
45:28she was certainly worried about those riots but um i think she sort of regarded them as totally unjustified
45:38it didn't enter her head particularly that uh the the her policies were connected
45:45um if there was disorder it was it was wrong on the part of those who were creating the disorder it wasn't the result of her policies
46:01one of the worst and most terrifying nights of rioting ever seen in britain began just after nine o'clock
46:08the rioters black and white rained a constant barrage of stones bottles and petrol bombs at the police
46:15whose casualties mounted every time they charged
46:24it's pretty rough wasn't it
46:26after another night of rioting in towns and cities throughout britain the prime minister is now
46:32visiting liverpool where she's been seeing some of the damage caused during last week's disturbances
46:38the prime minister's visit was arranged with haste and secrecy sweeping through the battered streets of
46:44toxteth around breakfast time mrs thatcher admitted the last 10 days had been the most worrying since
46:51she took office but she denied a breakdown in law and order there obviously is some mistrust and we
46:58have to overcome that i thought the phrase which appealed to me very much was one which
47:05one of the clergy used to me it's not a time for denunciation but for reconciliation she really did
47:14listen and i have to give a tribute to that for that she did listen but you know i think what she
47:18heard was so much outside of her experience as i feel she would be unable to interpret what was being
47:26said mrs thatcher left the town hall to a jeering crowd of several hundred a lone tomato was hurled
47:33police struggled to hold the demonstrators back and we were pelted with all kinds of things and i
47:40remember a free-range potato clipping my ear it was not a happy place i think that she must have been
47:52worried by the rioting she must have been worried by the unpopularity of the government she must have
48:00been shaken but she wasn't shaken to the extent that she was going to change course nothing can justify
48:09nothing can excuse and no one can condone the appalling violence we've all seen on television
48:16which some of our people have actually experienced and so many fear
48:29one forgets how unpopular the government was and how unpopular she was massively unpopular
48:41and margaret's being looked upon as a one-term prime minister one-off and could she somehow be
48:46extruded and someone more sensible come along and i do remember one meeting with francis pym where he said
48:53you know should we consider changing the leader there were some treacherous chaps who used to say
48:59one thing to her and say how wonderful she was and then i used to hear them attacking her
49:06i mean it is a lonely job and then she's coming back to downing street
49:11she's asleep she's on there on her own no one with her and i thought how sad
49:16vulnerable absolutely vulnerable yeah absolutely
49:27she was a lonely figure and this came to a head in the cabinet meeting in july 1981
49:34tomorrow the full cabinet meets for two and a half hours to look at how the economy has fared under
49:43these first two years of tory monetarism the prime minister tonight plainly believes that there's
49:48little to discuss her mind at least is made up the worst cabinet by a long way was the cabinet of july 23rd
50:10the chancellor was proposing further cuts in public spending
50:15this brought to a head the feeling particularly of those who were not enthusiastic about public spending
50:23cuts in the first place brought to a head their dissatisfaction
50:29basically it was a barrage of criticism coming from the grandies from james proud from hasentine from
50:37christopher soames i remember the july cabinet is the only one that i can remember when the prime minister
50:47and her colleagues lost the argument they hadn't got the numbers then there was john not now john
50:54not was one of the supporters and he was scathing i said i thought the treasury figures were nonsense
51:00it was a time when riots were taking place in the city uh and um that cut in public expenditure was
51:08unnecessary she regards it as the worst meeting she ever had during her time because her allies and
51:16myself deserted her it was her holy war against the unjust um and um she was defeated
51:26it was electric and it seemed a sort of a um high point or low point she was absolutely furious she came
51:40out um all guns blazing and she sort of whispered to me we've got to make changes this can't go on
51:51prime minister thatcher doesn't give many interviews but she agreed to speak to 60 minutes
51:55just before she left london for the commonwealth heads of government meeting in melbourne
52:02are you really as tough as people say or or is toughness really being inhumane on a couple of
52:07occasions no toughness is not being inhumane any mother will tell you that if you're just over
52:13soft and sympathetic without being firm without be trying to bring your children up to responsibility
52:19you'll do neither your children nor your country any good the slings and arrows about
52:25outrageous fortune of flying everywhere um so i think she she did toughen up why do people stop
52:33us in the street almost and tell us that margaret thatcher isn't just inflexible she's not just
52:38single-minded on occasion she's plain pig-headed and won't be told by would you tell me who has
52:44stopped you in the street and said that ordinary britons tell me who has said it to you when these
52:49these are people that we meet in passing but we obviously raised the question of the state of
52:54their country with them and they tell us yes we have a tough part prime minister but she's a little
52:58bit pig-headed she won't be told by anybody that margaret thatcher needs to be right all the time
53:04why don't you ask them and why won't you tell me their names and who they are why do so many of your
53:11colleagues disagree with you why are there so many rumbles within your own ranks oh well you're right
53:16they're wrong lots of things are said in politics you don't allow yourself to get fussed about them
53:25downing street was busy this morning with cabinet ministers being called to number 10
53:29to be told by the prime minister whether they're to be moved or indeed to be dropped from the cabinet
53:34altogether margaret realized that there were some members of the cabinet who were really quite totally
53:41opposed to what she was doing if you have members like that really not really going along with the
53:46policy then you've got a very divided cabinet and then very divided party the morning dawned bright
53:52and clear and in troop some of the most powerful men in the land but rather like naughty boys going to
53:57see the headmistress one of the first to arrive was norman tebbit there was like all the soft option
54:03merchants well they were wets as simple as that they just had to be resisted tonight in nationwide the
54:11thatcher shuffle in by far the biggest shake-up of her government since their election deputy foreign
54:16secretary sir ian gilmore is sacked i certainly wasn't at all surprised by it and it wasn't in any
54:22way unwelcome to me other changes sir keith joseph takes over from mr carlisle francis pym from lord
54:28soames who is also out my father was very very angry and i know an official who was in number 10
54:36at the time who said that when my father went to see the prime minister
54:40they had an absolute head to head and you could hear my father's voice well out into the into the
54:47garden the press gathered in force hoping to pick up an indicator of which way the wind was blowing
54:52but the only man who seemed to talk was jim pryor i have nothing to say at this stage about my future
54:59mr pryor is definitely going to go to ireland norman tebbit goes to the key post that mr james pryor has
55:05just left she was right to push camera and to bring in some more of the dryers people like myself
55:14i grew up in the 30s with an unemployed father he didn't riot he got on his bike and looked for
55:21work and he kept looking until he found it new places in the cabinet are mr nigel lawson who takes
55:28the place of david howell at energy we were radical and it was i think probably the most exciting time
55:36of my political life around the table with me the right honorable nigel lawson mp he recently announced
55:41the biggest program of privatization ever to come before parliament whatever you call the opposite of a
55:47wet mr lawson is just that there's apparent change in the balance of the cabinet do you see it as the
55:54wets losing out well it's almost a slaughter of the wets i certainly a great victory for mrs thatcher
56:01they hugely underestimated her her staying power and her ambition and her determination
56:07she wasn't going to be beaten down by them in 1981 i think you saw the characteristics as far as
56:16margaret thatcher's leadership was concerned she was not going to be pushed off course um by
56:24someone saying you know i'm very sorry primus i don't think this is going to go down well with
56:28the public or whatever she was sort of becoming a very iconographic figure circumstances and a
56:39certain steeliness of will and determination have propelled her into this mrs thatcher used rough methods
56:48i think they were justified these rough methods but i have to say that they did have some prices to
56:59pay and some consequences i think she just said it to herself this is a necessary price we have to pay
57:08for these economic policies and you have to accept that there may be some side of them that was correct
57:18i think she took it too far that's my view it was an end of the collectivist ideas and consensual
57:30politics mrs thatcher was determined to move on to this new world of market economics and market
57:37liberalization it is not our destiny to huddle together in these islands
57:45protecting ourselves from the winds of change and competition
57:54it was the beginning of a liberalization process which once it met with the digital age
58:00was to turn into an avalanche we were unleashing forces in capitalism we didn't know about
58:07the prime minister can you carry the country with you there will be three years of realism and three
58:14years four years five years i hope 10 years of opportunity but the way we're going is the only way
58:22for britain mercury venus earth and mars all born at the same time from the same material but all very
58:33different we explore the terrestrial planets tomorrow night at nine here on bbc2 next tonight an era that
58:40was out of this world we start our celebration of the 80s in a moment
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