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Documentary, Thatcher A Very British Revolution 3of5 Enemies
#MargaretThatcher #Margaret #Thatcher
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00:00There are many things about Mrs Thatcher that the public don't know.
00:09In this book, she would keep quotations that she'd cut out.
00:15She would read them over and over again for inspiration.
00:20And I'd just like to read one of them to you.
00:26It's called No Enemies.
00:30You have no enemies, you say.
00:33Alas, my friend, the boast is poor.
00:36He who has mingled in the fray of duty that the brave endure must have made foes.
00:44If you have none, small is the work that you have done.
00:49You've hit no traitor on the hip.
00:52You've dashed no cup from perjured lip.
00:55You've never turned a wrong to right.
00:58You've been a coward in the fight.
01:01And we're a to nadie.
01:02We're a Tory and we're a Tory, we're a Tory, we're a Tory and we're
01:21Tories come! Tories come! Tories come!
01:39I don't think Mrs Thatcher ever welcomed having enemies.
01:43On the other hand, she wasn't going to compromise on what she believed was right and necessary.
01:50For fear of enemies.
01:55With unemployment at 3 million, ITN every night reporting some new redundancy somewhere or some closure or whatever,
02:06it was extremely difficult.
02:10Not surprisingly, she was heartily disliked and indeed hated.
02:15Because of the economic conditions in those early Thatcher years, there was a feeling of widespread resentment and Margaret Thatcher, with good reason, felt under severe political pressure.
02:33Prime Minister, how long do you wish to go on being Prime Minister?
02:40Until I'm tired of it.
02:42How long will that be?
02:44Oh, I don't get tired very easily.
02:46Are you not tired at all? I saw the Sunday Times recently suggested that you were suffering from metal fatigue.
02:51I'm not suffering from any fatigue.
02:54I say until I'm tired of it.
02:56So long as Britain needs me, I shall never be tired of it.
03:00At the time, I remember actually saying and thinking that she spoke of herself continually as being strong.
03:10And I always thought that that was an indication of the inner Margaret Thatcher, that nobody who really is strong feels obliged to keep on saying it all the time.
03:23I hardly heard about this.
03:52heard about the scrap merchants going to south georgia i knew they'd been landed there the
03:59foreign office were negotiating them out um i don't think it really registered with me very much
04:07then my private secretary said we've intercepted argentinian messages and to my horror
04:12i didn't see much doubt about it that we were facing an invasion
04:22they brewed to come ashore in landing crafts and then stormed the town of port family
04:31argentina has seized the british falkland islands whose ownership she's been disputing with britain
04:36for two centuries the president general galtieri remained intransigent never he vowed are we going
04:43to abandon the malvinas island they are now argentine territory
04:47i said we must go and see the prime minister immediately her first reaction was this is a
04:57disgrace that these fascists have invaded british territory that then followed a very short exchange
05:06but i've always felt highly significant she said you'll have to take them back he said we can't
05:13she said you've got to she was emphatic and this was the first display of her admirable leadership
05:24mr speaker sir the house meets this saturday to respond to a situation of great gravity
05:32i'm sure that the whole house will join me in condemning totally this unprovoked aggression
05:38by the government of argentina against british territory the right honorable lady the prime minister
05:47shortly after she came into office received a subriquet as the iron lady in the next week or two
05:57this house the nation and the right honorable lady herself will learn of what metal she is made
06:08the prime minister came up to the flat she was very anxious the atmosphere was very strange and she was
06:18very preoccupied and i can remember that mr mr thatcher had got the atlas out he didn't know where
06:27they were there was also a reaction of of great worry because this was not the sort of thing she
06:35thought she was going to be dealing with when she came in in 1979 you know most of the other issues
06:40she was familiar with but britain at war we hadn't had that for decades
06:50could we militarily take back the falklands that was the question which faced us at the crucial cabinet
06:58of the time we were waiting margaret went around the table very understandably asking whether there
07:04was any support or opposition to the proposal that we should send the fleet she was like margaret always
07:15was authoritative opinionated in charge i remember what i said that if the fleet doesn't sail this
07:24government will fall i think that was the essence of the position the government if it was to survive had no choice
07:42thousands of people line jetties and walls to wave farewell to the task force at the start of its
07:488 000 mile journey to the south atlantic and later in the week half of britain's navy would have been
07:53mobilized and pushing south she needed the forklands like she needed a hole in the head because of the
08:04economic situation think of the cost of sending her 26 000 service people to the south atlantic
08:15and with no experience to war i think she had a lot of worries and doubts and fears
08:23it must have been extremely difficult for her to send troops into war it must be bad enough for a
08:31man to have to do it but for a woman to have to do it being a mother and having a family of her own
08:37it's a very difficult thing to do and i think that was always at the top of her mind
08:42i think margaret thatcher shut her mind to all the awful things that could happen
08:53she made up her mind she was gonna do it
08:59these men were going to war i knew what terrible risks we were taking
09:04we must recover the falkland islands for britain and for the people who live there who are of british stock
09:20do you remember what queen victoria once said failure the possibilities do not exist
09:26that is the way we must look at it and we must go out calmly quietly to succeed
09:40we intercepted the signal that the aircraft carrier and the belgrano were part of an
09:58encirclement force to attack the task force the belgrano was a big cruiser she was old-fashioned but
10:06she was very well equipped and was a real threat we were having a a war cabinet meeting at checkers
10:14and so we told margaret thatcher what we discovered well i remember the attorney general on the floor
10:21with a lot of maps crawling around trying to illustrate things i remember a perfectly sensible
10:27discussion and uh an inevitable conclusion a british submarine has torpedoed argentina's only cruiser the general belgrano
10:43it was attacked just outside the 200 mile exclusion zone around the falklands
10:47because it represented a threat to the royal navy task force
10:50gotcha our lad sink gun belt and hold cruiser
11:00and then the express fears for 700 and argentine warships sunk junta our cruiser is lost
11:10it did fuel um the argument that mrs satcher was inhuman didn't care and this kind of thing
11:18uh ruthless all those words mr speaker sir there was clear aggressive intent on the part of the
11:28argentinian fleet and had we left it any later it would have been too late then i might have had to
11:33come to the house with the news that some of our ships have been sent
11:39oh i don't think she'd any doubts about it
11:42in these circumstances um you recognize the loss of life but we are at war
11:57the united nations secretary general says his attempt to mediate in the falklands crisis has failed
12:03british troops have gone ashore in a number of raiding parties
12:06five thousand troops were landed in san carlos it was an astonishing achievement
12:12margaret thatcher i think would have been delighted if we could have got a negotiated solution
12:16even that problem was never on the cards she certainly felt that if the argentine invasion was not
12:22answered by the british military then the sense of humiliation in britain would grow probably out of control
12:30all the rules of war are clear that you do not undertake an amphibious landing on hostile territory
12:40without air superiority and we knew that we hadn't got it we planned to land at san carlos two hours
12:48after midnight in fact we were late on arrival and that is when the argentine air attack started
13:02the argentine air force were incredibly brave
13:06when they flew in low and at the same time they were flying through a barrage of anti-aircraft fire
13:11missiles
13:22i stayed the night at downing street oh it must have been two or three o'clock in the morning we were
13:30still up she was waiting for urgent news we decided we'd have a drink and i used to sort of prefer to
13:38have a gin and tonic in those days she said you can't drink gin and tonic in the middle of the night
13:44dear have a whiskey because you're going to need all your energy
13:50she hardly slept at all she would not go to bed actually
14:08she felt it badly i remember south georgia when one of our helicopters had crashed
14:27margaret thatcher broke down she actually cried
14:32and in a way you know she was on a very rapid learning curve
14:45our hearts go out to all those families who had men in these ships
14:53but despite these grievous losses
14:57neither our resolve nor our confidence is weakened
15:07we know the task that faces our fighting men
15:11they are now established on the falkland islands and although they still face formidable problems in
15:17difficult terrain with a hostile climate their morale is high
15:31so i ordered two parrots to take goose green the enemy were in slit trenches it was what i would call gutter fighting
15:43it was hand to hand in certain cases
15:50the prime minister was anxious about as she used to say our boys they were paramount in her thoughts
15:57and of course she was distraught at the loss of life
16:12she was much more compassionate than her public image i always believed that
16:18she was the best at dealing with the bereaved or the injured and this came from the heart i mean she
16:25had a genuinely sympathetic side to her a lonely hillside overlooking san carlos water
16:33was the position for the funeral of the british it was a somber formal and moving event
16:38british forces are closing in on the capital of the falklands port stanley they're now within 20 miles
16:51of the town where the biggest argentine garrison is dug in
16:54we were obviously anxious in london about what was going to happen next
17:13to my surprise margaret thatcher asked me and my young son to join her to watch trooping of the
17:20color on horse guards parade and afterward she said you must come back and have a meal so i went back
17:26to number 10 and there must have been 12 young children there and their parents and i said who
17:33prepared this food and she said oh i stayed up late last night and prepared it for for the star so i
17:39said how can you in the middle of a war how can you stay up and cook the meal for all these children
17:45she said oh i quite enjoyed doing it after the lunch we were informed that the battle for wireless ridge
17:55was taking place taking wireless ridge was key alongside tumble down as well they were the two key
18:02features and i was standing looking through my binoculars and a voice said i think it may be over
18:09brigadier and what he'd seen was the argentine army retreating into stanley
18:30the feeling when we knew we had won it was a mixture of joy relief and eventually we'll go home
18:39and it's great britain marvelous forces every single one of them doesn't listen to everyone
19:02i must go down mrs thatcher went out into the street there was press everywhere
19:14i thought she might collapse at that point but she didn't
19:19she was still strong she said there's a lot to be down
19:22and we must think about the families of the people we've lost
19:31i can't imagine anybody being a greater war leader than margaret thatcher
19:39there is no doubt in my mind that women have more courage than men
19:43in this was a woman's war and the woman in her one no i never had any doubts at all well victory
19:52was absolutely crucial and from then on i think people looked at margaret thatcher
19:59with a different eye i never had any doubts in our armed forces i knew it would be difficult but i knew
20:06that they were doing before then we were a clapped out nation i don't think many people wanted to talk
20:13to us after the falklands everybody wanted to talk to her and to be seen with her because she became
20:20an international phenomenon a woman to boot who had stood up against a military juncture and won
20:28i consider this my greatest achievement as number 10 press secretary and that was to get mrs thatcher
20:39to port stanley without anybody knowing
20:45the arrival was hilarious because the prime minister conveyed in the governor's taxi a london cab maroon i think
20:54it was there wasn't a dry eye in the house when she was made an honorary freeman of the falkland islands
21:14and i suggest to every citizen of our country every man and every woman whatever political persuasion
21:37that on thursday you pause and ask yourself one question
21:41who would best defend our freedom our way of life and the much loved land in which we live
21:55margaret thatcher returns to downing street with the biggest majority since 1945.
22:02no male prime minister this century has matched mrs thatcher's general election achievement
22:06in winning two successive terms in downing street both with a clear majority let alone the second
22:11win by a landslide everyone around her was very confident that she was going to win following the
22:20falklands war the election was a triumph british people had a sense of pride things were beginning to
22:29turn in the economy and they regarded thatcher as having achieved that
22:35mrs thatcher was very proud of it and it certainly must have given her confidence
22:43i think from that moment onwards her authority increased mrs thatcher always had a natural authority
22:52but that achievement well that was there something in the history books
22:57in this marvelous moment when we're all thrilled we have to remember that all power is a trust
23:07and we must exercise it in that way
23:15having defeated one enemy she hadn't expected to fight the argentine invaders of the fortlands
23:22mrs thatcher was soon to face rising tensions with an old enemy communism
23:32america has blamed the russians for shooting down a south korean jumbo jet which is missing
23:37with 269 people they're all presumed dead is their conscience in the kremlin do they ever
23:46ask themselves what is the purpose of life does the way they handle the korean airliner atrocity suggest
23:54that they ever considered such questions no mrs thatcher was appalled by it it was a terrible incident
24:07and um always with the cold war the risk was of an escalation
24:18margaret thatcher despised communism because it was hostile to human liberty and she had a deep
24:25genuine belief in personal liberty and the right of people to be free
24:28and she had a deep threat to the enemy mrs thatcher saw them as enemies who had to be resisted and had to
24:37be prevented from being a threat she certainly believed in the power of the nuclear deterrent
24:47the purpose of defense is to keep peace to do that you have to deter a potential aggressor
24:55weakness would tempt him strength stops him
25:06two sites in england have been named as bases for american cruise missiles
25:12the two sites for the missiles are the american air force standby base at greenham common
25:16and an american air force store at moseworth near huntingdon the first of them would be in position by
25:21about the end of 1983. after the decision um to put the missiles at greenham common cnd called their
25:29first demonstration for many many many years and 80 000 people turned up the focus was entirely on
25:37trying to get the american cruise missiles not delivered to the uk there was a lot of anti-reagan
25:45anti-thatcher propaganda as well we knew that within the cnd movements there were communist sympathizers
25:56margaret sawn the growth of cnd is a very menacing threat to the government's policy and to the policy
26:02of the nato alliance i think mrs thatcher must have been aware that her whole right-wing agenda was being
26:12challenged i was essentially an enemy of the state the cruise missiles will be deployed by the end of
26:24this year our nerve is being tested we must not falter now
26:42the greenham women initially just wanted dialogue they wanted to say
26:48it's really important that ordinary people are given their voice
26:57first of all dialogue was not really in her political vocabulary
27:05margaret thatcher's favorite form of discourse was in one direction
27:10what's the point they weren't going to listen to margaret thatcher she was
27:15the devil incarnate i think for many of us she did become a hate figure she seemed to lack any kind of
27:26humanity i think she saw herself as some kind of warrior you know she wanted to defeat communism
27:39it was just before nine o'clock as the plane bringing the first cruise missiles to britain
27:43came into land at the end of its overnight flight across the atlantic
27:47security always intense became even more so with armed paratroopers deployed in a tight circle around
27:53the plane the west as a whole was reacting very hostily to the soviet union so our bilateral relations
28:01were extremely poor foreign secretary jeffrey howe was successful in persuading the prime minister that
28:10we needed to seriously consider resetting our relationship with the soviet union she needed to
28:16be persuaded and the first thing that she proposed was that we had a day seminar at checkers
28:22it turned out that eight academics had been invited and we were told that the event would be kept
28:30confidential there'd be no publicity about it what they were basically saying was um that a new
28:36generation is bound to be taking over in the near future because brezhnev and andropov and chanenko were
28:44old men and our health was not good at a certain point in my presentation i introduced the name of
28:52michael gorbachev he really was a reformer he was the most open-minded member of the bullet bureau and
29:01probably the most hopeful choice both for soviet citizens and for the outside world mrs thatcher
29:07turned to jeffrey howe and said should we not invite mr gorbachev to britain
29:11after the seminar we were delighted in the foreign office that we'd been given the authority to do
29:18what we thought was in the uk national interest the challenge then was to persuade mr gorbachev to
29:24come to london while mrs thatcher waited for a response from the soviet union another battle arose
29:34this time on the home front
29:52the miners strike begins in three hours time in protest over pit closures and the signs tonight are
29:59that more than half of britain's miners could be out by monday she came to office after 26 000
30:16strikes in the 70s couldn't go on no wonder we were going downhill she knew that had to be changed she was
30:25determined that the union should be put back in a legislative box
30:35the miners strike is not of this government seeking nor of its making
30:43what we have seen in this country is the emergence of an organized revolutionary minority
30:50who are prepared to exploit industrial disputes but whose real aim is the breakdown of law and order
30:59and the destruction of democratic parliamentary government
31:12well we knew of arthur scargill that he was an extremist there were other much more moderate voices
31:19within the coal mining unions but not scargill uh scargill was was very different
31:29arthur scargill was a man of very strong views mrs thatcher would describe them as as marxist
31:36and believed that arthur scargill was dangerous
31:41it is not the responsibility of the british trade union movement
31:45to try and argue the pros and cons of legislation that seeks to destroy us our responsibility is to fight
31:55the principal argument was over the point at which a pit should close
32:00the scargill view was so long as there was coal in the ground we should dig it out but mrs thatcher
32:06stuck to the view that it was the economic exhaustion of the pit not the physical exhaustion of
32:12the pit that should be the guiding principle mrs thatcher was conscious of the fact that the miners had
32:21brought down mr heath's government and she never forgot so she was always preparing for another strike
32:33it's not an exaggeration to say that the government under mrs thatcher very particularly
32:39put itself on a war footing one of the first steps mrs thatcher took was to convene a committee like a war
32:50cabinet which met three or four times a week to gather intelligence of what happened how many miners
32:56were working what was going on in the mum headquarters what they were planning setting out the basic facts
33:05there was the preparation of changing benefit laws so that the family of strikers could not claim benefit
33:16there was the preparation of stockpiling in power stations at docks just about everywhere that coal could
33:24be stocked and the result was that the miners were at their gravest disadvantage
33:31and the government was at its greatest advantage
33:40when the strike started i worked at weldale collier in castleford
33:45my father worked there two of my uncles worked there a couple of my cousins
33:48so that was regarded as a family pit we were fighting to keep the minds open to keep the employment
33:54she had a vision for the country that didn't include our way of life it was thatcher versus me it was thatcher
34:04versus every one of us that were that were on strike we cannot lose this fight more important we will begin
34:13we will begin to roll back the years of thatcherism join us in that fight and victory we will be here
34:24scargill knew that he could not get a majority in a national ballot and so he called a national strike
34:33of the num without a ballot
34:35that meant that there were a good many places where the miners themselves did not want to go out on
34:43strike britain's second largest coal field nottinghamshire has voted three to one against a strike
34:50n-um officials said the big no there had been a protest against intimidation by flying pickets
34:56the violence began when scargill was flying pickets who were men who sought to stop people physically
35:12from going to work
35:18and margaret thatcher could not allow that to happen
35:22i knew she was very angry at that so we had to ensure that there were adequate police officers
35:33to help people go to work
35:38i must tell you that what we've got is an attempt to substitute the role of the mob for the rule of law
35:47and it must not succeed
35:52it must not succeed and i pay tribute to the courage of those who've gone into work through
35:58these picket lines to the courage of those who are not going to be intimidated out of their jobs and
36:04out of their future ladies and gentlemen we need the support of everyone in this battle which goes to
36:12the very heart of our society the rule of law must prevail over the rule of the mob
36:22scargill took mass picketing and confrontation to its ultimate
36:29margaret because she thought industrial action should never be used to change governments
36:35and was inflexible in never giving way i think quite a number of her cabinet colleagues would have wobbled
36:45weren't sure and that's when the iron lady really was key to the whole thing
36:51on the 18th of june i turned up to the strike center and we were sent to our grieve i suppose the main
37:06change that should have rung alarm bells was the way that you know we've still got the police roadblocks
37:11but the one stopping is getting off anymore there were guinea directions on
37:14where best to park your car up you know that they wanted us there that day and we parked up at the
37:23top of the hill and you could look down to to the coke works and you could see the police presence
37:29were a lot bigger than than what you were used to
37:31as you got near the police line you started to realize that you were boxed in
37:45there was no particular plan to stage a major encounter at all grief and i don't think mrs
37:52actually knew that there was going to be a fight there on that day
38:09it was mayhem once the cavalry charged the people tripping up the people falling all over the people
38:16being hit from behind now that there will be people who will argue that the police went over
38:27the top and this sort of thing but they went up against a pretty fearsome coup
38:36as far as i was concerned yes there was a riot i think the only trouble is who orchestrated the riot
38:42who started it i think that's that's where we've got the different fields
38:49the so-called battle of orgrieve was horrifying the use of police cavalry
38:58against the miners was devastating and of course politically it proved to be very productive for
39:08mrs thatcher and her government because it conveyed all the impression of anarchic militant aggression by
39:17the miners even though they were actually the victims
39:26the real turning point of the strike was after orgrieve around the autumn of 84
39:31by that stage you could see that this thing wasn't going to go on forever it was apparent that the
39:39dispute was lost for arthur scargill because mrs thatcher had very strong powers of perseverance
39:47and was not easily intimidated
39:49i think if any government gave into violence and intimidation of the kind which has disfigured
40:01our screens there'd be no future for democracy or for any other union or any moderate trade unionist
40:08in this country it is the work of extremists it is the enemy within
40:19the conservative party conference has opened in brighton with strong support for the police and
40:33with condemnation of arthur scargill and violence on the miners picket lines
40:40the miners strike was dragging the country down it had gone on for so long
40:44and i think it's the first time that i've ever seen her really tired
40:54she would be working on her speech 90 of the time and she liked it to be quite sharp
41:02and i'm going to go through it fast to see that i can read it and to get used to the words
41:07this time our conference comes at a very significant moment and our policies were and still are in tune with
41:14the true instincts of the british people i'm sorry which i don't know this bit as well so it's as
41:19well we're going through it we shall continue mrs thatcher wanted to shine with her speeches
41:26she was very uh conscious of her image she was meticulous about it and i was there and
41:34um and i'm going and i'm going coming up there please that is what i wrote it is by fulfilling orders
41:40that jobs are won i might do it strikes destroy business destroy confidence destroy jobs it is by
41:46fulfilling orders that jobs are won and never forget it was labor who put a tax on jobs it was
41:54conservatives who took it off that's so i have to get a clap line there because it's dark
41:59back in the early 80s the conservative party conference was a very different affair to that
42:12which it is these days we were aware that the ira were trying to be more active on the mainland
42:20but i guess we were probably rather lax in our security
42:31it is a great pleasure to introduce our principal guest this evening the prime minister the right
42:36honorable margaret thatcher
42:37well on that night we were just pushing and shoving and trying to get pictures the star of the
42:50evening and it arrived everyone wanted to shake our hands and say hello and it was it was like a scrum
42:57really i can see from here that the the picture is just sharp enough i noticed that the time on her
43:04wristwatch is just gone 11 so she was due to leave the next few minutes before going straight back to
43:10the hotel of course she was quite anxious to get back to continue with the speech i was um in the
43:22prime minister's suite where i had bedroom and um we were still up um at oh getting on for three o'clock
43:29in the morning when robin butler from downing street arrived with something very important for her to
43:36sign and so the speech writers left the room and i was left alone in the room with her she was looking
43:41at this piece of paper and i was a chair about six feet away and um while she was looking at the piece of
43:49paper the explosion happened
43:59we knew it was a bomb straight away
44:05mrs thatcher said immediately without any hesitation i must see if dennis is all right
44:11so she opened the door to the bedroom which was in darkness because dennis
44:15had been sleeping and you could hear the sounds of falling masonry which turned out to be her bathroom
44:22but she and dennis emerged within a few moments she didn't sort of um panic or shake in any way
44:30this was just something we had to cope with and we opened the door into the corridor
44:36we were woken by an explosion and the next moment the chandelier came crashing down on the ceiling with it
44:44and then just a feeling of falling and being turned over and then total darkness
44:54i was able to hold my wife's hand i think we were both drifting in and out of consciousness
45:02i'd had a couple of drinks in the bar and it was packed and then the lights all went out
45:08well i just grabbed the camera and let off a flash
45:14and then all the dust and stuff came in and it completely enveloped us
45:20so i went around to the front door climbed out the window
45:23we were sort of bundled by detectives etc out through the back door and straight into a car
45:37dennis just looks a bit amused but she looks strong straight ahead just you know she'd just been in a
45:45bomb
46:02the bomb went off somewhere between quarter to three and three i know that because i looked up when i'd
46:07finished something at a quarter to three and i just turned to do one final paper and then um
46:14it went off my husband was in bed and all the windows went and the bathroom was extremely badly
46:19in your own room in your room yes we were we were very lucky thank you very much thank you
46:25we were taken to the police college for the night and she and i were allocated a twin bedded room
46:32together and she said there will be some casualties she said i think it would be nice if we said a
46:40prayer she immediately kneeled down by the bed and we said a silent prayer and she put her head back
46:51and she went almost fast asleep for about an hour 5 45 a.m mrs margaret tebitt was brought out of the
47:00rubble of the hotel mr tebitt was pinned under tons of rubble which had fallen into the lobby
47:08i realized i was losing blood and that there was a finite time in which you know i had got to be
47:17rescued well i was aware that i'd been fairly well mashed up i had lost most of my back teeth
47:28i had a fractured shoulder blade fractured collarbone a number of ribs some of which had gone through my
47:36lungs and lost the top of my left hip
47:58telephone rang and it was john gummer saying that it's much worse than we thought
48:04they have already found some dead bodies and they're digging for norman tebitt
48:13mrs thatcher appeared at eight o'clock
48:16and i said to her it's much worse than we thought when we left the hotel
48:20and i told her about the casualties and she said well she said the conference is due to start at 9 30 and
48:26it must start on time i said to her you can't be serious i mean this terrible thing has happened
48:31some of your closest colleagues have been killed and uh badly injured you're not going to just go
48:37on with the party conference as if nothing had happened are you and she said this is our opportunity
48:44to show that terrorism can't defeat democracy and of course she was right
49:00the ira issued a statement
49:28today we were unlucky but remember we only have to be lucky once
49:35you will have to be lucky always
49:37give ireland peace and there will be no more war
49:44well if the ira thought that that was going to
49:48daunt her or make her change her policy they misjudged her entirely
49:54the bomb attack on the grand hotel early this morning was first and foremost an inhuman
50:06undiscriminating attempt to massacre innocent unsuspecting men and women staying in brighton
50:16for our conservative conference and the fact that we are gathered here now shocked but composed
50:26and determined is a sign not only that this attack has failed but that all attempts to destroy democracy
50:35by terrorism will fail
50:50when mrs sucher came back to downing street she was solemn but so resilient she literally just got on with
50:59the job after a couple of days you wouldn't have thought that she'd been involved in such
51:05an horrendous tragedy at all mr thatcher had been out up bond street and he had bought her a new watch
51:17she told me he says this is to show you that every minute counts
51:22i think deep down she knew that she had been lucky that night very lucky
51:40after surviving the attempt on her life at brighton mrs thatcher had become the most senior
51:46and perhaps the most respected leader of the western world
51:50and her no compromise style of leadership earned a great respect
51:56mrs thatcher was remarkable in the sense that she did not worry about being unpopular
52:04embattled was how those middle years of her prime ministership were characterized
52:10it was not an easy passage but she put on a show of indomitable determination and that resonated with a lot of people
52:28britain was seen as having a leader who could do things and everybody wanted to visit
52:34the man tipped to be the next soviet leader has arrived in britain for a one-week visit
52:44mikhail gorbachev said he came with good will and good intentions
52:50we had sent the invitation to mr gorbachev to come to the united kingdom and for two or three months we
52:55didn't get a reply suddenly we not only got a reply but his wife rahisa gorbachev was going to come with him
53:06so there was a terrific kerfuffle about his arrival
53:10all right it was all a bit frantic and the second he came into the room
53:18here was somebody just completely different he was bouncing on the balls of his feet he was greeting
53:24everyone great smile give us all bear hugs and not not not the prime minister i isn't to say
53:32in a sense this was a moment of discovery discovery that here perhaps they had chance of doing
53:39something serious about east-west relations i shall never forget the afternoon after the lunch where
53:46these two retired in front of a log fire and began arguing and they argued ferociously really ferociously
53:56but good humbly and mrs sekscher loved it and they went on forever or so it seems the chemistry was
54:04there she was enthusiastic about him i think she thought she'd hit the jackpot when they parted
54:12she said well look that was extraordinary this for the first time i've come across a soviet leader
54:17who is a man i can do business with do you see this as the start possibly of a new era in discussions
54:25with the soviet union i think it augurs well for reaching agreement between east and west
54:32and for increasing cooperation i respect him he's very able and on that basis yes we can do business
54:43i think when the historians look back on that period the thatcher gorbachev meeting
54:50and the friendship and mutual respect that they developed was historically the first major step
54:58that effectively led to the end of the cold war
55:00at nine o'clock in the morning striking miners families begin lining up near wigan town hall for free
55:18food the support group here hands out nearly 1 000 food parcels a week many miners and their families
55:25just can't afford to buy enough food no money coming in there's been a single blog you know
55:33i think that starberg without these food parcels
55:40conference has decided that the national union of mine workers shall organize a return to work on tuesday
55:49we have decided to go back for a whole range of reasons we face not an employer but a government
55:58aided and abetted by the judiciary the police and new people in the media
56:06and my personal feelings are of overwhelming relief
56:09i want a prosperous coal industry obviously but the privations that some of those families have been
56:16through and that have been back earlier had it not been kept going by intimidation
56:25yes i would call it a victory that the principles that she was fighting for were upheld
56:33miner's truck undoubtedly further enhanced the reputation for being strong when she needed to
56:40fight a very long struggle she was capable of doing it in the short term of course the miners dispute gave a
56:53victory to mrs thatcher and thatcherism but mrs thatcher did not comprehend when you kill the pit
57:04you slaughtered the community it didn't feel like mrs thatcher had won to me my feeling was that
57:14everybody had lost we definitely have got a society now that is more individualistic
57:22it is more look after yourself and bugger the rest
57:26i think thatcher approached the miners strike as a war
57:30she got a stubbornness that regardless of what it cost the country she were going to win that war
57:40episodes like the miners strike people dislike very much understandably but people knew what she stood
57:47for they didn't necessarily agree with it but they knew what she stood for and they also knew
57:53that once she had taken up a position she wouldn't give way
58:00i've always believed it's a real weakness in the character of margaret thatcher
58:07that she defined herself in terms of her enemies
58:12now that's a necessary part of a political makeup of a leader's makeup
58:18but if it is the whole part of that makeup it is bound to lead to excess and error
58:29and it eventually of course produced a downfall
58:34and mrs thatcher was toppled by people who had been amongst the more faithful supporters
58:40if all you've got to criticize is my style it's not very much i became prime minister because i
58:50believed certain things yes i do hold firm views do you really want a leader who doesn't know what
58:56she wants to do hasn't got any views doesn't attempt to lead if so you don't want me
59:02memoirs of alan clark are making monday nights very colorful over on bbc4 starring the late great john
59:12hurt and guaranteed to make you laugh and cry a royal team talk tackles mental health and is available
59:19now on iplayer they put we're stuck in the 80s here on two and celebrating all things well 80s
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