The Rt. Hon. Sir John Major KG CH

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  • Press Release – Prime Minister’s Comments on Foreign Policy – 24 March 1992

    Below is the text of the Conservative Party Press Release on Mr Major’s comments on foreign policy. It was issued on Tuesday 24th March 1992, reference 575/92.

    THE BEST TEAM FOR A DANGEROUS WORLD

    “Some people regard foreign affairs as an optional extra in a British General Election. But, in truth, they are not,” the Rt Hon John Major, Prime Minister and Leader of the Conservative Party, told a press conference at Conservative Central Office, today.

    The last year has been dominated by overseas concerns: the Gulf War, the Maastricht agreement, the future of Hong Kong and its relationship with China, South Africa, human rights, the renaissance of the Commonwealth and the immense turmoil in the former Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe.

    In these events the United Kingdom has played a leading role. We fought as America’s main ally in the Gulf – and successfully. We won an agreement at Maastricht against expectations – and against the opposition of some of our partners.

    We safeguarded the future of Hong Kong, secured the building of the airport and sought better human rights in China and Tibet.

    We promoted South Africa’s position in world talks and supported the peace talks with both President De Klerk and Mr Mandela.

    And we led the way in supporting reform throughout the Russian coup, backed Russia’s application to the IMF, demanded tangible aid for the Russians and signed the first accord with them for nearly 200 years.

    The future will be equally crowded. We must come to terms with the new security situation in Europe and the rest of the world.

    We must fight our corner in the European Community over the Common Agricultural Policy, future financing, the Single Market, and enlargement of the EC. And we must do so as President of the Community.

    We must continue to bind the Commonwealth together and encourage good government.

    We must give a lead at the Rio summit.

    We must retain strong defences, commission the fourth Trident submarine and command the Rapid Reaction Corps in the newly modernised NATO forces.

    These are immense tasks for the immediate future. The question at this Election is a stark one. Whom can you trust to defend our interests and keep Britain safe?”

  • Press Release – Prime Minister’s Comments on the Conservative Vision – 23 March 1992

    Below is the text of the Conservative Party Press Release on Mr Major’s comments on the Conservative Party’s vision for the future. It was issued on Monday 23rd March 1992, reference 567/92.

    Speech by the Rt Hon John Major, Prime Minister and Leader of the Conservative Party, speaking at Sheffield, today.

    “Ladies and Gentlemen, here in this great city of Sheffield, let me begin by saying – the knives are out for Labour. And where better to sharpen them?

    In recent days I’m told that Labour have been calling our campaign negative. Good. That means our attacks are getting home. That means they don’t like it. The only negative thing in this campaign are their policies for Britain. We Tories will continue to ring the warning bell about the effect Labour’s policies will have on the living standards of everyone in Britain. The people have a right to know. And we will tell them.

    Labour’s facade is starting to crack under pressure:

    – John Smith sets Labour’s official target for inflation – to take it upwards.

    – John Prescott admits that Labour’s minimum wage would destroy jobs.

    – Roy Hattersley implies that John Smith’s higher tax rates could go even higher.

    – And Neil Kinnock? Well Mr Kinnock says he still believes in Clause IV – the common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange.

    And just this morning Mr Kinnock committed the Labour Party to re-introduce credit controls. A typical Socialist answer. Form a queue. Wait for the state to tell you when you can buy a home. Wait for the state to tell you when you can sell your house to someone who wants to buy it. That’s no way to get the housing market going. That’s no way to help young people onto the housing ladder. It’s a way to dish people’s prospects and dash their hopes. It’s a policy to destroy the housing market – a policy to destroy the recovery.

    Once again Labour have provided the wrong answer at the wrong time.

    Last week he said that Britain would have been a better place if Labour had won on their programme in 1983. A better place? With unilateral disarmament? Withdrawal from Europe? And the biggest nationalisation programme ever known?

    Ladies and Gentlemen, by their gaffes ye shall know them. Labour’s policies are falling apart. We are going to see to it that their vast experience of Opposition will continue indefinitely.

    The Conservative Vision

    Ladies and Gentlemen, what’s at stake in this Election is the future of Britain. The decision we take on 9 April will be critical for the prospects of everyone who lives in our country – wherever they come from.

    Let me tell you why I came into politics. First and foremost, because there were things I wanted to change. Where I grew up, in Lambeth, we were told that decisions were best left to the State or the council – never to the family, never to the individual. That’s not my kind of society. I want a country in which everyone is able to develop their talents to the full. Where they are free to choose. And where effort and hard-work is rewarded.

    Never forget the people who live on the wrong side of the tracks. They want to live on the right side. I want the sort of country that will let them do so. Ladies and Gentlemen, no Government that I lead – certainly not the Conservative Government that I will form after 9 April – will forget them. In the 1990s I want to take the Conservative Party into those places in Britain where its message has not yet been heard.

    Some people, I know, hang back from our Party for reasons of ancient loyalties. Let me say this to them. Our modern Tory Party is for each and every person in Britain. We want to banish for ever the artificial divisions in our society. And it is Conservatism – not Socialism – that will break those barriers down. Let us carry a message to everyone in the country. Join us. Help us to continue our campaign to change the face of Britain.

    I say to those who want a better Health Service, join us. Join the Party that has committed more resources than every before to the Health Service; that’s giving local doctors and hospitals control over the decisions that are best for local patients; and which has seen the biggest explosion in modern high quality patient care this country has every known.

    I say to those who want a better deal for tenants in housing. Join us. You won’t get that better deal from the Labour Party with its mangy municipal socialism. It was our Party that gave you the Right to Buy. Our Party that has a Charter to guarantee new rights to tenants. Our Party that offers new ways into ownership. And our Party, and our Party alone that will crack down on arrogant Labour Housing Departments that neglect their tenants. Ladies and Gentlemen, I’ve seen too much of that sort of attitude from Labour local authorities. They’re a disgrace to local government.

    I say to those who want a better future, join us. Our vision is that every family should have the personal prosperity that comes from low taxes, from their own savings, their own pensions, their own home, their own endeavour. That every family should have their own piece of Britain – and in due time should be able to pass it on to their children.

    Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes – it matters as much on the shopfloor as well as in the boardroom. Let’s show people that we understand these things and are with them. People want to get on. To do well for their families. To give their children a good start in life. That’s right. It’s natural. These are the deepest instincts of a free people.

    A free and responsible people must have – deserve to have – choice and opportunity. Grand words, maybe, but they go to the heart of everyday life. Choice over how to spend the money you earn. Choice in education and schools. Choice in housing. Choice over the future shape of local government. And the new citizen’s rights enshrined in our Citizen’s Charter. Those are the choices we offer – and no-one else will give them.

    Privatisation of choice

    Ladies and Gentlemen, our Party is in the business of the privatisation of choice – giving choice back to the individual, the family. Choice is the quiet privatisation. It has changed lives by the millions. In the last 10 years it has improved the life of every family in Britain. In the whole proud catalogue of privatisation it’s the most successful of all.

    But Labour – wouldn’t you know it – want to renationalise choice. They want to lead a march of the big battalions back into the private lives of every citizen. The scales that we’ve worked so hard to tip against the power of the state, Labour would load down with red tape, regulation, and tax and tip them yet again back against the individual. We must never give them the chance to do that – and we won’t.

    Tax

    Ladies and Gentlemen, during this Election we’re going to say a great deal about Labour’s proposals on spending and tax. I know they won’t like it. But we’re still going to do it. We have costed their makeshift manifesto. Thirty-one billion pounds on top of John Smith’s earlier promises. To pay for that, on average, every person would have to fork out an extra £1,250 every year. That’s the price of Labour – and it’s not just for people on middle incomes. It’s for everyone.

    Yesterday I challenged Labour to tell the people the truth. Take all their pledges, one by one. Accept our costing – or refute it. Stand by their promises – or withdraw them. And what answer has so far come from Mr Kinnock – a silence as profound as it is unusual. So tonight I repeat the challenge.

    The issue of tax is fundamental to the Election. Because Labour’s tax and spending plans would change the lives of millions upon millions of families for the worse.

    Whatever the Socialists say, one thing we know. On their own admission, Labour will impose the biggest increase in tax since the War. It would be a disaster for Britain – and it wouldn’t just be middle income families crashing in ruin. Millions of others would be caught up in their fall.

    It would mean holidays deferred; cars sold; homes in jeopardy. The housing market would go through the floor.

    Labour invoke the great names of fairness and justice, while denying their substance at every important point. What is fair about a society that denies those with ability the means to advance? What is just about a society that confiscates from the hard-working the fruits of their labours? Where is the fairness in undermining the value of the shares, the pensions or the houses which people bought to give their children a better start than they had themselves? Where is the justice in hitting those who do extra work or who earn promotion with penal tax?

    To meet John Smith’s tax bills, banks and building society accounts would be plundered. And a whole new generation of shareholders would see their shares go down, and stay down. So much for Labour’s claim of an investment-led recovery. It would be an investment-lost disaster.

    Economic Recovery

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I know that people are looking ahead to economic recovery. I know also that many businesses and families have been feeling the pressures. Those concerns will never be brushed aside by us, they will always be heard.

    But they should not blind us to the underlying changes which have taken place in the British economy over the last decade – changes which are fundamental, changes which have transformed our long term economic prospects.

    There’s a new spirit of enterprise – with management and workforce working as one to take on the competition and win. Quality, design, service are once more at the forefront. British companies are pushing forward the boundaries of innovation – in pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, electronics and right across manufacturing industry. Productivity has risen by leaps and bounds.

    We’ve been keeping strike records for 100 years. Last year, the number of days lost was the lowest ever. Why? Because we’ve changed industrial relations law and changed industrial relation attitudes. Don’t let Labour change them back.

    It’s hardly surprising that Britain has become a magnet for overseas investment. We have as much investment from Japan as the rest of the Community put together. We are now a net exporter of television sets and video recorders. And the British motor industry is now known for exports and not for strikes. Do you think all this would have happened under a Labour government? Do you think the confidence the Conservative Government has built up would continue under Labour? You know it wouldn’t.

    On top of all this, interest rates have come down, inflation has come down and Britain’s rate of inflation is below Germany’s – the first time this has happened for nearly quarter of a century.

    Now, after a generation of striving to achieve that very goal, within two days of its being achieved, Labour’s John Smith says he’d be happy to see inflation rise again. He dismisses stable prices as an ‘unnecessary virtue’. Those are the words of a shallow ‘chancellor’ – shallow and blind to what matters to every housewife and pensioner in the country.

    Labour talk of recovery. But inflation is the enemy of recovery. It destroys profits. It destroys companies. So how is higher inflation going to help investment? How is it going to help jobs?

    The foundations for recovery are in place. Let business speak for itself. Fifteen times more businessmen would increase investment under the Conservatives than they would under Labour. In fact, under Labour one in four businessmen have said they would cut investment.

    I believe the 1990s will usher in a new era for prosperity and for jobs. The once impossible are within reach:

    – stable prices

    – sustained industrial peace

    – free enterprise given free rein.

    Only one thing could stop it.

    The Labour Party – pledged to tax; pledged to nationalise; pledged to give power back to the unions. That would knock recovery on the head – for this year, next year, every year.

    Labour would turn recovery into slump.

    I am not prepared to see that happen – it’s not going to happen. Britain is on the brink of a breakthrough to a great future. Is the dull, dead hand of Socialism to be allowed to strangle that future? Not if I can help it. And I can. And with your help, I will.

    Back to Union Power

    Ladies and Gentlemen, one of the Conservatives’ most popular achievements has been the reform of trade union legislation. The benefits have been enormous.

    We want more of those successful policies. So after the Election we have more changes to make. We will give individuals greater freedom in choosing a union. We will require all pre-strike ballots to be postal. And we will see that unions give at least seven days notice of a strike. We will give every member of the public the right to take legal action to stop the disruption of public services by illegal wild cat strikes.

    Labour would reverse all that. Give power back to the unions. Allow secondary strikes. Prevent employers from obtaining an immediate court order to stop an unlawful strike. Take away from individual union members the right not to take part in industrial action. Severely restrict the right of the courts to take away a union’s assets when it breaks the law.

    It would be back to wild cat strikes. Back to the flying pickets. Sheer madness. Can you imagine anything more calamitous for our country? That wouldn’t bring recovery. That would bring industrial euthanasia to our country.

    Law and Order

    Ladies and Gentlemen, when I think of the rights of individuals I place at the top of my list the freedom to walk the streets and to open the front door without fear. Crime is a corrupting evil. There are those, like Mr Hattersley, who blame greed and affluence one year and poverty and unemployment the next. He rings the changes and contradicts himself – when he’s not contradicting his colleagues – to suit the mood of the hour. He and his Socialist friends always blame crime on the Government – never the criminal.

    Ladies and Gentlemen, I understand about hard times. I understand about unemployment. But I also understand about personal responsibility, about the decency that is the very bedrock of British character. In whatever place, in whatever station of life, the vast majority of British people detest crime. They want an end to it. And they know it’s the criminal, no-one else, who is to blame.

    So let’s have no more of Labour’s posturings. No more excuses about society being always to blame. I accept no excuses for the criminal conduct. And nor should anyone who seeks high office in Britain.

    Since 1979 we have put 16,000 more police into the fight against crime. The next Conservative Government will keep up the battle. Back our police. And bring in new methods of policing to keep more of them out on the beat among people they know. That is what the public want. And it’s the best way to stop crime and catch the criminal.

    In the growth of crime, there is one statistic that should make us all stop and think. It is the growth of crime against property by juveniles. I think sometime we have been so tolerant in understand crime at an early age that we seem to have accepted it. I believe we should be more severe in our condemnation of crime at an early stage so that the young criminal knows we won’t accept it. That is a job for the Government. That is a job for schools. That is a job for families. It is a job for each and everyone of us if we are to nip crime at the roots and prevent it from growing. But not only that. We also owe it to our young people to let them know what is acceptable and what is not. And it we don’t do it we let them down.

    A word about Labour’s attitude to terrorism. Year after year, for 10 years in succession, they have voted against the Prevention of Terrorism Act – and they are pledged to repeal it. Don’t tell me this is a brand new Labour Party.

    Socialism represents the past

    The decade gone by, the 1980s, was one of the most historic decades of the century. It saw a battle raging between socialism and the people – nowhere more clearly than in Eastern Europe. Socialism lost, the people won.

    That battle took place in Britain, too. And in the 1980s, here, Socialism lost, the people won.

    How could it be otherwise? Socialism is over. It belongs to the past. It failed – totally. And it deserved to. In Eastern Europe, in its most brutal form, it suppressed human rights and dignity. In Britain, whenever Labour formed a government, it ended in incompetence, frustration and chaos.

    Now Labour would have us believe that their latest brand of socialism is a much watered down variety, that their views have changed. Don’t you believe it. What has changed is the coloured wrapping, the decoration. Mr Kinnock has tinkered with Labour policy not because he wanted to, not because his views had changed, but because his pollsters told him Labour’s face wouldn’t do, they needed a new one if the Party was ever to win again. That is the litmus test of Labour’s convictions. Anything to win.

    Let me remind you what Mr Tony Benn said – only last autumn – about Labour policy. I quote: “We’ve changed our mind to win, we could change our mind when we’ve won … there’s nothing pre-set about the policies of the present Labour Party”.

    Roll that around in your mind: “we’ve changed our mind to win, we could change our mind when we’ve won”. No-one can say they haven’t been warned.

    Do you know what I think of Labour? Labour are like Sunday converts. They come to church on the Sabbath – but boil the missionaries the rest of the week.

    Leadership

    The Labour Party have been wrong on all the great issues in recent years. When we stationed cruise missiles in Europe, where were the Labour Party? Opposing us. Yet by stationing those missiles we made the world a much safer place. They wouldn’t station missiles facing the old Soviet Union. But because we did, today there are far fewer missiles facing us.

    Let me give you another example and take you back a few years. To the days of Soviet dictatorship and tyranny, when military might controlled the nations of Eastern Europe.

    Every voice in the West speaking up for freedom was heard by those brave men and women struggling for freedom. It gave them hope. It strengthened their resolve.

    And when all this was going on, where were Labour? Were they alongside the Conservative Party in speaking up for human rights in the Soviet Union? They were not. They saved their breath for attacking the values of the Western democracies, rather than the evils of the Soviet dictators.

    Nothing was more repellent than to see those Left-wingers in the Labour Party parade their conscience and bleat about human rights – not in the Soviet Union, but in their own country. How loath to criticise the Soviet Union. But how ready they were to attack the United States.

    I am not talking about obscure Left-wingers. I’m talking about the people who now lead the Labour Party. It was their leader himself who said that there was an equality of threat between the United States and the Soviet Union – one of the most gloriously naive statements ever made by the leader of any national party – except perhaps the Monster Raving Loonies.

    On every important issue, the Labour Party has been swerving all over the place – up and down, backwards and forwards, from side to side. On Europe. On defence. On one-sided disarmament. How can anyone trust such a Party?

    They always have a policy for the day. But that’s the trouble – it’s just for the day.

    Overseas governments don’t know where they stand. We don’t know where they stand. Even they don’t know where they stand. And they say they want to form the next government. That is not going to happen. One Party – and one Party only – stands foursquare in their way, stands for tomorrow’s world instead of back to yesterday. That is our Party – the Conservative and Unionist Party. The present and future Government of this country.

    Peroration

    What is it that we offer? A strong Britain, confident of its position; secure in its defence; firm in its respect for the law. A strong economy, set on the road to stable prices – in which taxes can fall, savings can grow, and independence is assured.

    For every family, the right to have and to hold their own private corner of life; their own home, their own savings, their own growing piece of Britain for the future – and for their children’s future.

    We Conservatives are building a country in which every family has the power to choose and the right to own, in which everyone has a fair share in Britain.

    Ladies and Gentlemen, in this Election there is a clear and straightforward choice to be make. Is enterprise to be crushed or encouraged? Is choice to be reduced or widened? Is income tax to go up or come down? Is our defence to be weak or strong? Is the United Kingdom to be broken up or is it to be upheld?

    This Election is about the kind of country we want to live in. I know the answer. You know the answer. And I believe the British people know the answer. That is why on 9 April they will give us a resounding victory.”

  • Press Release – Prime Minister’s Comments on the Labour Budget – 23 March 1992

    Below is the text of the Conservative Party Press Release on Mr Major’s comments on Labour’s shadow budget. It was issued on Monday 23rd March 1992, reference 546/92.

    TURNING THE SEARCHLIGHT ON LABOUR

    “Two days ago, the Chancellor exposed the full, expensive horror of Labour’s manifesto. Thirty-eight billion pounds of extra spending”, the Rt Hon John Major, Prime Minister, and Leader of the Conservative Party, said at a press conference, at Conservative Central Office today.

    We have costed every one of those pledges. And we have published every detail of our costing.

    Yesterday, I asked Labour a very simple question.

    Who would pay for this?

    We’re still waiting for the answers.

    Mr Smith’s ‘mock Budget’ produced less than £7 billion – even though it threatened the most vindictive tax increases in our history.

    That leaves more than £31 billion to be found in still higher taxes. To meet this bill, Labour would have to raise taxes savagely in every Budget, year after year after year.

    So who would pay these extra taxes?

    Mr Smith has had to admit he couldn’t make the better-off pay for everything. That’s because his mock Budget would already have milked them dry.

    The simple fact is that everybody would have to pay more. A lot more. £1,250 a year more per taxpayer. Mr Kinnock calls these figures fantasy. Then let him dismiss fantasy with fact.

    These calculations can’t be swept under the carpet.

    That is why we’re going to go on pressing for answers. For Labour’s costings. And how they’re going to meet the bill.

    We’re going to talk about some other subjects Labour finds painful. The effect of these high tax policies on the economy. On people’s lives.

    And today, in particular, Michael Heseltine’s going to talk about their effect on people’s homes.

    In the last week we’ve had some good political skirmishes. We have now got seventeen days to safeguard Britain’s future. Out there, waiting for us with a new Conservative Government, is economic recovery, more jobs, lower taxes, new homes and better services. Or there’s Labour alternative: policies that would raise everybody’s taxes, force them out of their homes, damage recovery and destroy jobs. I can promise you we will keep the searchlight on that choice, day after day.”

  • Mr Major’s Speech to General Election Candidates – 22 March 1992

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech given to a meeting of Conservative Party General Election candidates on 22nd March 1992.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me first thank Margaret Thatcher for coming here. Weeks ago when I invited her, she accepted immediately. It is what we would have expected. She is one of the most successful campaigners in our long political history – and no-one expected when the fight began that she would be anywhere other than in the thick of it.

    It is given to few people to change the face of our nation. But Margaret Thatcher did. And I believe her changes have made an enduring impact not only on our country, but on the world at large.

    We know she has many great qualities. But let me single out one. Looking forward. She always looks forward. It’s always on to the next thing, the next challenge. There is always more work to be done.

    As there is for us now. To build on the successes of the ‘80s. That is what our Manifesto does. It builds on Margaret’s legacy. And for the same two reasons. To promote Conservatism – and to beat Socialism.

    The Transformation of Britain

    Let me tell you why we’ll win the Election. We will win because of what we believe. Because of our principles. Because of our policies. And because we set no limit to our ambitions for our country.

    In the 1980s Conservatives built in Britain one of the most successful economies in Europe. Some things did go down, of course. Inflation. Strikes. And the Labour Party. Socialism’s unholy trinity. They all went down. And, together, at this Election, we must keep them down.

    But the things that mattered went up. Productivity. Prosperity. And pride. We grew faster than France, faster than Germany. Manufacturing exports grew faster than America’s, even Japan’s. Taxes on incomes were slashed. The standard of living of the British people has grown as never before. Today the income of a typical family man on average earnings is nearly 40% higher, after tax and inflation, than it was under Labour.

    Defend our record? No, don’t just defend it – go out and proclaim that record. It’s changed the face of Britain.

    Millions more people are owners. Owners of homes. Of shares. Of pensions. People who never imagined such things would ever be something for them.

    Britons have earned more, owned more, achieved more than ever before in our history. That’s what Labour call failure? Well, if that’s failure, there are plenty of countries across the world who’d like a share in it.

    Labour’s smash and grab raid

    Labour couldn’t have done it. But their Mr Smith wants a share in it. And his mock ‘budget’ shows he means to take it. Take it from the people who have earned it. What he proposes is a systematic smash and grab raid on the independent, the hard-working, the middle income families of Britain. Labour’s huge tax burden would shatter their budgets and alter their lives.

    It’s not just the unfairness of it. Or the injustice. It is the effect it would have. It would shut down small trades in droves – the jobbing builders, the electricians, the decorating businesses, all those people who depend on work in homes and offices.

    It would drive away from Britain the huge tide of foreign investment that we have attracted. Does anyone seriously imagine that Japanese, German, American firms would create jobs in Britain with their executives clobbered, and militant shop stewards loose on the factory floor? They wouldn’t. They wouldn’t come. They’d stay away. They’d go away. And the whole of Britain would lose.

    Labour’s tax plans are spiteful. They would hurt millions and millions of skilled people in Britain – and for what? Who gains? In order to pay out between 2 pence and 4 pence a week to 9 million families. Twopence a week – the price of a Polo mint.

    Don’t confiscate wealth – spread wealth

    There is no logic to this. It is the politics of the socialist stone age. The politics of envy. Economically illiteracy with a dash of calculated malice. Intended to wound. Intended to bite. Doomed to fail.

    That is the wrong way for Britain. We don’t believe in confiscating wealth from those who have created it. We believe in creating wealth. In spreading wealth. And we believe in taking the threat of inheritance tax off the back of the homeowners of Britain. What people have spent a lifetime building up, they should be free to hand on to their children. We will give them that freedom.

    Growing wealth to an ever wider number of families – that’s what we believe in. Growing living standards in which all can share, in a growing economy. That’s what our Manifesto promises. It’s for that we must go out and campaign.

    Labour’s Manifesto – £1250 a year more tax for everyone

    How different it would be with Labour. Then your worry would be how to protect your savings, protect your income, protect your home. There’s only one industry Labour would manage to revive – the tax avoidance business.

    But it doesn’t stop there. Yesterday the Chancellor revealed the true scale of Labour’s threat to Britain. All we’ve said up to then was based on John Smith’s absurd little mock ‘budget’. Now we have had a look at that ‘budget’s’ big brother, the other half of Labour’s plans. The spending plans. Their ambitions for other people’s money. Neil Kinnock promised to cost his Manifesto. But the promise “lapsed”. Somehow those costings failed to turn up.

    It’s not surprising he should suddenly forget them. Not surprising he should suddenly clam up. Never lost for a word – always lost in the sums, when it comes to paying for the promises he’s made. Labour are beginning to protest that we are campaigning on the key issues of spending and taxation. I bet they are. Well, I make no apology for that. They go to the very heart of this Election. The choice is clear. What kind of country are we to be? A country in which it pays to be ambitious, in which it pays to be qualified, in which it pays to be successful, in which it pays to work hard or be self-employed? That’s what we stand for. Or a country in which incentive is abandoned – a hands-in-the-pockets Britain where you can only go so far before a Labour Chancellor is at your throat? When all across Europe Socialism is going down and down, we cannot, we must not, we will not bring it back here.

    When you’re on the door-step you haven’t time to get across a long complicated message. You’ve got to keep it simple and clear. So let me give you one message to get across, come what may, at every hour on every day.

    The cost of Labour’s promises. We’ve added them up – £31 billion on top of Mr Smith’s less than complete ‘budget’. To pay for them, on average every person would have to fork out an extra £1,250 a year. I repeat – 1,250 extra to the tax man, on top of everything else they are already paying. That’s the price of Labour. As ever it taxes belief. So take that to every doorstep in the land.

    The challenge to Labour: a straight answer now

    Yesterday we produced a detailed analysis of Labour’s public spending pledges. We have set out their promises in their own words. The Labour leader calls this ‘fantasy’. But that’s just tax avoidance talk. So come clean, Mr Kinnock. Tell the people. Set out your own costed programme. Take all your pledges – one by one. Accept our costing – or refute it. Stand by your promises – or withdraw them. Dig deep behind those pledges and come up with the tax, the whole tax and nothing but the tax. I challenge you.

    The difference between the Parties

    Some people talk of there being little difference between the Parties. Where have they been these last few years? We want to bring income tax down. Labour want to put income tax up. Even this morning, Roy Hattersley, their Deputy Leader, refused to rule out further increases in the higher rates of income tax. Higher rates today – basic rates tomorrow?

    We will bring inflation down still further, set our course for stable prices. Labour will let inflation up again. We will extend choice. Labour will remove choice. We will widen ownership. Labour fight against it. We want to privatise more. Labour want to renationalise – though whether they’ll pay a fair price or not is another matter.

    Little difference? There is all the difference in the world.

    The Conservative Programme

    So go out and tell the people of our programme. Tell them what we are fighting for. Back to basics in schools.

    Go out and tell them we want a return to basics in our schools. Schools free from council control. Schools that reward good teachers. Schools where parents have more power. Schools that are regularly inspected, and that publish their results. Schools that families have the right to choose.

    Long-term lasting jobs

    Go out and tell them the truth about unemployment. Remind them how every move we make to control inflation and build the basis for recovery is designed to defeat it. Explain to them that introducing a minimum wage, bringing back trade union power, and putting up tax would send unemployment through the roof. Ram it home that 87% of businessmen say our economic policies are the best, and so the right way to create long-term, lasting jobs. Warn them that more than a quarter of business leaders say they would actually have to cut investment if Labour won.

    New attitudes in public service

    Go out and tell the people we want a new attitude across public services in Britain. Pride, quality and openness in service. A Citizen’s Charter that puts the customers first everywhere. Improving standards year by year.

    The real National Health Service

    Go out and tell them how we feel about the National Health Service. And by the way it is the National Health Service; it does not belong to the Labour Party. I will never forget what I owe to the Health Service. I will do everything I can to strengthen and develop it. So long as I am Prime Minister the resources we give it will grow year by year.

    But tell the people about the real Health Service. About the record support it is given, the new hospitals, the millions more cases it is treating every year. Tell them about the modern Health Service, the new treatments, the tens of thousands of hip and heart operations that were unknown a few years ago. And, above all, tell them about the miracle of daily care given by the million who work in the Health Service – the night nurse tending the patient in the small hours, the skill of the midwife, the devotion of the junior doctor, the GP rising from her bed at night, the amazing skill of the surgeon.

    And when you tell them all that, tell them how you despise the self-appointed ‘friends’ of the Health Service. Labour’s people who know the millions of things that go right every day, but boast of the few that do not. The people who know the truth, but proclaim the opposite. The people who stop at nothing to run down the NHS and those who work in it. The parasites who swoop on human error and personal tragedy, and can scarce disguise their relish as they do so. If you share my anger about the damage such people do to the Health Service – and to the peace of mind of the sick and the old – then go out and tell the people.

    The Right to Own

    And don’t forget to tell the people that we gave them the right to own, that we stand for wider ownership still. For rents to mortgages, homesteading and imaginative new ways to ownership in housing. For every firm to do more to spread share ownership to its employees – an end to a world in which there were share options for directors, but never for staff. Tell them we will be giving a new incentive, new help to the millions of young people who want personal pensions of their own. I want a growing piece of Britain for everyone – to have and to hold and to leave to their families after them.

    The Power to Choose

    Go out and tell them we stand for the power to choose – in schools, in housing, in the conduct of daily life through lower tax. Tell them we stand for sound money and stable prices. For freedom from trade union dominance. For freedom from council interference. For the family and the individual first, and the state only when needed.

    More privatisation and contracting-out

    Go out and tell them we believe in more privatisation and contracting out. That we want to bring a new spirit into our railways. To open up the musty corridors of Whitehall to new thinking and less secretive attitudes. That we will bring outside skills into lazy and incompetent Town Halls – housing departments that patronise their tenants, white collar services that have never felt the challenge to change.

    The Rule of Law

    Go out and make clear that it is we, and not Labour, who stand for the rule of law, as we always have. We don’t intend to see trade union flying pickets back on our streets. We’re going to sweep the threat of crime off them. And let me say again, we want a return to the old approach in policing – where local bobbies knew everything that was happening on their patch. We want police out there on the beat. And I must tell you, I intend to confront the ideas of some of our commentators that crimes of burglary, car theft are minor matters. Tell that to the widow who has lost her treasures. Tell that to the young mother who finds her car smashed up. Property crime is crime that hurts. And we will tackle it.

    A Brighter Britain

    Go out and tell them we want a brighter Britain in which we don’t just enjoy the heritage of our ancestors, but create something to leave to our descendants. Tell them how we are going to breathe new life into the arts, the sports, the communities, and charities of Britain through our National Lottery and Millennium Fund.

    A United Kingdom at home; no United States of Europe abroad

    And another thing. It doesn’t get the headlines. Doesn’t always arise on the doorsteps. But it is fundamental. For me it is a passionate concern. I believe in a United Kingdom. I understand the emotions in Scotland but Labour’s devolution proposals could lead to the break up our country. Proper debate on them has scarcely begun. They would set us on the road to bitterness, conflict, and possibly, separation. Wherever I go in this campaign I will expose those damaging plans. I urge you to do so with equal passion.

    As for Labour they would sign up to every idea from Brussels – with all the critical faculties of the toady who wants to be accepted. They would sign anything, sign everything, even a social chapter that would destroy jobs by the hundreds of thousands and halt our recovery. Labour would be a pushover in Europe. When it came to our national interests they wouldn’t even try.

    The result of their policies would be a Disunited Kingdom in a United States of Europe. The British people will never agree to that – tell them the scale of the threat and let them decide.

    Maintaining Britain’s standing in the world

    The standing of our country in the world is no light matter. In the last decade we have rebuilt that standing. Britain is now a world leader – a leader with new ideas, a leader for human rights, a leader against terrorism, against tyranny, against all who oppress.

    We cannot be certain what the years ahead will hold. Great opportunities, surely. But great dangers, too. Old lines are breaking. The new order for which we are working is yet to bed down. In a shifting, uncertain world men and nations look for rocks – rocks of principle, rocks of authority to which they can cling. I want a Conservative Britain to be such a rock.

    Firm Defence

    Twice in the last ten years we have faced sudden danger – the challenge of war, the threat of the dictator. We were able through the courage of our armed forces, and with the help of our allies, to meet and defeat those challenges. We succeeded because we were prepared – even for the unexpected. That’s the first rule in defence – unlike Labour, unprepared even for the expected.

    Labour’s Defence Confusion

    The world needs to know where Britain stands. We cannot afford to be defended by men who don’t even know, or daren’t even say, where they themselves would take their stand. For Labour defence is an embarrassment. Some of them hate it. Some of them resent it. None of them sits in the Shadow Cabinet to speak for it.

    Consider Trident. This government is clear. We will order, build, arm, and deploy the fourth Trident submarine. But what about Labour? Is CND out? Or is CND in? Can’t Neil Decide? And Trident? Will they build it? Won’t they build it? Or will they, as some so foolishly suggest, launch it, but send it floating round the world like a defenceless ocean liner? An unarmed Trident? A sort of submarine liner. That wouldn’t deter our enemies. That would have them falling about in ridicule. They would be queuing up to hang out their washing on the Kaufman line.

    Go out and fight for what we believe

    Ladies and Gentlemen, when you’re out there in the front line fighting this campaign at this most crucial election for our country, remember this. You’re fighting for the things that our Party stands for:

    – an enterprising society;

    – a caring society;

    – a genuinely classless society;

    – a country where opportunity is open to all and effort is rewarded;

    – a country that honours its obligations to the poor, the sick, the elderly;

    – a country, respected by all, that stands proud among the nations of the world.

    To those of you fighting an Election for the first time, one final thought. Trust the people. Give them your trust. And on April 9th, you will find, once again, that the people will trust us.

  • Press Release – Prime Minister’s Comments on Inflation – 20 March 1992

    Below is the text of the Conservative Party Press Release on Mr Major’s comments on inflation. It was issued on Friday 20th March 1992, reference 517/92.

    STABLE PRICES : THE TARGET FOR BRITAIN

    “Today, for the first time in a generation, inflation in Britain is lower than inflation in Germany. No-one in Britain under the age of 24 has lived for a single day in which that’s been true”, the Rt Hon John Major, the Prime Minister and Leader of the Conservative Party, said at his adoption meeting in Godmanchester today.

    “Low inflation is not enough for us. I want an end to inflation. The target I am setting for Britain is stable prices – pay packets and pensions that keep their value. No other Party will set that target; no other Party cares so much. But it is the only long-term way to proper peace of mind for the pensioner; and the only long-term way to stable, permanent jobs.

    Lower tax and lower inflation – that’s my aim for Britain. And that’s what this Election is fundamentally about. On the outcome of the debate about tax depends the very future of our country. It is about the kind of Britain that we want. Low tax opens doors – widens choice, creates opportunity, extends ownership. High tax slams shut the doors on the hopes that are common to all.

    That’s why Labour’s ‘budget’ was such a dismal, destructive, divisive ‘vision’ for Britain. It showed Labour have learnt none of the lessons of the ’80s, and forgotten none of the malice of their past. We will ensure that it was the last gasp of a dying creed.

    Labour have tried to soft-sell Socialism, to soft-soap the British people. They’ve become a rent-a-quote party. A bland new quote for every principle. A brand new principle for every poll. But all the time, down below, hard-style Socialism has been brewing and bubbling. Now it’s coming to the surface. Rent-a-mob in Bolton market. Mug-the-middle incomes on the Treasury steps.”

    Labour’s ‘Budget’: Short Change for Britain

    “Labour would short change Britain. Change it immeasurably for the worse.

    They would inflict on our country the sheer lunacy of a tax strategy that would hit all who achieve and all who aspire. Their ‘Budget’ would hurt the most skilled in Britain, and it would hurt them harder than even Labour have ever hurt them before – a ‘budget’ that would start top tax rates at half the income levels of France, and about a quarter of those of Italy. It would mean consultants in the National Health Service being stung far harder than tycoons in Milan.

    But, above all, Labour’s ‘budget’ would inflict massive penalties on middle incomes – doctors, teachers, nurses, police – all in order to pay between two pence and four pence a week to nine million families, and 34 pence to two million more. Two-thirds of working families would gain little or nothing; while one family in six would have tax bills beyond their worst nightmares.

    And that is just the cost of the tax they have admitted. But what of the cost of the rest of their plans? Labour’s manifesto contains no costings. Neil Kinnock promised them; but he’s broken his word. Well, they’re coming. We’re costing them. And we’ll publish them. We’ll keep Mr Kinnock’s promise for him. Then the whole country will know. Labour’s ‘budget’ fiasco is the tip of a gigantic iceberg towards which Mr Kinnock wants to steer our economy. It would rip a hole in the very fabric of Britain.”

    Britain’s Choice

    “Britain must decide when the day comes on 9 April. It must decide at an Election where the choices are stark. Do we want a government which is firm in its principles? Or one which lessens our standing abroad?

    Do we want a government which maintains our defences? Or one which apologises for defending at all?

    Do we want a government which keeps our Kingdom united? Or one which risks letting it fall apart?

    Do we want a government which believes in more ownership? Or one which has fought it wherever it’s come?

    Do we want a government which will stop strife in the workplace? Or one which would let the trade union militants loose?

    Above all, do we want a country in which choice is extended? Or one in which opportunity is reduced?

    Mr Chairman, this Party stands for the rule of law, strong defences, and a United Kingdom, proud of its position in the world.

    We want a tax system which rewards skill and offers incentives to all.

    I believe that the moment John Smith revealed his mean-spirited package was the moment Labour’s PR packaging began to fall apart. It was the moment the paint on Labour’s face began to run. It was the moment Labour showed they didn’t begin to understand the hopes and ambitions of the people of Britain. It was the moment Labour was rumbled – the moment the truth was out.”

  • Press Release – Prime Minister’s Comments on Labour’s Tax Policy – 20 March 1992

    Below is the text of the Conservative Party Press Release on Mr Major’s comments on Labour’s tax policy. It was issued on Friday 20th March 1992, reference 504/92.

    BRITAIN CAN’T AFFORD LABOUR

    “Living standards always go up faster under the Conservatives”, the Rt Hon John Major, Prime Minister and Leader of the Conservative Party, said at a press conference at Conservative Central Office, today.

    “That’s been true ever since the war. For all of Mr Kinnock’s lifetime. And the difference is just as stark today.

    Because, yet again, we will bring inflation down – and cut taxes.

    Yet again, Labour would put inflation up – and raise taxes.

    I loathe inflation. I want stable prices. Pay packets and pensions that keep their value.

    Labour only know how to put inflation up. That’s what independent forecasters agree would happen. And why businessmen, day after day, say Britain needs a Conservative government.

    Industry has to compete with the rest of Europe. We’ve cut inflation below the European average. Now we need to beat the best in Europe.

    Low inflation countries like Germany.

    We can do just as well as Germany. And better.

    But look at the Labour record last time. Prices doubled in five years. Suppose that happened again? If Labour got in for another term, that means you’d end up paying £4 for a gallon of petrol, nearly 50 pence for a first-class stamp – and £24 to go to a football match.

    As if that wasn’t bad enough, Labour taxes would make it worse. That’s the way the money always goes under Labour.

    Let me tell you what a tax increase means. It means a pay cut. A pay cut for millions of people who keep this country going. Skilled workers.

    Experienced teachers. Police officers. Doctors. Dentists. Businessmen creating jobs.

    What a way to reward their efforts. Thank you for doing so well. Here is a huge tax increase as an incentive to do better in future.

    What a way to encourage young people to make the same efforts. I want young people to make these efforts. And I want them to do it in this country.

    They can’t afford Labour. No-one can afford Labour. Britain can’t afford Labour.

    And now Norman’s going to tell you precisely where Labour’s tax raid would begin. No-one yet can know where it will end.”

  • Press Release – Prime Minister’s Comments on Labour’s Budget – 19 March 1992

    Below is the text of the Conservative Party Press Release on Mr Major’s comments on the Labour Budget. It was issued on Thursday 19th March 1992, reference 488/92.

    LABOUR’S UNREAL BUDGET

    “The real Budget Norman Lamont presented last week reinforced the foundations for economic recovery. It gave carefully targetted and fully costed help for taxpayers, especially those on low incomes. It also offered help to pensioners on Income Support and was able to offer a range of assistance to business. It ensured that inflation will fall further – the basis for stable, permanent jobs and rising living standards in the future,” the Rt Hon John Major, Prime Minister, and Leader of the Conservative Party, said at a press conference at Conservative Central Office, today.

    Britain’s economy is now poised to bounce back. The signs are already there – better retail sales figures, encouraging signs for the motor industry and positive evidence from the CBI distributive trades survey. All that is needed is the confidence which will come with the re-election of a strong Conservative Government.

    John Smith’s mock budget this week was, by contrast, a budget for a slump. It not only savages taxpayers; it makes a nonsense of any pretence to competence in economic management. He doled out the familiar Labour recipe: higher taxes; higher inflation; misguided intervention. And those were only the bits that were immediately obvious.

    But other bits became obvious the moment one looks carefully at his statement. We have found some very elementary omissions – either by intent or by mistake.

    The costs aren’t all there.

    The consequences aren’t worked out.

    The effects on people and businesses are not what he claims.

    No real Treasury Minister would ever be permitted to get away with such a sloppy piece of work.

    Nor should Mr Smith.

    This is not just a mock budget – it’s a mockery of a budget.

    Let me give you just a few examples:

    1. The subject of privatisation receipts is quietly ignored. Yet they will raise an average of over £4 billion a year during the lifetime of the new Parliament. Lost to Labour if privatisation stopped. Where would Mr Smith raise the money? From yet more tax, or yet more borrowing?

    2. Local Authority capital receipts are another black hole in Labour’s figures. Labour spokesmen talk of spending billions – but again, no cost is shown. Labour don’t seem to understand that this would add to public expenditure and so have to be matched by either higher taxes or higher borrowing. Every billion would add to the PSBR that Mr Smith says he won’t increase.
    But surely Labour must understand what independent commentators are telling them – that other Labour policies would push up interest rates anyway? How much more does Labour want to add to the cost of borrowing?

    3. Labour promised a billion pounds of extra spending on the Health Service. They do not appear to understand – or do not venture to reveal – that the vast bulk of the money would be eaten up by the effect of introducing a minimum wage in the Health Service and abolishing compulsory competitive tendering.

    So there would be virtually no impact on patient care in hospitals at all.

    This is just a small sample of the many points which are either superficial or mistaken in John Smith’s mockery of a document. I could go on to point out, for example, that there is no price tag on the investment allowances Labour promises. The whole paper is not only the greatest tax bombshell ever to hit middle income groups like headteachers, GPs, warrant officers in the armed forces, police officers and others; it is also staggeringly incompetent.

    I will now invite the Chancellor to explain more of the absurdities and the injustices in Labour’s document.”

  • Mr Major’s “Country with a Heart” Speech – 19 March 1992

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s speech, “A Country with a Head, a Country with a Heart”, given in Manchester on Thursday 19th March 1992.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Mr Chairman, I’m delighted to be back in the North-West and in Manchester – one of our great cities, with a fabulous international airport that grows day by day.

    You don’t need me to remind you that Manchester has been the home of that great cause, free trade, now becoming a reality in the Single Market. It’s the arts centre of the North. Two football teams riding high in the First Division. And it’s our ambition that, in the year 2000, Manchester should host the Olympics.

    We’re going to back that bid. I want the Olympics here in the year 2000 to start the next millennium in the best possible way. And to provide better – and permanent – facilities in the heart of the North-West.

    LABOUR’S ONSLAUGHT ON MIDDLE-INCOME FAMILIES

    Mr Chairman, some commentators say that there’s really little difference these days between the Conservative and Labour Parties. How wrong can they be. The divisions between us could not be more fundamental. They could not be more clear.

    I know the Labour Party. I grew up with it. I know the envy – and, yes, the spite – that so often motivates it. I know the way it thinks. The determination to treat people as blocks and groups – as pensioners, trade unionists, or council tenants – never as individuals.

    Labour have no new ideas. They simply want to turn the clock back, Take John Smith’s mockery of a Budget. That takes us right back to the past. Let there be no doubt what Labour are proposing.

    It is the biggest increase in personal tax since the war. Let me repeat, to avoid any doubt or misunderstanding, the biggest increase in personal tax since the War. Worse even than Labour’s notorious promise in the ‘70s to squeeze the taxpayers until the pips squeak. This time it’s not just squeaking pips that John Smith is after. And it’s not just the rich.

    It’s millions and millions and millions of middle income families up and down this land. Just what have Labour got against middle income families? Consider the people who would be hurt. Not the wealthy – but doctors, teachers, engineers, police. What have these middle-income earners done wrong? Why should they be singled out for such punishment?

    Labour’s ‘vision’ for the 1990s is now clear. It goes as follows. If it’s successful – tax it, penalise it, control it, nationalise it. Never offer hope or encouragement. Nothing shows more clearly that Labour don’t trust the people – with their own money, with their own choices, with their own future.

    What Labour says is: “Trust us – we’ll decide for you, we’ll provide for you.” Labour don’t want people to choose for themselves. They might choose something that Labour don’t like.

    THE NEW BRITAIN

    Well, I’ve a message for Labour. It’s something I came into politics to say. They used to call us ‘our people’. It was as if we were – and would always be – their dependents. It was as if we were in bond to the Labour Party. What arrogance that was – what arrogance it is. Like some feudal lord discussing his serfs.

    Today, we don’t live in a forelock society. We are a new generation – we and our children. We don’t live in a country where people are prepared to have their past, present, and future determined by the State. We are fortunate – we have more independence than those before us. And we’re not going to give it up. What a tragedy it would be for Britain if Britain alone were to put a whole generation back in the straitjacket of socialism.

    Let me say this. Never again, never here, never in our time will we turn down that road. The plain fact is that the Labour Party is standing against the tide of history. Well, history has a way with tides. And Labour will be swept away on its flood.

    Mr Chairman, during the 1980s, the Conservatives shaped a new Britain. A Britain, where ambition is encouraged and success rewarded. A Britain where freedom is extended and people have more control over their own lives. A Britain which can afford to spend more than ever on health care and the social services. A Britain with an international reputation, once more a power in the world.

    ENDING THE CLOSED DOOR SOCIETY

    Mr Chairman, what made this possible? We did. The Conservative Party made this new Britain possible. Under Labour, back in the seventies, we had a closed door society. If you could afford it, you had choice. But if you couldn’t afford it, the council, the union, or the State made your choices for you.

    For so many people life was just a series of closed doors. Of hopes turned away. Government offered a hand out, never a hand up. It was a planned progress from the cradle to the grave, with no easy way out of the world where you lived. No way to increase independence. No opportunity to become an owner at all.

    In the eighties Conservative Governments began to throw open the doors that were closed. We began to turn the nation of ‘Have-Nots’ into a nation of ‘Haves’. Opening those doors wasn’t always easy. We faced vested interest. Lack of interest. And always, always blind Labour hostility. Socialist bouncers blocked every doorway.

    I can think of no right that we extended – whether in housing, unions, schools or through low taxation – which the Labour Party didn’t oppose, resist and reject. The Party that likes to boast it is of the people is frightened of the choices of the people.

    But, Mr Chairman, we defeated them. We did. The Conservative Party did. And, because we did, millions of people went through the doors that we opened into new opportunities, greater freedom, independent lives.

    It is this great revolution that in the 1990s we must protect. That great revolution we Conservatives want to take further. We want every individual in Britain to feel a belonger. Not to turn away from the doors we open, but to walk on through.

    A MANIFESTO FOR THE PEOPLE

    Mr Chairman, I’ll tell you how we’re going to do it. It’s in our Manifesto. My Manifesto. If you want to know what I believe in – read the Manifesto. That’s what I believe in. It’s what I care about. Read it. Study the ideas, the arguments, the policies. It offers the best future for Britain. It’s based on four C-O-R-E principles – choice, ownership, responsibility, enhanced opportunity. It gives the right leadership. It captures the mood of the nineties. It’s a Manifesto for the people.

    Mr Chairman, the decision this country has to take on April 9 is as critical as it’s ever been. So let me tell you what I believe in. Where I want to take this country; what I will fight for and what I will fight against.

    THE BEST FOR EVERY CHILD; THE BEST FROM EVERY CHILD

    In education I will fight for a good start in life for every child. I will fight for higher standards, more variety, and a return to basics in our schools. Our children have only one chance for a proper grounding in life. Education can make or mar each child’s future. If things don’t go right at school then getting started in life can be a tough struggle. I don’t need to ask anyone about that. I know.

    That’s why I am so angry when I see some of the things that have been done in the name of education. Too many good children have been let down by bad ideas. by the teachers, most of whom do a difficult job extremely well. I want to see good teachers properly rewarded for the work they do.

    Too many of our children have been victims of a giant left-wing experiment in levelling down. Vital props for life, like spelling, tables and dates written off as so much old hat. Children of different abilities made to learn at the same speed. Tests resisted – in case they showed how little had been learnt. Parents denied information – in case awkward questions were asked.

    Can you believe that any political party would set out deliberately to close down good schools and undermine quality in those that remained? But that’s what the Left did, right here in Britain. We must never let in a Labour Government that would unmuzzle such people again.

    In the schools of Britain this Conservative Government is putting parents and pupils first. We have set out 39 steps to a world in which every school will see every child and every family as separate individuals, with different needs.

    I want to provide the best for every child; and to ask the best from every child. That’s what I’ll fight for in this Election – because that’s what our children deserve.

    CITIZEN’S CHARTER; EXTENDING PEOPLE’S RIGHTS

    Mr Chairman, what else will I fight for? I know how important good public service is to millions of lives. I know how frustrating it is when you are tossed from pillar to post in Government office or council department. I know; because I’ve been there. That’s why I launched the Citizen’s Charter less than a year ago.

    I want Government that is more open, and more accountable. Let us throw open the closed door society. I want services that put customers first and respond to their needs. Our Charter is raising standards of service. It extends people’s rights.

    Of course. That’s why Labour oppose us. It’s inconvenient for some of their union friends. But just consider, Mr Chairman. Yesterday, only yesterday, what did the Socialists in France do? I’ll tell you. They launched a Citizen’s Charter. Mesdames et Messieurs, it’s yet another international success for Tory ideas. One more proof that we’re on the side of the future and Labour the side of the past.

    In the next Parliament the Charter will transform every part of public service for the better. We’ll make them listen in Town Halls – and we’ll make them listen in Whitehall. And who will they listen to? We’ll make them listen to the people.

    NO RETURN TO THE BRITISH DISEASE

    And while we’re about it, let’s talk of another area where the people need support. I see no reason why people should be inconvenienced by illegal industrial action in public services. None at all. So in the next Parliament we will legislate to give every citizen the power to take legal action to restrain unlawful strikes of this kind.

    And, Mr Chairman, we will also act to ensure that all pre-strike ballots are postal and that at least seven days’ notice of a strike is given after a ballot. All done to protect the public. All done to keep our position as one of the nations least affected by strikes. Labour would let the trade unions loose once again. When they were in power, other countries looked to our strike record as the British disease; now they look to the British example. We need the next Conservative Government to keep it that way.

    HOUSING: CREATING NEW OWNERS, NEW RIGHTS FOR TENANTS

    Mr Chairman, now let’s turn to another area where I care passionately. About better housing and the rights of tenants. If there’s one thing for which Labour should never be forgiven, it is their bitter rearguard battle against the Right to Buy. Even now they are fighting against it. With go slows on sales. With small print to stop them. Labour’s concern is for the welfare of housing departments rather than for the tenants they so often neglect.

    Our Manifesto takes our programme in housing still further. Creating even more new owners. Giving new rights for those who rent.

    We will crack down on council departments that patronise their tenants. We’ll give tenants new rights to repair and improve. They shouldn’t need to hang about council offices, where it always seems to be Friday and time to close.

    Mr Chairman, all the good ideas to widen choice in housing are Conservative. They’re our ideas. And all the policies to undermine home ownership. They’re Labour’s. Unfair rates. Uncapped spending. Unstable interest rates. But none of Labour’s policies against the home owner would hit harder than their new tax programme.

    LABOUR’S TAXATION: KICKSTARTING THE PHILOSOPHY OF ENVY

    One of the Conservatives’ greatest achievements has been to bring down rates of income tax – to reward hard work, success and enterprise. So people at every level of income can keep more of the money they earn.

    We’re always being told that Labour are edging their way to this kind of thinking. Well,

    Labour’s Shadow Chancellor has finally killed that notion once and for all.

    Labour’s idea of Santa Claus is John Smith out of season, with a sackful of taxes to kickstart, not the economy – never the economy – but to kickstart the society of class and the philosophy of envy.

    They’ve reverted to type. They always do. They can’t help it. It’s that old tax bug that gets them. The mask slips and the real voice of Labour is heard in the land. So after all, there’s to be no gradual phasing in of National Insurance Contributions. All the increases come in at once. Well, well. It’s tragic really. Neil’s night out at Luigi’s. His grip on his Party, or his grip on the facts, gone for a Burton.

    RIDDLED WITH ERROR, SPICED WITH SPITE

    Mr Chairman, John Smith’s mockery of a statement wasn’t a Budget; it was a fudge it. Riddled with error. Spiced with spite. Its effects on families up and down Britain would be devastating. The combined rates of tax and contributions would be 49 per cent and 59 per cent. They make Healey’s axe look like a feather duster. Labour’s tax increases would hit everyone with ambition who wants to get on. They would hit enterprise – the wealth-creators and job creators, the very people who are so desperately needed today.

    They would hit people who never dreamt that they would be classed as rich – and who are not. People on middle incomes. People working hard to make the best of their lives. Secure in their homes, until Labour’s taxman comes hammering at the door.

    Think of it. Young couples with children. Proud of their first home. Making ends meet. The first thing that happens is that tax goes up and take home pay goes down. It’s not the holiday they’d be worrying about. That would be out of the window. It would be far more serious than that. It would rip the very heart out of the housing market in every part of the UK. Not just in the short-term. Not just in the recessionary phase. But for good.

    Mr Chairman, almost overnight, the value of the largest investment that millions of families have made for their lives would plunge through the floor. No-one at any stage in the history of Britain has launched such an onslaught on the security of hard-working, middle income families. It is an incredible proposal for a modern political party to make – a devil’s cocktail of incompetence and of malice which defies belief.

    WRECKING PROSPECTS, WRECKING HOPE

    But it’s not just the housing market that Labour would hit. Who could believe that any would-be Government would set out to wreck the pension policies of four and a half million young people saving for retirement? But that’s precisely what Labour would do. Wreck them.

    And, Mr Chairman, what would these brutal increases mean for those who depend on work in the home? For the builders? The decorators? The electricians? The DIY shops? The garden centres. The corner shops. Labour would slash the incomes of the very people who give them work. Labour would blight their livelihoods as surely as if they’d targeted them direct. Their tax hike would be a fast-spreading cancer that would seek out independent trades in every part of the economy.

    What incentive do Labour’s policies give to our young people planning for the future? What prospect for those seeking promotion? What hope for the parents and grandparents wanting to see their children and grandchildren making a career, building a better life? None, Mr Chairman. None, none, and less than none. No incentives. No prospects. No hope. No future.

    That’s Labour’s policy.

    LABOUR: THE WARNING

    Mr Chairman, if there were ever to be a Labour Government, I warn you not to be ambitious. I warn you not to be qualified. I warn you not to be successful.

    I warn you not to buy shares. I warn you not to be self-employed. I warn you not to accept promotion.

    I warn you not to save. I warn you not to buy a pension. I warn you not to own a home.

    None of these would be encouraged in a Labour Britain. None of them would be safe in a Labour Britain.

    THE QUESTION OF LEADERSHIP

    Mr Chairman, there’s one other issue at the heart of this Election. It’s the question of leadership.

    As Foreign Secretary, as Chancellor, and now as Prime Minister I have travelled the globe. I know at first hand – from Presidents and Prime Ministers – how high Britain’s standing is in the world.

    We have a reputation for principle, for strength, for loyalty. A reputation we have earned. By the strong lead Britain gave to the countries of Eastern Europe as they moved from dictatorship to democracy. By the unswerving support we gave to President Yeltsin during last August’s coup – the first country to do so.

    By Britain’s total determination to throw Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait.

    As a result the world is a far better place than it was ten, five or even two years ago. But it is also a more unstable place. This is no time for an unsure hand at the helm.

    Would you want Britain led by men who, not that long ago, were all for giving up our nuclear defences and caving in to the old dictators of the Soviet Union?

    Would you want Britain’s case in Brussels to be put by men who have conducted somersault after somersault in their attitudes to Europe – who’ve held every principle, but never for long?

    When you go to a summit and it comes to the crunch you’re alone in there. Alone in the conference chamber arguing the case for Britain. With 55 million people depending on your judgment. You need to be cool, clear-headed, have conviction. That’s how it was at Maastricht. That’s how it’ll be from 1 July when Britain holds the Presidency in Europe. And that’s how it’ll be at all seven summits I shall be attending for Britain in the rest of this year.

    Mr Chairman, Britain can’t afford to be led by people who don’t know what their policy on foreign affairs and defence is from one day to the next.

    That must never happen. Never.

    A COUNTRY WITH A HEAD; A COUNTRY WITH A HEART

    Mr Chairman, every society has choices. The question at this Election is – who makes them? That’s what’s at stake.

    Strip away the masks. Strip away the pretence. It’s a choice between going forward, along the road to greater freedom and wider ownership, towards a more responsible society.

    Or to turn backwards into what even the Labour leader admits is still the world of Clause IV. The world of outdated class divisions. The world of high taxes, State regulation and control. This is a world that the remainder of Europe has cast into oblivion.

    That’s not the road for Britain, That’s not the way for Britain.

    What we want is a better Britain. A country which is strong in the world. A country where the individual counts. A country of real opportunity, where everyone of her people is free to choose. A country with a head. And a country with a heart.

    And, on April 9, Mr Chairman, I have no doubt. It is for our Britain that the people will make their choice.

  • Mr Major’s Press Conference on Scotland – 18 March 1992

    Below is the text of Mr Major’s press conference held on Wednesday 18th March 1992.

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I think the best way to spend the next few minutes is for you to ask whatever is on your minds rather than me to regurgitate what doubtless you have heard from me and other Conservatives on several occasions over recent days. We have got a limited time; let us deal with the matters that concern you.

    QUESTION:

    Could I ask about Scotland?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Sure! We are going to win some seats in Scotland

    QUESTION:

    How many?

    PRIME MINISTER:

    I don’t know, we will have to wait for the General Election but we will hold our seats and we will win some back.

    QUESTION:

    [Inaudible].

    PRIME MINISTER:

    Let me talk about both independence and devolution and the concerns that I have about it because I do think it is, as I said elsewhere, an issue that in many ways transcends the election. Let me take separation first and then I will come on to devolution because I think there are slightly separate arguments with the two.

    I believe that collectively the Union has served every part of the United Kingdom extremely well. The Act of Union was the establishment of Great Britain. There was no Great Britain until there was the Act of Union voluntarily entered into between Scotland and Britain. If that were suddenly to be thrown away, I believe it would have a very weakening effect not just upon Scotland but upon the whole of the United Kingdom. I do not base my arguments on saying as an Englishman what is right for Scotland; I do believe, as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, that I have a responsibility to speak for the United Kingdom and I believe to wrench any part of the United Kingdom out in terms of separation would leave that part of the United Kingdom much weaker in representing its interests than it is as part of the United Kingdom and it also leaves the other parts of the United Kingdom much weaker.

    Let us take the Scottish position in Europe. Let us presuppose, for example, that Scotland were separate and Scotland were in Europe – it had negotiated its way into Europe and everybody had accepted it and it was safely in Europe. What authority would it have in Europe? It would probably have in the Council of Ministers two votes; it would have the same sort of clout in the Council of Ministers that Luxembourg has so it would not be in control of its own destiny in the European Community.

    Let me tell you as a matter of fact that when you sit round the European table with the other Heads of Government, the big nations with the large voting authority actually determined European policy; it is not determined by the tiny nations. If Scotland thinks it would be moving into a position in Europe in which it had complete freedom to determine its own affairs, it wouldn’t. It would find in the European setting that it did not have a great clout. It does have a great clout as part of the United Kingdom and we defend very forcibly the interests of every part of that Kingdom so I think that it is an important part, but essentially I believe that the Union has served Scotland well and England well and the United Kingdom well and I don’t want to lose it.

    There are grievances and concerns in Scotland, it is difficult for a non-Scot to be absolutely certain what the origin of them is, but as you will know, I have spent a lot of time on and off in the last two or three years going backwards and forwards to Scotland and whatever the origin of it is, I understand the depth of the sentiment that is there but I cannot believe after getting on for three hundred years that it is beyond the wit of the rest of the United Kingdom and Scotland to find other ways of solving that grievance short of what is at present proposed and which I think would be very damaging.

    Let me turn separately to devolution. I am sorry this is a lengthy argument but I believe this is as important a matter on the domestic agenda as any. Were I a Scot, I could understand the arguments that are put for devolution. It must often sound to Scots; “Here are Englishmen, Welshmen and Northern Irishmen down in London telling we Scots we can’t look after our own affairs!”. It truly isn’t that way as I see it but let us assume for the sake of the hypothesis that there was a devolved Assembly in Edinburgh with tax-raising powers, which is the proposition proposed by the Labour Party and the Liberal Party.

    That devolved Assembly would have complete responsibility for some aspects of policy, perhaps health, perhaps education, perhaps other matters. What would that in practice mean for the United Kingdom Parliament? That, in a sense, is the price for Scotland – what is the price for Scotland of that actually happening and how does it impact on the rest of the United Kingdom?

    The first point, I think, is this: that Scotland would not retain the same representation at Westminster as it does at the present time.

    But the second point is an even more damaging point than that. What one would then have in Westminster would be two sorts of MPs: MPs from England, Wales and Northern Ireland who would vote on every issue that went through the Westminster Parliament and MPs from Scotland who could not because the rest of the United Kingdom would not say: “Yes, you in Scotland can determined absolutely alone in Scotland health, education and other matters without English, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs voting or affecting that, and then Scottish MPs come to Westminster and have a say in what happens on those very same subjects in other parts of the United Kingdom!”. It simply would not be in the real world of politics and it would not happen so you would have two tiers of MPs – those who could vote on everything and those who could only vote on some things.

    That opens up a range of difficulties. Firstly, would any Government be able to command a majority? Very possibly not. The second point that it clearly opens up is what would be the impact in Scotland of having effectively second-tier status at Westminster? I believe in the short-term or the medium-term it would lead to huge frustration and bitterness in Scotland and might well push Scotland that extra mile towards separation rather than devolution.

    Nobody can be certain whether I am right about that or whether I am wrong about that and I don’t pretend to you that I have got divine wisdom but those are the concerns as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom that I have.

    The argument about devolution has gone on for a long time but it has been an argument about what the Scots could do in a devolved Parliament, not what the impact of that would be on the rest of the United Kingdom, and what I am saying to Scotland is: Let us sketch in the whole canvas, not just what you can have in Scotland but what it would mean in England, Wales, Northern Ireland and what it would mean for Scotland at Westminster. Let us sketch in that whole canvas and have an honest and serious debate about it and see then where opinion lies. I believe opinion would like quite differently.

    I am sorry that is a lengthy argument but I believe it is one of the most important constitutional arguments that we have had on our place for many years.

  • Press Release – Prime Minister’s Comments on Education – 17 March 1992

    Below is the text of the Conservative Party Press Release on Mr Major’s education policy. It was issued on Tuesday 17th March 1992, reference 442/92.

    39 STEPS TO HIGHER STANDARDS

    “When I became Prime Minister, I promised to put education at the top of my personal agenda,” said the Rt Hon John Major (Huntingdon), the Prime Minister and Leader of the Conservative Party, at a press conference at Conservative Central Office today.

    “Let me remind you why.

    Nothing is more important than education to ensure that all our young people have the opportunities they deserve.

    And nothing angered me more than the damage socialist dogma did to some of our schools:

    – undermining good teachers;
    – downgrading the three ‘Rs’;
    – making children all learn at the same speed;
    – resisting tests that might show how little had been learnt;
    – refusing to give parents information, in case they asked awkward questions.

    The people who did the damage weren’t the ones to suffer. It was school children who suffered – teenagers who had learnt so little at school that they couldn’t even fill in a job application or count their change in the shops.

    We’ve changed a lot in our schools already:

    – we now have a National Curriculum;
    – we have nationwide tests, so we can discover where things are going right – and where they’re going wrong;
    – we’re expanding opportunities in school and after school.

    A lot has been happening even over the past year. And Kenneth Clarke will tell you more about our plans for the future – our 39 steps to higher standards. They amount to the most radical programme of education reform since 1944.

    I’m particularly pleased that Ken and his colleagues have been bringing the worlds of school and work closer together. By encouraging technology schools, developing vocational qualifications and setting further education colleges free, they’re opening up a whole new channel of opportunity for young people.

    And I’m also very pleased we now have a Pay Review Body for teachers, which acknowledges their professional status.

    But the job isn’t done yet. Before the Parent’s Charter, many parents never even received a written school report on their children.

    Until we passed the Schools Act, there was no requirement for regular independent inspection of schools – or for information on how they perform.

    In the future, under a Conservative government, more children will get a good grounding and worthwhile qualifications.

    More schools will be able to develop their own special character. I want to see all parents, not just those who can afford to pay school fees, with a real choice of school for their children.

    And more youngsters will go on learning and training after school. One young person in three will enter higher education by the year 2000.
    But Labour’s still fighting all our education reforms. They don’t want to publish results which show how badly left-wing councils are running their schools. They would rather muddy the figures with all kinds of excuses.

    They don’t want schools to run their own affairs. They want to restore Town Hall control.

    They don’t want new kinds of school, even if parents make it very clear that they do. Labour want to destroy scores of highly successful schools.

    They’d undo all the good we’ve done – and damage another generation of our children.

    So the battlelines are clearly drawn: Conservative choice and opportunity, against socialist doctrine and dogma. To protect our children’s interests, it’s a battle we must win.”