British leaders take to campaign trail

Press, 18 April 1979, Page 9

British leaders take to campaign trail

NZPA LONDON The British election campaign moved into top gear on Monday, with all three leaders out on the road simultaneously for the first time.

The Conservative leader, Margaret Thatcher, began her nation-wide campaign with a fierce attack on Labour's Left — and the Prime Minister (Mr James Callaghan) retorted with an assault on the Tories’ Right. The Liberal leader, David Steel, weighed in with a blast against both parties for I fuelling Britain’s growth industry — the Civil Service. After the false starts of last week — and the intervention of Easter —the going will be tougher as the leaders race round the country on their punishing schedules.

Mrs Thatcher’s party has a IC> per cent lead over Labour in the latest opinion poll published on Sunday by the "Observer” newspaper.

Mrs Thatcher chose to hold her first election rally deep in enemy country — Cardiff — Mr Callaghan’s constituency.

She launched it with an appeal to Labour’s traditional voters to vote Tory and a warning that the socialism of 1978 was not the socialism of Clement Atlee and Hugh Gaitskell — which “valued people, and dignity and warmth and aimed to raise living standards.”

A vote for Labour, she said, would lead to the triumph of Marxist socialism.

“Labour today is like a pub where the mild is running out. Soon all that’s left will be bitter — and all that’s bitter will be left.”

Mr Callaghan, in Leicesalso has a warning on extremists in his speech on industrial relations.

He said Tory plans to control trade unions by law would not solve anything — and would encourage “the handful of extremists, always looking for opportunities to wreck industrial relations, to make mischief.” Some elements of the party were deeply prejudiced against unions, but to legislate on the base of that prejudice would “invite industrial martyrs to offer themselves for sacrifice” and lead to more strikes. But he warned the unions that although legislation had not worked, the need for reform was still there — and they had to do it themselves.

Mr Steel, chose as his theme “the unparallelled growth” of bureaucracy and he blamed both parties. Britain had more people employed in administration than any other Western nation.