Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher [178]
I also had to make some decisions about my future engagements as Prime Minister, particularly meetings already arranged with foreign visitors: which, if any, should I see? A number of meetings were cancelled, but I carried on with as much of my diary schedule as I could. On Wednesday 11 May, I had talks and lunch with Robert Muldoon, Prime Minister of New Zealand, who had proved such a good friend to Britain in the Falklands crisis. That evening I also saw Alexander Solzhenitzyn and his wife. This courageous man sent a timely message to the British people at a press conference he gave, describing supporters of unilateral disarmament as ‘naïve’.
Another question was whether I should go to the United States for the forthcoming G7 summit at Williamsburg at the end of May. I decided immediately that I had to cancel my planned visit Washington on 26 May for pre-summit talks with President Reagan. As for the Williamsburg summit itself, I was minded to go but kept my options open for the moment. Politicians always have to be careful not to be seen spending more time with opposite numbers abroad than with their own people and that is never truer than in an election campaign. But the summit was important in its own right, not least because the President himself would be chairing it. Moreover, it would show Britain in a leading international role and lend international endorsement to the sort of policies we were pursuing.
We deliberately started our campaign later than the other parties. The electorate quickly becomes bored with incessant party politicking and it is important not to peak too soon: the ideal is to make an increasing impact in the last few days before polling day itself. Labour’s manifesto, all over the newspapers shortly before the dissolution of Parliament, was an appalling document. It committed the party to a non-nuclear defence, withdrawal from the European Community, enormously increased public spending and a host of other irresponsible policies and was dubbed by one of the wittier Shadow Cabinet ministers ‘the longest suicide note ever written’. We were very keen to publicize it and I understand that Conservative Central Office placed the largest single order for copies. But at my customary address to the ’22 that evening, I warned the Party against overconfidence: even a short election campaign is quite long enough for things to go badly wrong.
The next day I flew to Scotland to address the Scottish Conservative Party Conference in Perth. The hall in Perth is not large, but it has excellent acoustics. It is one of the best places to speak anywhere in Britain — perhaps only Blackpool Winter Gardens is better. In spite of a sore throat from the tail-end of a heavy cold, I enjoyed myself. Not only do I always recall that this is the nation of Adam Smith: the romantic strain of Scottish Toryism appeals to the non-economist in me too. As always after visits to the Scottish Conference, I returned to London encouraged and in fighting spirit. The atmosphere had been one of buoyant enthusiasm — a good omen for the campaign.
That weekend I was also able to study the results of our first major ‘state of battle’ opinion poll survey. It showed that we had a 14 per cent lead over Labour and that there had been a fall in support for the Alliance. This was, of course, very satisfactory. I was glad to note that there was no evidence that people thought I had been wrong to call the election; indeed, the great majority thought it was the correct decision. But the poll also showed that if the Alliance looked in with a chance there was considerable potential for an increase in its support from weakly committed Conservative and Labour voters. Obviously this was something