Thatcher attacks Labour again despite lead

Press, 7 June 1983, Page 10

Thatcher attacks Labour again despite lead

NZPA-Reuter London The British Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, increasingly confident of winning a second term of office in Thursday’s election, kept up the attack on the Labour opposition at a noisy, American-style rally.

In the last week of the campaign, she made it clear that she still considered Labour the main challenger to her Conservative Party, and barely mentioned the Liberal-Social Democratic Alliance, despite its improved showing in the latest opinion polls.

A succession of British television, stage and sports stars roused 2400 young supporters into wild enthusiasm at the London rally. They cheered and sang, blew horns, waved banners and burst balloons. Some commentators suggested that it was a remarkably adept piece of political salesmanship which could change the pattern of future British election campaigns. Mrs Thatcher denounced Labour as the pessimistic party, spreading gloom wherever it went, and dismissed the alliance as “Labour’s former allies.” Her confidence was backed up by opinion polls in Sunday newspapers which indicated a landslide victory. They gave the ruling party an average 45 per cent support to Labour’s 29.5 and the alliance’s 23.5. The Conservative lead is more than double that of

the 1979 General Election. When Parliament was dissolved last month the Conservatives had 331 seats, Labour 239 and the alliance, 42.

The Labour leader, Michael Foot, told tens of thousands of people at a rally in London’s Hyde Park not to be misled by the polls and suggested that his party could still win.

The rally was the climax of a protest over Britain’s three million unemployed, an issue which Labour has tried to put in the forefront of its onslaught on the Government.

The deputy Labour leader, Denis Healey, said yesterday that people were deeply worried at a big Conservative win which would bring “one-woman dictatorship,” backed by Right-wingers. The Social Democratic leader, Roy Jenkins, said that the Labour. vote was now crumbling, and it was the alliance which had the best chance of stopping a landslide Thatcher victory. Labour said yesterday that whatever the result of the election it would pursue its demand for a inquiry into the sinking of an Argentine cruiser in the Falklands conflict last year. A Labour politician, Neil Kinnock, seen as a possible future leader of the party, renewed the demand in view of a newspaper interview with former American Secretary of State, Alexan-

der Haig, who tried in vain to mediate between Britain and Argentina. Mr Haig told the “Observer” newspaper that a Peruvian bid to arrange peace and avert bloodshed might have succeeded but for the sinking of the General Belgrano with the loss of more than 300 men. But he ruled out suggestions that Mrs Thatcher’s war cabinet ordered the sinking to wreck the peace plan and gain domestic political prestige. The “Observer” also printed details of Argentine naval orders suggesting that the General Belgrano had been sailing away from the Falklands for nine hours when a British submarine sank it with two torpedoes. Labour has also renewed its accusation that Mrs Thatcher was hiding bad economic news from the voters. Labour’s economic spokesman, Peter Shore, produced secret Government forecasts which suggested huge tax increases or spending cuts would be needed by 1990. “These documents form the basis for the new round of cuts planned for this (northern) summer, cuts to be continued for the whole period up to 1990,” said Mr Shore. “It is, of course, this programme of cuts that comprises the real but hidden manifesto of the Conservative Party?