Tories, Labour launch campaigns for election

Press, 20 May 1987, Page 10

Tories, Labour launch campaigns for election

NZPA-Reuter London Britain’s Conservative and Labour parties launch their campaigns for the June 11 General Election today with the publication of radically opposed manifestos pitting free enterprise against State control. The Conservative Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, seeking to take Britain into the IfNs with an unprecedented third consecutive term, is counting on a Government record of fast economic growth, record manufacturing exports, low inflation, higher salaries and greater home ownership. The Labour leader, Mr Neil Kinnock, aged 45, campaigning to become Prime Minister for the first time, is pledging his Government , will take under its wing the unemployed, the elderly and the sick in what he promises to be a more caring society. ...... As the two parties embarked on the 3%-week campaign the latest opinion poll, conducted. by Marplan for the “Today” newspaper, gave Mrs Thatcher’s Conservatives 41 per cent of the vote, Labour 33 and the Liberal-Social Democrat dHance 24 per cent

Under Britain’s wlnner-takes-all voting system these results, which are in line with recent surveys, would guarantee the Conservatives 344 seats and an over all majority of 38 in the 158-member Parliament, while the centrist Alliance would get only 22 seats. Mrs Thatcher, who has privatised two-thirds of the country’s Stateowned industries and tripled the number of shareowners to 8.5 million since she came to power in 1871, . has promised to increase share ownership and sell the rest of “the NpUy silver back to* the

family.” Labour is committed to reversing Mrs Thatcher’s programme and return to the public sector at least two companies — British Gas and British Telecom, the national telecommunications firm — and offer investors their money back at cost price. Mrs Thatcher also wants to reduce the power of local authorities, which are mostly Labour-dominated, by wresting their control on education and giving more power to teachers and parents. Along the same lines, the Tories are proposing to boost the poor inner

cities by promoting employment through private enterprise. Unemployment, which has tripled to just over three million people, or 11 per cent of the workforce, under Mrs Thatcher’s eight-year rule, will be a big issue with Labour promising to slash the number of jobless by one million in two years and Mrs Thatcher pointing to a steady decrease over the last 18 months. The two manifestos will also be completely at odds on the issue of defence. While Mrs Thatcher is pledged to a strong, powerful Britain, closely allied to the United States, Mr Kinnock has promised to scrap nuclear weapons while remaining in N.A.T.0., and wants the Americans to withdraw their nuclear missiles from British soil. , The Alliance, which is seeking to revive consensus politics, published its manifesto yesterday, promising sweeping changes in Britain’s governing system, including the virtual abolition of Parliament’s hereditary upper chamber, the House of Lords, and promising home rule to Scoflßld and Wales.