A Political Speech

The time has almost come, ladies and gentlemen, when the Government must ask you — the electors of Great Britain — to renew its mandate. It is as a member of the Government that I stand before you this evening, and the task I have set myself is to review the many things which the Government has achieved since the last General Election, and to outline the path which we hope to follow in the future, when, as I am confident will be the case, you return us to office with an even greater parliamentary majority.
No one will deny that what we have been able to do in the past five years is especially striking in view of the crisis which we inherited from the previous Government. With wages and prices spiralling upwards; with a record trade deficit of hundreds of millions of pounds; and with the pound sterling afflicted by the evaporation of international confidence, the country was then on the brink of financial disaster and economic collapse.
But within a very short time of coming back into power the present Government had taken steps to stabilise the position. No doubt you will remember some of those steps. Many of them were painful at the time. But they were necessary if international confidence was to be restored, and we did not flinch from taking them.
First of all, we applied ourselves to identifying the root causes of our national ailments, examining contemporary evidence and refusing to be slaves to outmoded doctrinaire beliefs. Secondly we embarked on a reasoned policy to ensure steady economic growth, the modernisation of industry, and a proper balance between public and private expenditure. Thirdly, by refusing to take refuge — as the previous Government had continually done in the preceding years — in panic-stricken stop-gap measures, we stimulated the return of international confidence.
As a result of those immediate measures, and aided by the tremendous effort which they evoked from the British people who responded as so often
before to a firm hand at the helm, as a result of those measures we weathered the storm and moved on into calmer waters and a period of economic expansion and social reorganization.
We took as our first objective the problem of productivity. For far too long the average level of productivity in this country had been lower than was to be expected when die quality of the labour force was considered. We attacked restrictive practices wherever they existed; we instituted measures for the more rational deployment of labour; and we greatly improved the relationship between management and workers. The result, as you all know, is that productivity is higher now than ever before.
Then we embarked on a nation-wide scheme of regional planning, both industrial and social, thereby ensuring that areas of the country which had for years been underproductive and undersupplied with social amenities were able to contribute more effectively to the national effort.
Next, we instituted the largest programme of educational expansion that the country has ever seen. From infant school to university, the nation's educational resources were extended and revitalised in a way that over the years will ensure that our greatest national asset — our children and young people — will continue to get the education that they deserve.
Finally, we made sweeping reductions in government expenditure. The whole area of national and local government was subjected to a most searching financial scrutiny, and wherever they occurred, inefficiency and waste were attacked and non-essential projects were brought swiftly to an end. It was partly as a result of those economies that many of our most important new projects in other fields became possible.
These new projects have enabled us to lay a firm foundation for better things. It is at this stage that we may confidently begin to examine the route we wish to follow in the future.