Margaret Thatcher, Compassionate Conservative - not a libertarian (2)

By Paul Goodman
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To help prove the point, we had extracts from the 1983 manifesto yesterday.  Here are some extracts from the 1987 manifesto.

• "One million council tenants have become home-owners and another one and a half million more families have become home-owners for the first time."

• "There are over 75,000 more doctors, dentists and nurses than in 1978."

• "In 1979 only seven per cent of the population held shares. Share ownership has trebled. Almost one in five of the adult population now own shares directly."

• "Almost a million and a half people have been taken out of income tax altogether."

• "The Government has reduced nurses' basic hours from 40 to 37 1/2 hours per week and increased their pay by 30 per cent after allowing for inflation."

• "One worker in ten is now his own boss - or her own boss, since a quarter of the self-employed are women."

• "We have established a huge programme, costing over £4,000 million, to clean up the environment of the Mersey Basin by the early years of the next century."

• We have the sixth largest aid programme in the western world, and the third largest in Europe, spending about £1,300 million each year.

• "Total spending on state pensions and benefits for elderly people has risen by 29 per cent after allowing for inflation."

• "The last Labour Government cut the hospital building programme by a third. This Government has embarked on the biggest building programme ever.

• "Racial discrimination is an injustice and can have no place in a tolerant and civilised society. We are particularly concerned about racial attacks."

• "The Financial Services Act of 1986 also contains stringent new powers to investigate insider dealing which was first made a criminal offence by the Conservative Government in 1980."

• "Giving to charities has doubled since we first took office."

• "The Government has provided a record amount of money to increase [teachers'] pay by an average 16.4 per cent this year 25 per cent over 18 months."

• "The improvement of the maternity services has helped to reduce by a third the death rate among babies in the weeks around birth."