Saturday 4 January 2020

Memory lane - The days I interviewed Margaret Thatcher


During my time as a television reporter at ATV Today in the Midlands (1973-77) I interviewed Margaret Thatcher a few times. Of course, in those days, she was leader of the opposition before she became prime minister.

She was also quite a nervous and often reluctant interviewee. This is perhaps the most interesting of our encounters. As I doorstepped her during campaigning for the Walsall North by-election in 1976, Mrs Thatcher attacked the Labour government for allowing unemployment to reach 1.4 million. Fun fact: during her Conservative government, unemployment went over 3 million.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzqaguv27o8

The previous year I caught up with her as she toured the Royal Crown Derby factory in Derby, to get her reaction to the Labour government's plan to rescue troubled car manufacturer British Leyland.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6qGYJ5MOAw

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