1992 - Press Release - Prime Minister’s Comments on Best Choice for Britain

Below is the text of the Conservative Party Press Release on Mr Major’s comments on the best choice for Britain. It was issued on Wednesday 8th April 1992, reference 828/92.

 

THE BEST CHOICE FOR BRITAIN

“I've asked a number of my ministers to be here with me today at the last press conference of this election. Each of them is going to highlight the stark choice that the voter will face in the polling booth tomorrow,” the Rt Hon John Major, Prime Minister and Leader of the Conservative Party, told a press conference at Conservative Central Office today.

“It is a choice of policies. Conservative policies and Labour policies - with or without Liberal trimmings.

The great policy divide between the parties has become increasingly clear during this campaign.

Our policies will accelerate economic recovery. Our re-election will make that recovery certain. Businessmen are in no doubt of the choice. Labour's policies would hurt investment, undermine the pound, drive up mortgage rates and send the recovery into a nosedive.

We want to cut taxes on people's incomes - Labour is committed to putting them up.

We want to give parents a choice of different kinds of schools - Labour would take that choice away.

We want to give more council tenants the choice of buying their own home - Labour want to keep them trapped in council estates.

We want to expand the health service and give more GPs freedom to choose the best for their patients - Labour would plunge the NHS into chaos by up-ending our reforms.

We want the State to serve the people. That's what our Citizen's Charter is all about. Labour want people to serve the State.

We want people to be able to pass on the fruits of a lifetime's work - Labour expect people to work not for their children, but for the taxman.

We want to keep the industrial peace we have achieved after 13 years - Labour would let the pickets loose again.

The fundamental differences have become clearer every day.

Conservatives want to hold the United Kingdom together; other parties would put that Union at risk. Labour's answer in Scotland is the same as its answer to everything else - give someone the power to raise yet more taxes.

Conservatives will fight for Britain's interests at the heart of Europe. The Labour and Liberal parties would let Britain be run by Brussels.

We want to maintain a voting system that has given us strong and stable government. The Liberals would throw that away for mere Party advantage. And Labour? I'm afraid that after all Michael Heseltine's efforts to explain them yesterday, we still don't know what Mr Kinnock's views are on PR.

It is not surprising that the differences should be so stark. The Conservatives are the Party of free enterprise, which is the success story of the modern western world. Labour is the Party of Socialism, the failed doctrine of Eastern Europe. Conservative reforms have been copied around the world - Labour's philosophy has been rejected.

That is the choice: between a Conservative Party that looks forward - and a Labour Party that looks back. As my colleagues will now tell you, it's a divide that runs through every area of policy.”