Thatcher Vows Punishment for Rioters : But She Promises More Help for Jobless in Effort to Soften Image

Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, addressing her Conservative Party’s annual conference Friday, promised tough punishment for urban rioters and expanded job training programs for the nation’s unemployed.

Thatcher’s 40-minute speech was given amid unprecedented security precautions prompted by the bomb attack by the outlawed Irish Republican Army during last year’s party convention in Brighton that left five people dead and many others injured.

The speech, coming in the wake of a series of urban riots in depressed areas of English cities, was clearly aimed at revitalizing her party’s flagging spirits as well as her own image as a leader who cares about the country’s poor and jobless. She appeared to back away from recent comments in which she dismissed those concerned about the country’s record 13.9% unemployment as “moaning Minnies.”

In conciliatory tones, she spoke of the hardship of unemployment and called job creation a primary goal of her government.

“There is no problem which occupies more of my thinking and that of my colleagues,” she told the party in a nationally televised speech.

Expanded Programs

She announced expansions of both job training and community work programs. By Christmas, she said, one million youths will have passed through the government-funded training programs, which will soon be expanded so that everyone under 18 will have either a job, education, or training.

In both tone and content, Thatcher appeared in part to be answering the unusually strong criticism leveled by Energy Secretary Peter Walker that the party was losing touch with “ordinary citizens”.

With a 139-seat parliamentary majority, Thatcher’s government is in no immediate danger. However, it has consistently trailed both the main opposition Labor Party and the Liberal-Social Democratic Alliance in recent opinion polls.

Conservative Party candidates have also lost a series of off-term parliamentary elections in recent months.

Rejects Pump-Priming

While promising greater efforts to cut unemployment, she rejected critics who have urged economic pump-priming as a solution, and she warned against the dangers of inflation. She made it clear that, despite government efforts, private industry will carry the burden of job creation.

On another key issue, law and order, the prime minister gave no ground.

She promised rigorous prosecution of those engaged in urban violence and praised the police for their action in containing the recent series of urban riots.

Police Thanked for Security

Thatcher opened her speech by thanking the police who had set up one of the most stringent security procedures ever seen in Britain for the party conference in the wake of last year’s IRA attack. The current party chairman, Norman Tebbit, was among those injured.

Thatcher and her Cabinet ministers were housed at remote locations outside of Blackpool. Those entering the convention hall were subjected to four separate searches, and the streets outside were lined with uniform police.