JOURNALIST:
Sir, your response or your reaction to Ronald Reagan's death?
PRIME MINISTER:
Ronald Reagan, in my view, was the greatest of post-World War II American Presidents. More than anybody else, he followed the policies that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War and the final victory of a more free-market approach to the management of economies over the centrally planned approach of the old eastern states. He was a great communicator and somebody who had an enormous capacity to articulate in very direct terms, directly to his people what he stood for and what he believed in. His greatest legacy will be the end of Soviet communism.
JOURNALIST:
(inaudible)
PRIME MINISTER:
I had no such privilege. Our paths did not intercept while in office, but I certainly saw in him somebody who went to heights that many people didn't predict when he became President. He was very single minded and the adoption of those policies which brought about the internal changes and therefore the internal disintegration of the Soviet Union is one of the great developments of my lifetime, and certainly the greatest single development in world order since the end of World War II, and nobody played a more dominant role in bringing that about than Ronald Reagan. He was strongly supported at the time by Margaret Thatcher, though it was Reagan who had the power and the sense of historical timing to apply the right policies.
JOURNALIST:
And he changed the culture of Republican economics. He was a great advocate for returning money to people through tax cuts.
PRIME MINISTER:
I think his greatest victories lay elsewhere.
[ends]