You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning! Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher

But her speech did acknowledge the plight of the country's two million unemployed.

"Let me make it clear beyond doubt. I am profoundly concerned about unemployment," she said.

She added: "Human dignity and self-respect are undermined when men and women are condemned to idleness."

The Prime Minister expressed her commitment to reducing inflation which she said was beginning to fall, reminding delegates it was the "parent of unemployment".

She also claimed a number of measures imposed by her government in its first 17 months in office as successes.

This included the "first crucial changes" in trade union law, the breaking down of monopoly powers and allowing council tenants the chance to buy their homes.

Mrs Thatcher condemned Soviet foreign policy and in particular its present occupation of Afghanistan.

In response to the recent demonstrations by Polish ship-workers, she praised their resolve to "participate in the shaping of their destiny", and their actions as testament to a crisis in Communism.

Her closing words were reserved for criticism of Labour and votes cast at its party conference in favour of withdrawal from NATO and the EEC.

"Let Labour's Orwellian nightmare of the Left be a spur for us to dedicate with a new urgency our every ounce of energy and moral strength to rebuild the fortunes of this free nation," she said.

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