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Category: Speeches

  • Frank Dobson – 1999 Speech on the NHS

    Below is the text of the speech made by Frank Dobson, the then Secretary of State for Health, in the House of Commons on 11 January 1999.

    I should like to make a statement on how the national health service is coping with the recent sharp rise in the number of people falling ill.

    First, on behalf of everybody in the country, I want to thank all the people working in the health service and local social services for the huge effort they have been putting in to ensure that everybody gets the treatment and care that is needed. They have done all that because there has been a surge in the numbers of people going to see their doctor, and an even bigger surge in the number of people calling ambulances and helplines and going to hospital. The sharp increase in the level of illness is confirmed by the increase in the number of people dying, which in some parts of the country has meant that families trying to arrange funerals face long delays.

    The figures put together by the Public Health Laboratory Service from returns made by the Royal College of General Practitioners show that the present outbreak of flu and flu-like illnesses seems likely to be on the same scale as that which occurred in the winters of 1994 and 1996, although the figure may go higher. The figures reflect the increased number of people with flu-like symptoms who go to see their local GP. Until now, flu and flu-like illnesses have been worst in the west midlands and the north, but there have been sharp peaks elsewhere.

    The demand for ambulance and hospital services has shown a much larger increase, with daily ambulance journeys almost doubling in some places. Both the Merseyside and the Greater Manchester ambulance services saw the demand for ambulances shoot up to more than 1,000 journeys a day, compared with an average of 500 to 600. For the London ambulance service, this new year was the busiest on record with more than 4,700 journeys, compared with a daily average of 3,000.

    There have also been some tragic fatalities due to meningitis. I extend my sympathy to the families concerned. Parents are right to visit their family doctor to seek advice if they have concerns. In November, the chief medical officer advised general practitioners to refer suspected cases of meningitis promptly to hospital, and he will renew that advice.

    The national health service is better prepared than ever before to cope with those illnesses, and in most places hospitals have coped well with the pressures that they face. In August, I asked the NHS to prepare itself, to strengthen emergency and ambulance services, to make best use of the beds available, to improve discharge arrangements and to prevent unnecessary admissions to hospital in the first place. It has done so. Almost 2,200 schemes are under way nationally, backed by the £159 million announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor in the pre-Budget statement. Those include £750,000 to improve intensive and high-dependency care in London; £200,000 for one-stop clinics in Walsall; £175,000 for better home treatment and care in Leeds; £140,000 for a community-based phlebotomy service in Gloucestershire; and £45,000 to help prevent fractures among the elderly in Kent.

    In August, we also announced that GPs could this winter, for the first time, offer flu vaccinations to all their patients over 75, rather than confine vaccinations to ​ particularly vulnerable groups. As a result, a third of a million extra doses have been given this year compared with last, and vaccine remains available.

    We are tackling particular pressure points. Over the past week, those parts of the NHS that are suffering particular problems which could be helped by extra cash have been told that they can draw on the £50 million contingency fund, which is there for that purpose. In some places that will mean more high-dependency beds being provided to relieve pressure on intensive care beds.

    The position today is that 35 adult intensive care beds are free and available for use. The situation seems to be easing, but it could get worse again if icy weather were to lead to a lot of falls, particularly among the elderly. The NHS cannot be complacent. It is not, and I am not.

    I will not pretend that the NHS everywhere has coped as well as the public are entitled to expect. Such an increase in illness will always cause difficulties, but those difficulties have been made worse because of the serious underlying problems that we inherited. We inherited a rundown NHS with serious staff shortages. Many buildings are out of date, much equipment is old and unreliable, methods of working are not making best use of new technology—particularly information technology—and there are not enough staffed beds. The Government are getting a grip on the short-term consequences of those problems and are also laying longer-term foundations to build a modern and dependable NHS. Much of that work is already under way.

    One of the causes of the shortage of nurses is the cuts that the previous Government deliberately made in the number of nurses going into training, which fell from 15,000 a year at the time of the 1992 general election to fewer than 13,000 when they left office, having fallen at one point to 11,700. If they had not made those cuts, there could have been an extra 11,000 nurses available to the NHS today. It takes three years to train a nurse, so the country is paying a heavy price for those years of Tory neglect.

    This year, 15,500 nurse training places will be available and 2,500 more people are already in training compared with when we took over. As I have said before, we must also reform the system of nurse education and training, which the previous Government introduced in the 1980s. It has achieved some of its objectives, but its emphasis on the academic element has put off some potential recruits.

    Many nurses, when they qualify, think that they lack the practical skills necessary on a ward. The transfer of responsibility to the education sector from the health service has broken the old links between individual hospitals and nurses in training, to the disadvantage of both. Many nurses and nurse managers recognise the need for change, so I hope to carry the profession with us—but reform there must be.

    The previous Government refused, right up to the end, to recognise that there was a shortage of nurses. This Government recognise that reality and therefore training extra nurses is a major objective. We spelt that out in our evidence to the pay review body. This year, we also made it clear that the pay review body should give special attention to the pay of nurses in the lower grades. Like the nurses, we want reform of the present rigid grading structure and better career development prospects so that those vital staff have a modern, fair and flexible system for pay and promotion. I repeat my hope that the ​ independent pay review body will propose a settlement that is fair to nurses and midwives and which the Government will be able to implement in full.

    We are also addressing the concerns of qualified nurses who have left the NHS. We want to attract them back, not only with better pay, but with family friendly shift patterns and a better and safer working environment. If we are to retain existing staff, recruit new staff and persuade former staff to return, we must provide them all with the modern buildings, plant and equipment that they need. We have already embarked on the biggest hospital building programme in the history of the NHS, and there is more to come. High priorities for more small-scale investment include the replacement of outdated and unreliable equipment.

    Last September, the Prime Minister announced that the national lottery new opportunities fund would help to provide new and better equipment for the detection and treatment of cancer. He also announced that, from April, we would be investing £30 million to renew 25 per cent. of accident and emergency departments to make them better and safer for both patients and staff. Ambulance services will be given new control systems, new vehicles and new equipment. All those will help the NHS to cope better with winter pressures.

    New methods of working will also help. We launched three pilot schemes in Newcastle, Preston and Milton Keynes to test NHS Direct, a nurse-led 24-hour helpline. The schemes have been a great success: providing advice and reassurance round the clock, they have been very popular with patients, and have had a positive impact in helping them to look after themselves and reducing unnecessary calls on other services. Over Christmas and the new year, NHS Direct pilots took almost double their usual number of calls—itself an indication of the upsurge in illness. After receiving advice from the nurse to whom they spoke, about half the patients with flu symptoms were able to look after themselves. That shows how the NHS is delivering new and better services, and it is being extended to the rest of the country.

    With the special investment of £44 million that we have provided, NHS Direct has already been extended to the west midlands, where it took more than 1,150 calls in its first week of operation. By April this year, it will cover more than 20 million people in the west country, Manchester, south London, west London, Essex, Nottinghamshire and other places: over 40 per cent. of the population. That will provide a new and better service for patients and at the same time help people to avoid resorting unnecessarily to GPs, the 999 service or their local hospitals.

    Finally, there is the question of beds. Under the last Government, the number of acute beds was reduced by 40,000 and the number of general beds by a further 23,000. In September I announced a review of beds in the health service—of the number of beds involved, the sort of beds and where they should be. Preliminary work for the review suggests, not surprisingly, that the health service needs more beds. Our extra investment in the NHS over the next three years will ensure that we can respond rapidly when we have the final report.

    Then there is the question of intensive care and high-dependency beds. Soon after taking office, on the advice of the specialists in children’s intensive care, I authorised a shift of extra funds from the paperwork of ​ GP fundholding to children’s intensive care, and the concentration of the service in regional and sub-regional centres, with special arrangements for retrieval of very sick children by specially trained and specially equipped staff. As a result of the additional investment, the service can now provide up to 300 children’s intensive care beds, very specialist new-born babies’ beds and high-dependency beds. The new system has been working well, but recently there was an unacceptable delay in dispatching an ambulance from Nottingham to Rotherham. In the light of that experience, I have insisted that each children’s intensive care unit, with its local ambulance service, must review its arrangements to ensure that it is possible to stabilise and transfer very sick children safely and promptly.

    Intensive and high-dependency care beds are vital to the treatment of many people who have had operations, as well as accident and emergency cases. They demand huge resources. Intensive care is not just a matter of a bed and some specialist equipment. To care properly for one patient for one day in intensive care can require the services of around six specialist nurses as well as specialist intensive care doctors, anaesthetists and others.

    Previously, the overall level and availability of intensive and high-dependency care has not had the attention that it deserves. That is why the Audit Commission is co-operating with the national health service and the Intensive Care Society to carry out a detailed study of the operation of intensive and high-dependency care in the NHS. I hope that that will provide a sound basis on which to plan for better services. I am also reviewing the role of the emergency bed service and of the national intensive care bed register. None of that is a criticism of the people working in those services—more than anyone else, they want the system to be modernised.

    It has always been a source of pride in our country that, when difficulties crop up, people rally round to help and they have certainly done so on this occasion. I thank them all. In particular, I thank Dr. Ian Bogle, chairman of the British Medical Association, for his repeated advice to the public that normally healthy adults should use services in a considerate and responsible way.

    From next April, for the first time in 20 years the NHS will operate on a budget entirely set by a Labour Government. It will benefit from the first stage of our £21 billion extra investment. In the meantime, I know that people realise that, when so many people suddenly fall sick, as they have in some places recently, it is inevitable that treatment and care cannot be as prompt as at other times. I want to ensure that we provide the people who work in the NHS with sufficient tools and resources to ensure that the impact is much less in future.

    Over the past few weeks, nurses, doctors, midwives, health visitors, cleaners, kitchen staff, managers, porters, ambulance staff, laboratory scientists, therapists, pharmacists, telephonists, clerical, administrative and maintenance staff and social services staff have all performed wonders on our behalf when their own ranks have been severely depleted by the same illnesses that are affecting the rest of us. Many of them have kept on working while “under the weather” themselves. Many ​ have returned early from leave to help their colleagues. Others have cancelled leave that they planned to take. I thank them all. They have done us proud.

  • David Taylor – 1999 Speech on School Governing Bodies

    Below is the text of the speech made by David Taylor, the then Labour MP for North West Leicestershire, in the House of Commons on 11 January 1999.

    As a parent of four daughters in full-time education and as one who was once employed in the profession, it has been a pleasure and a privilege for me to be a member of school governing bodies in north-west Leicestershire for more than 20 years. However, there is no comparison between those early years as a governor and now, and nor would I ever want to return to them. The role of governing bodies has changed completely following the implementation of local management of schools introduced by the Education Reform Act 1988. Every survey of governors since then has revealed the great time commitment that the job now involves and has referred to the paper mountain from central and local government and from the schools themselves.

    I am delighted that the Minister for School Standards, my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Ms Morris), is replying to the debate. Since her election to the House, she has used her 18 years as a teaching professional to excellent effect and she is widely respected in the world of education. She knows only too well the impact on governors of the huge changes in the culture of education during the past decade or so.

    In the debate on the education White Paper, my hon. Friend said:

    “We recognise the important role of governors… I am afraid that we have put a further burden on them… When the relationship between the governing body and the school is right, it is a tower of strength for the good of the children. When it is not right and when governors feel that they are burdened down with paperwork, it is a matter for concern.”—[Official Report, 18 July 1997; Vol. 298, c. 656.]

    In my visits last year to all schools in north-west Leicestershire, it was clear to me that the Government have every right to be concerned. The chairs of governors of those schools—mainly village primaries—often said that they were drowning in a sea of paper. I requested this debate in an attempt to raise the profile of the issues.

    Nationally, there are more than 300,000 governors and they are a huge and valuable resource. However, there is a risk that, as unpaid volunteers, they are being taken for granted and overwhelmed by consultation papers and new duties. Members of all governing bodies are increasingly concerned about the layer upon layer of additional responsibility and work that is being placed upon lay governors. Governors are unpaid volunteers: although they can reclaim expenses for expenditure incurred on behalf of the school, few do so because they are concerned about additional costs on already stretched school budgets. It might seem surprising, but many new governors are still not aware of the commitment and responsibilities that come with being a governor, while more experienced governors feel that they cannot commit more and more time to doing justice to their role. Recently, there has been a much higher turnover of governors in my part of the world, and we are not unique.

    The issue is not merely the call on the time of governors—time which so far has been willingly and freely given: there is an enormous information overload. ​ The continuing inflow of documents for the attention of chairs and members of governing bodies is reaching alarming proportions and is a disincentive for people either to take on, or to continue with, the role of governor. A cursory glance at the commitments for school responses in Leicestershire last term, and for some due early in the current term, reveals eight major consultations by the local education authority: on educational development, lifelong learning, behaviour support, nutritional standards for school meals, fair funding, key stage 1 class sizes, the new deal for schools and early-years child care. Soon, the LEA will be required to hold consultations on asset management, youth work, school organisation, special educational needs provision, youth and community education review, fair funding from April 2000 and the LEA Ofsted action plan. The Minister will appreciate what a daunting agenda that is for governing bodies and head teachers.

    I do not criticise the LEAs; they are carrying out statutory responsibilities to consult and would be acting illegally if they did not do so. Central support staff in local authorities are as overwhelmed by those requirements as are governors and school staff. However, at the rate that we are going, something will have to give.

    I have referred to the particular pressures of time and to the immense information overload for governors. I now turn to the issue of responsibilities. The increased responsibility in many areas requires a range and level of professionalism and expertise that few lay individuals can reasonably be expected to have. However, what is frequently demanded of governors, especially those who are chairs of governing bodies, now includes the setting of staff pay and conditions, professional development interviews and appraisal of head teachers, and, most importantly, the health and safety legal requirements. Following the delegation of health and safety issues to schools, governors have a corporate responsibility for health and safety regulation and non-compliance might constitute a criminal act that can carry severe penalties.

    I have always supported increased freedom for governors in relation to schools and recognise that it brings increased responsibility. I believe that most governors are content to accept that responsibility. However, they are volunteers and they require training and support. Local education authorities are under a specific duty to provide governor training. In Leicestershire, that is very well handled within the limited resources available, but that is not necessarily the case elsewhere. One of the difficulties in providing up-to-date and effective training and support is that guidance material on recent educational initiatives is not as full or as available as would be ideal, nor are the resources typically available to LEAs for such matters anywhere near the levels necessary to help optimise governors’ contributions to driving up standards.

    The three key roles of governors remain to provide a strategic view, to act as a critical friend and to ensure accountability. The day-to-day pressures are such that the urgent can too often drive out the important. It is easy to forget that one’s original intention was to drain the swamp when one is up to one’s ears in alligators. Many of the extra pressures on governors that I have described developed in the years following the Education Reform Act 1988, but the past 20 months have posed additional challenges for school governing bodies through the major new duties placed on them.

    The Labour Government brought into force certain provisions of the previous Government’s Education Act 1997. The new duties now placed on governing bodies include the requirement to make arrangements to adopt a baseline assessment scheme for pupils entering primary education. Governing bodies must now adopt curriculum tests and public examination schemes with locally defined annual targets. There is a new duty on governing bodies and head teachers to provide careers education in years 9 to 11.

    Finally, under the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, governing bodies are required to ensure that schools meet limits on the size of infant classes; they must conduct the school with a view to promoting higher standards of educational achievement; they must have regard to guidance issued by the Secretary of State on determining the capability of members of staff; they must set annual school attendance targets; they must adopt a home-school agreement and take reasonable steps to ensure that the parental declaration relating to such agreements is signed by every parent; and they must ensure that any school lunches comply with regulations prescribing nutritional standards.

    There is an additional duty, to which I have already referred, relating to health and safety of persons on school premises, or taking part in any school activities elsewhere. A recent tragedy in Leicestershire underlines the importance of that new responsibility. I have outlined only a few of the new duties to illustrate the extra challenges posed for governors.

    Notwithstanding the changing priorities and despite the limitations on time and resources, the predominant role of any school governing body should be a strategic one. Governors constantly strive to establish high expectations, challenge complacency and provide a practical policy framework within which the school can thrive. However, the key to that is surely to have every post on the governing body filled, some continuity of local and national policies and properly resourced support from the LEA or school.

    Governing is a commitment which, if carried out properly, consumes many hours of precious time. Governors are expected to share responsibility for the safe and efficient running of the school. Many governors are in full-time employment and find it difficult to persuade their employers to allow them time away from work to fulfil their widening duties. Some governors have to use days from their precious annual holidays to do that, which compromises their commitments to their own families.

    At local schools, governor visits are often used to monitor and evaluate curricular work in the school—in my area, the literacy hour is under review this year. Monitoring and evaluating the curriculum is an area in which governors often feel out of their depth. It is very time consuming if it is to be done properly.

    The pressures on chairs of governors are heavy; at different times, I was chair of a small village primary school and of a large upper school. As chair, one’s work load is clearly much larger than that of other governors. One is in daily contact with the head teacher to give support, with frequent meetings to discuss special needs, budgets and new directives, to fill in consultation documents, or to consider admissions. The chair probably tries to summarise all the documents coming into the school to make things easier for the other governors. One must often produce much of the governors’ report to ​ parents and write letters to the local authority when one does not agree with its decisions. One must make and consider suggestions for the school’s development plan—the list goes on.

    I loved the role of chair of governors: it was one of the most interesting voluntary jobs that I have ever done. However, the calls on time and energy can become wholly unreasonable. We are rapidly reaching the position where future candidates for the chair will come only from the ranks of the retired, the unemployed, or those with some other means.
    I remember that Sir Ron Dearing recommended that schools should be allowed to work in peace for at least five years.

    That would have given governors and teachers time to consolidate and improve the new skills that they had had to acquire during the previous 10 years. No one expects the world to stop for them, however, especially when social and economic change is so rapid. Our new Government, with an ambitious agenda to fulfil, produced even more pressure. I was delighted that our top campaign priority was education and that education is a main focus of our actions in government. Nevertheless, we absolutely must carry governors with us. The voluntary commitment of governors is already heavy and the hours are extensive. Many governors feel that even more delegation is undesirable and that governing bodies have been given enough powers and responsibilities to absorb. More paid staff, either in schools or in LEAs, are required to support the governor’s role.

    When it was known that I had been successful in securing the debate, I received some feedback from local governors with a substantial number of letters, faxes, phone calls and visits from schools in the county of Leicestershire. We should bear in mind that many of those people have performed that role for a decade and more. They have experienced all the changes made by successive Governments and are not harking back to some illusory golden era of governing. I shall quote briefly from that correspondence. The chair of governors at a small village primary school says:

    “We are now implementing the various initiatives detailed in the School Standards and Framework Act. I am increasingly concerned that the governor work load is going to become prohibitive. In addition, the increase in governor responsibility and accountability does not seem commensurate with the voluntary nature of serving as a school governor.

    I do not think that remuneration for governors—as has been suggested occasionally—is the answer. I do, however, feel that governors are becoming a free substitute for the education authority professionals who are rapidly disappearing as more and more services and administration are devolved into schools.

    Aside from the increased role of governors, this devolution of services puts extreme pressure on the staff of small schools.”

    A second letter states:

    “It is slightly alarming to note the rapid way in which the role of school governor has changed over the last year—it may be increasingly difficult to find people who are willing to take on this job in the future.”

    Another letter says:

    “I have been Chair of a local primary school for the past 18 months. During this time, we as a governing body have seen the amount of our work load increase tremendously. The sheer weight of documentation that comes through from the DfEE and the LEA is such that I do not have time to read it all… I am aware that many of my colleagues find themselves equally beleaguered. We ​ find ourselves having to concentrate on the everyday issues of running the school rather than focusing on strategic issues and those directly affecting the children within our school.

    I became a governor because I cared about my children’s education. I now find myself dealing with a whole array of issues which have little or nothing to do with that education.

    I have to take responsibility for keeping them warm, safe, fed and partially educated at home. The balance of their education should be provided at school but governors cannot focus on that crucial part because they are too engrossed in the new bureaucracy of governor accountability. Frankly, it is labour on the cheap. Please help”.

    I pass on to my hon. Friend the Minister that poignant and heartfelt plea.

    As a governor in and the Member of Parliament for a constituency containing 50 schools and 12,000 children, I urge the Minister to recognise governors’ problems and give them encouragement about the Government’s support for them and reassurance about their future role. The weight of work and worry that we are transferring to volunteer governors seems neither sensible nor sustainable. We cannot go on like this.

    I am grateful to the Whips for carving out so much time for the Minister to respond to a crucial issue. I look forward to her speech with great interest.

  • Oliver Lyttelton – 1943 Speech on War Production Plans

    Below is the text of the speech made by Oliver Lyttelton, the then Minister of Production, in the House of Commons on 19 January 1943.

    I should like to take this, which’ is the earliest, opportunity of making a short statement to the House about our war production plans for 1943, and particularly about certain developments taking place, which might otherwise lead to misunderstanding in industry and elsewhere. Nineteen forty-three will be a peak year in our war production; and the total labour force employed in the munitions industries during the year will considerably exceed the numbers employed in 1942. In order to obtain the additional labour force required and at the same time to satisfy the requirements of the Forces, there will have to be, by means of concentration or otherwise, further withdrawals of labour from the less essential industries and further mobilisation of women into industry, both for munitions work and as replacements for those transferred from the less essential industries. At the same time transfers of labour within the munition industries themselves must take place. In 1943 our plans demand that the increased emphasis should be placed on the manufacture of ships, of aircraft, of anti-U-boat devices, of tanks, and of certain specialised types of Army equipment. There are other types of equipment where the production ​ and the stocks which we have accumulated are already very great. In these cases we can afford, and it is necessary, to plan reductions in our programmes. In this way we shall achieve the requisite increase in output of weapons of all classes needed for maximum impact on the enemy during 1943.

    Managers and workers who are affected by the changes in programmes which I have just described must realise that, notwithstanding any temporary dislocation that may occur, these changes are part of an ordered plan. If men and women find themselves being transferred to new work they will understand that it is because the new work is even more vitally important than that upon which they were previously engaged. If there is some temporary dislocation to management or to labour, the great and insistent demand for man and woman-power will quickly reabsorb them into new activities.

    I would appeal to Members of this House, whose influence can be of so much importance in their constituencies, as well as to the managements of all companies, to give every assistance to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour and National Service in his difficult task, by explaining to their workpeople why the changes are necessary. If they are understood, doubt and uncertainty will not occur. In conclusion, I would emphasise that the number affected by these changes will, by comparison with the total number engaged, be small; for, as I have said, the coming year will be a peak year in our war production, and the total numbers employed as a whole will be much greater than in 1942. In short, while our plans necessitate certain changes in the production lines, the total volume of output must mount steadily. I am confident of our ability to achieve these objectives.

    Mr. Stokes

    Will the right hon. Gentleman take an early opportunity of informing the House more precisely as to the Government’s intentions with regard to the production of tanks, and particularly tank engines, and has he anything to tell the House about his visit to the United States?

    Mr. Lyttelton

    I will certainly take an early opportunity if one is offered to me.

    Sir H. Williams

    As it is proposed that we should discuss this matter in Secret ​ Session on the next two Sitting Days, and as the Minister has appealed to us to explain to our constituents what it is all about, shall we not be put into a very difficult position if we do not abandon the plan for a Secret Session? The vagueness of the Minister’s statement passes comprehension. If it is to be explained in Secret Session, Members will be in an impossible position.

    Mr. Lyttelton

    The reason I made this statement is so that the information should be made public.

    Mr. Bellenger

    Will the right hon. Gentleman elucidate further the question of whether these plans contemplate substantial transference of labour from one locality to another, or whether the reorganisation will take place only in the existing factories?

    Mr. Lyttelton

    There will be a certain transference from one part of the country to another; but the object, naturally, is to reduce that to a minimum. The transference to which I am referring is from one side of munitions production to another.

    Mr. James Griffiths

    As I gather that the proposals the Minister has outlined involve fairly substantial transfers of labour from one industry to another, might I ask whether that policy has been considered by the trade unions?

    Mr. Lyttelton

    Yes, Sir.

    Mr. Griffiths

    And agreed?

    Mr. Lyttelton

    The Government, I think, must be the judges of what types of munitions are to be made; but the fullest consultation has taken place regarding these transfers, and every effort will be made to effect them with the least possible dislocation.

    Mr. Simmonds

    Would my right hon. Friend repeat the assurance which he gave to the House before Christmas, that in the case of vital war industries the Minister of National Service would not remove men and women from the industries where the Supply Departments concerned stated that the production in those units was essential? [HON. MEMBERS: “Answer.”] This is a very vital point. Will my right hon. Friend confirm the assurance that he gave the House in previous circumstances, before Christmas, that the Minister of National Service will not remove from essential ​ war work men and women for transfer unless the Supply Department interested in the production of the undertaking concerned has been consulted and has confirmed the view that the change is in the national interest?

    Mr. Lyttelton

    Certainly, I can give that general assurance.

    Sir Irving Albery

    Is my right hon. Friend aware that the workers readily make any sacrifice which is called for, provided that there is a proper measure of equality in the sacrifice, but that there are at present considerable grievances about transfer, in respect both of pay and of hours, and will he have that matter looked into?

    Mr. Lyttelton

    We have that particular point very much in mind. I am afraid there will occasionally be inequalities.

    Mr. Kirkwood

    The Minister asked Members of Parliament to use their influence in their constituencies, because, as he forecast, there was bound to be trouble when he started to shift men and women from one district to another. Is he aware that the Minister of Labour is introducing the opposite policy, of saying—and saying to me in particular time and again—”Do not interfere at all; leave it to the trade union movement.” But I have settled disputes which the trade union movement have failed to check. What is the policy of the Government? Is it to allow themselves to be saddled with a dictatorship by the Minister of Labour, who is trying to push his cause? [Interruption.] I know what I am up against, and I am prepared to face even the Minister of Labour. This is a very serious business—very serious for me, because I have been a member of my trade union for 50 years, although not a paid trade union agitator. Is the policy of the Government the policy that the Minister of Labour tries to lay down, that Members of Parliament who are members of trade unions should not use their influence to get things put right? Is the Minister still in favour of our using the House of Commons, which I hope is still the most important body in this country? I will use it to fight for my class.

    Mr. Lyttelton

    On this matter I take a very simple view. The policy of the Government is to make the right weapons and at the same time to transfer labour with ​ as little disturbance as possible from one district to another. The statement which I have just read to the House was agreed upon with the Minister of Labour. It is a perfectly simple matter, and I asked Members of the House to explain in the country that, owing to the existence of stocks and so forth, some quite drastic changes in our production lines were about to take place.

  • Dennis Herbert – 1943 Resignation Statement

    Below is the text of the speech made by Sir Dennis Herbert, the then Conservative MP for Watford, in the House of Commons on 19 January 1943.

    Mr. Speaker, with your permission and the assent of the House, I have a brief statement to make. As the Chairman of Ways and Means and Chairman of Committees, and being an officer of the House elected by the House, it is to the House that I should submit, as I now do, my resignation of that post. I should like first of all to dispose of one, fortunately mistaken, idea which has got into the Press in some quarters, namely, that I am doing this on the ground of ill-health. It is true that I had a bad illness not long ago, but if the House will pardon this personal matter, I am glad to be able to say that my doctor tells me that there is no reason of that kind why I should not continue in the exacting post which I have held, and I hope I may have a further useful time yet in the future.

    But there may be various reasons, some good, some less good, why I should take this course. One reason if good and sufficient is all that is required, and that one reason I venture to give—the one which has weighed with me. The history of the House of Commons has been one of constant change over the centuries. At this time of world upheaval and, we hope, of subsequent reconstruction, there must be big changes in the near future in the methods and procedure of the House, and in those changes, if I am not mistaken, two matters will be particularly affected—one the procedure in Committees of the Whole House, including the Committees of Supply and of Ways and Means, and the other in the arrangements regarding Private Bill legislation, which, as the House will recollect, is practically in the management of the Chairman of ​ Ways and Means. Those changes must take time, and, fit as I may feel at the present time, I should not be justified, and the House would not feel justified, in feeling confident that I should be equally fit to go on with that work until those changes are completed. It is highly undesirable that when changes of that kind are in progress one of the persons principally concerned should suddenly become unable or inefficient to carry on that work. Under those circumstances the House, I feel, would be very well advised to find as a Chairman a Member who can, with greater confidence than in my case, be regarded as likely to see all those changes completed. I am happy to say that the Prime Minister permits me to say that the course I am adopting has his approval.

    There remains one duty for me to do, and that is to express my gratitude to the House for their kindness to me during the whole of the time I have held this office. It has been particularly pleasing to me that among some of my best friends in the House are some of those to whom I have been most deaf, most blind, or whose eloquent speeches I have been obliged to torpedo at their first start. It shows the general good nature and good will which have always been a distinguishing feature of this House, and I am grateful. Mr. Speaker, if I may say so with respect, I could not have served under anyone more pleasing to serve under than yourself, and I must mention, too, my right hon. and gallant Friend the Deputy-Chairman (Colonel Clifton Brown), who, as I think the House will agree, has justified most thoroughly the choice which was made when our late good friend Captain Bourne left us. Mr. Speaker, I thank the House, and I am grateful to them for having listened to me.

  • Anthony Eden – 1943 Speech on David Lloyd George’s 80th Birthday

    Anthony Eden – 1943 Speech on David Lloyd George’s 80th Birthday

    Below is the text of the speech made by Anthony Eden, the then Conservative Leader of the House, in the House of Commons on 19 January 1943.

    The House will feel that we cannot this day pass to our ordinary Business without taking note of an event which marks for this House a historic and an intimately personal occasion. On behalf of every hon. Member of this House I offer to my right hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvon Boroughs (Mr. Lloyd George) our congratulations and our heartfelt wishes on his 80th birthday. This is no time to attempt a detailed review of his services. They are world wide, and they were rendered to mankind. To-day we salute him not only as the dominant statesman of his generation, not only as the man who led this country through a period of storm and stress like unto that through which we now strive, but, more than all these things, we salute him as a great House of Commons man. For over half-a-century he has been a champion in our midst. Neither his courage nor his resilience has ever failed him. He has needed both, because he has given hard blows and taken them. To-day we regard him with pride and with affection, and we, each one of us, hope that he will be spared for many years to teach us wisdom, to guide us and, if need be, to drive us along the path that we should tread.

    Hon. Members

    Hear, hear.

    Mr. Lloyd George

    I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his observations and for his felicitations. I thank him all the more because I was not given any notice ​ of his intention. It is very kind of him to have made these observations, and I thank him for them. I also thank my fellow Members of the House of Commons for the reception which they have afforded me to-day. Among all my recollections of the last 80 years there is none of which I am prouder than the fact that I have for 53 years been a Member of this honoured and this great Assembly. I thank the House of Commons and the right hon. Gentleman too.

  • John McDonnell – 2019 Speech in Birmingham

    John McDonnell – 2019 Speech in Birmingham

    Below is the text of the speech made by John McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, in Birmingham on 4 December 2019.

    On Monday night I watched the Dispatches programme “Growing Up Poor.” If you haven’t seen it yet please do so. It portrays starkly what nearly 10 years of austerity has resulted in for too many families in our country.

    The precarious insecure existence so many families face in our society means that all it takes is one mishap, an illness, a death or family breakdown and families are pushed over the edge.

    Watching children showing us that they had no food in their home, going to bed cold, wearing their clothes in bed to keep warm, raiding their piggy bank to find some money for their mum to pay the meter for the electricity to boil the water for their hot water bottles. Parents struggling with stress and mental health problem.

    And, yes the wonderful spirit of the children as they help the marvellous but overstretched volunteers at the food bank.

    The remarkable story of the programme was that these were families living in wealthy towns like Cambridge.

    On Tuesday a new Shelter report also found 135,000 children will be without a home this Christmas.

    On the same day an analysis by the Equality Trust showed the UK’s six richest people control as much wealth as the poorest 13 million. It all went to show just how unequal our society is.

    It’s three weeks to Christmas. The celebration of the birth of Jesus. Children going hungry and homeless in the 5th largest economy in the world begs the question:

    “Are we really living up to the values of Christianity or any other of our religions or beliefs for that matter?”

    What Dispatches showed was what happens when a family is forced to rely upon a safety net that in reality barely exists. We don’t believe it’s enough to offer people a hand up out of poverty. We want to abolish poverty. That’s why we committed in our manifesto to abolishing in-work poverty within five years. And it’s why we’re replacing the Social Mobility Commission with a Social Justice Commission, because unlike the Tories we don’t believe in tolerating poverty so long as a lucky few can escape it.

    I want to thank Lyn Brown for everything she’s done in the Shadow Treasury Team to push that agenda forward. But the problem of a steeply rising cost of living over the last 10 years is an issue faced by most within our country. It isn’t just a small number of families hit by stagnant wages and rising bills. But the majority of people in our community.

    Labour has published today a report setting out the cost to most, of the nearly 10 years of the Conservatives in government and the policies of privatisation under successive Conservative governments. Going all the way back to the Thatcher and Major administrations selling off our nation’s public utilities and natural assets. ‘The family silver’ – as a former Conservative Prime Minister called it.

    Profiteering through privatisation and the Conservatives’ failure to curb rising bills has cost families nearly £6000 a year since 2010. While wages are still lower than before the financial crash, inaction and economic mismanagement by the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats over the past decade has meant the cost of living for millions of households has soared.

    In our exciting Manifesto launched two weeks ago, Labour set out its plan for real change. Change that will help tackle that burden of rising living costs. How can we do that? After nearly ten years during which it’s seemed impossible that anything might change. I’ll tell you where it starts. It starts with adopting the principle of “do no harm”. “At least don’t make things worse.” So we’ll scrap Universal Credit, stopping its roll-out and putting in place a package of fixes while we design a replacement that’s fit for purpose.

    Of course that won’t help everyone. We need to raise wages across the country so people don’t need to rely on Universal Credit. That starts with our Real Living Wage – £10 an hour, straight away, for everyone over 16. An average pay rise of up to £6,000 a year. A pay rise for 7 and a half million people.

    For public sector workers, it’s a boost of 5% in the first year of a Labour Government. For others, it’s bringing in trade union bargaining across the economy, to raise wages everywhere. Ending bogus self-employment and investing across the UK in good, sustainable jobs in the industries of the future. A high-wage society is the building block of our vision for a better, more inclusive economy.

    But higher wages are no good if the cost of living continues to race away. The Tories and Liberal Democrats have said they’re opposed to public ownership; they’re prepared to tell voters they’re wrong to want control over the essentials of our economy. But their ideological objections have real consequences.

    Our proposals to bring the major energy companies into public ownership has been independently estimated to save an average of £142 a year, While our proposals to retrofit almost every home in the country would slash the average household bill by over £400 a year. Getting rid of the dividends being paid out, the overpaid management and the financial speculators isn’t just the right thing to do. It doesn’t just return the essentials of life to people’s hands. It will save you money as soon as Labour get into government and make it happen.

    No wonder the privatisation fat-cats are scaremongering with their threats of legal action.

    But that’s not the end of it either. Because you’ve heard the Tories and Liberal Democrats over recent weeks telling you that the essentials of life can’t be provided free at the point of use, paid for through taxation. And you’re a dreamer if you think otherwise. The same people whose political ancestors would have laughed at the idea of free healthcare, free roads or education are now telling you that we can’t possibly provide free social care, prescriptions or childcare.

    Of course these things need to be paid for. In the Labour Party we know that: our members and supporters are the people who provide the care, who look after our young people, and who dispense those prescriptions. Of course they need paying for. But we believe in a fair society, we don’t leave them to the market so those with the most can afford them while others can’t.

    That’s why Labour has a fair approach to tax: raising income tax rates for the top 5% while closing loopholes and taxing income from wealth the same as that from work.

    And what a difference that could make. Paying for free childcare – saving on average almost £3,000 a year per child. Providing free school meals for all primary school children, saving parents over £400 and ensuring that no child struggles to concentrate because of hunger. Paying for the personal care that we or our family members might need in old age If you or someone in your family needs care at home, that could mean a saving of over £7,000 a year. Paying for a reduction in rail fares, to keep the cost of living down and encourage more people onto public transport. And paying for free prescriptions, saving those with monthly prescriptions over a hundred pounds a year.

    We estimate that – just looking at some of our policies – Labour’s plan for real change could save families over £6,700 a year. And that’s before we start talking about righting the injustice done to women born in the 1950s. Something the Tories will also tell you they can’t afford, despite all the billions handed out in tax cuts to the rich and big corporations.

    Labour’s plans to transform our society – to create a society based on reducing costs and raising wages by working together – are based upon laying the foundations of a new economy. The scale of the reforms we pledge to introduce is significant because the challenges we face are significant.

    The question asked of us is whether the level of change we aspire to is achievable.

    Nearly ten years of Conservative and Lib Dem governments imposing austerity on our society has limited some people’s ambitions for our country’s future. It’s understandable that confidence in the potential for a better future has been damaged by a Conservative political narrative that has undermined the hope that things can change. That’s why for those of us, who believe that real change is not only necessary but readily achievable, we need to spell out in detail how concretely, step by step that change can be brought about.

    We have done that, through our Manifesto and our Grey Book. And I’ll be saying even more about that theme in the days ahead. So that before polling day people will know not just what we want to achieve. But also just how we are going to achieve it.

    This election campaign began for me in Liverpool, the city of my birth. Only last week, the people of that city were forced to relive again the trauma of the Hillsborough Disaster. The memory of a previous Conservative government and how it treated the north, midlands, Wales and Scotland – football fans, and the working class.

    I remember the Hillsborough Tragedy like it was yesterday. I remember the brave campaigners who have fought for justice ever since. And I remember how my best friend, Jeremy Corbyn, one of the bravest of politicians, stood up for them, fighting for justice for those denied it.

    Those killed and then lied about at Hillsborough – including by the Prime Minister in his days as a journalist.

    People need to remember what the Conservatives have done to us over the decades.

    Those who had their communities deliberately smashed apart by the Conservative Party and were lied about during the Miners’ Strike.

    Over the years as I’ve worked with Jeremy – over all the times he has taken a stand, been denounced and then been proven right. I’ve seen one thing consistently: the way he supports others to turn their hopes into reality. We’re seeing that now with the rising stars of the Shadow Cabinet; the future leaders of our country.

    And giving power to others is at the heart of the society we’ll start to forge in just over a week’s time. Some have said we’re too ambitious, that there’s no way we can achieve everything we’re promising. They may have forgotten or not even heard about the Attlee Labour government which, after the Second World War when the country was virtually bankrupt, took back control of our economy, brought key utilities and industries into public ownership, created the NHS and welfare state.

    Well they also said Jeremy couldn’t become Leader of the Labour Party. They said we’d be annihilated in the 2017 election. They say there’s no alternative. They say – or at least the Prime Minister does – that the working class are drunk, criminal and feckless.

    It’s hardly surprising they don’t want to see power put into people’s hands away from the bankers who fund the Tory Party. That they mock the intelligence or the capability of ordinary people to run things. And beneath the short-term Brexit bluster it’s the same old message:

    “Nothing can change

    “Nothing will change

    “A better world isn’t possible”

    We know that’s not true.

    Things can, and will, change. We’re ready to make that change with a fully worked-out programme to give everyone control over the decisions that affect their lives. Not just the lucky few.

    The next week is decisive.

    On December 13th we can wake up to years more Brexit chaos, of Donald Trump dictating the terms of our trading future, while our economy with “baked in” austerity, according to the IFS, sees public services sink even further into neglect.

    Or we can start the task of putting right the mistakes of the past, rebuilding Britain from the bottom up. That will only happen under a Labour Government. And all of us here today will give everything we’ve got in the coming days to make that happen.

    For those families and children whose Christmas dinner will be from the food bank this year and who are homeless and have no permanent secure home.

    We’ll give them a Christmas present that will transform their lives.

    A Labour government.

  • John McDonnell – 2019 Speech on First 100 Days of a Labour Government

    John McDonnell – 2019 Speech on First 100 Days of a Labour Government

    Below is the text of the speech made by John McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, on 9 December 2019.

    Only three weeks ago Jeremy Corbyn launched our manifesto. The most inspiring manifesto of any election I’ve ever stood in. Since then we’ve won the debate out there in the country.

    First the Tories denied they were brutally slashing our public services, then they admitted it but said it was necessary, now Boris Johnson has admitted austerity was wrong… while promising in their manifesto to continue it for five more years.

    As the IFS said about the Conservatives’ Manifesto, it has austerity “baked in.” So we’ve won the argument for our vision of a brighter, fairer, more sustainable future.

    A future in which all can share – not just a lucky few. But some say it can’t be done, that we’re too ambitious.

    Ten years of Tory austerity, of undermining any hope of change, have had their effect: of limiting people’s horizons and the potential for real change.

    So let me be crystal clear about this – we’re setting our sights higher than any opposition party has ever done before. And we’re doing that because we have to.

    Because the scale of the challenge is greater than ever.

    To rebuild the shattered communities and public services from the wreckage which the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have created over the past ten years.

    While at the same time we’ve got no time to lose.

    If we are going to stop the climate emergency becoming something even worse, any future General Election will be too late. We need to start this week, and we need to start together.

    Only a Labour government will mobilise the necessary resources and put communities, which the Tories have held down for so long, at the heart of our plan to rebuild Britain.

    And of course that ambition needs to be matched by a plan. So I’ve been meeting with Shadow Cabinet colleagues for months now, drawing up detailed plans for their department budgets, talking to them about their priorities. And working up draft plans to hand to the civil servants on Friday.

    So let me now set out my priorities for my first hundred days in the Treasury and how we’ll put power and wealth into the hands of those who create it.

    Firstly, the next few years are vital if we are to tackle the climate and environmental emergency, and doing that will mean getting money moving out of the City and Whitehall into the places that need it.

    We’ve wasted ten years of the Tories serving the interests of big polluters. And in too many parts of the country, we have been wasting people’s potential for much longer. That’s down to successive governments sitting back and leaving the fate of whole communities at the mercy of market forces.

    Good jobs and whole industries that were once the pride of our country have been lost and replaced with dreary, exploitative, insecure and low paid jobs, or in some cases no jobs at all. No wonder people feel disillusioned in politicians.

    As our manifesto makes clear, turning these two things around will be our number one priority in government. Our Green Industrial Revolution will deliver the changes we need to avert climate catastrophe.

    And it will put British industry back on the map, bringing prosperity to every part of our country. It will give every community something to be proud of.

    The pride that comes with an honest day’s work, yes, but also more than that. The pride of being on the right side in this crucial moment of human history. The pride, quite literally, of helping to save the planet.

    A few weeks ago I launched our regional manifestos setting out how every single part of the country will be part of our Green Industrial Revolution. They set out a plan to expand and create new industries in each region.

    The first priority of a Labour Government will be getting investment going to make this happen. We’ll set up our National Transformation Unit immediately – before Christmas – so it can start work in the Treasury, before being moved out to its new office in the north of England early next year.

    It will provide the initial finance for our new National Investment Bank, regional development banks and Post Bank, using the power of the Treasury to get affordable finance onto every high street in Britain.

    We’ve already started our meetings with the Treasury, they are working up plans and getting ready to implement all this. So don’t be fooled by the doubters who say our plans are unachievable.

    A decade of austerity, and forty years of believing the market knows best, have dulled people’s sense of what’s possible, just as they were intended to do.

    That’s why – if we are to help make hope real again – we need to remake government, and what people expect from it.

    We’re creating new institutions – institutions that will become a normal part of people’s lives, like the NHS. Institutions that we will come to cherish and rely on, like the NHS.

    And, like the NHS, institutions that will only be set up under a Labour government.

    Central among those institutions will be publicly-owned and democratically run utilities, because when Labour put money in your pockets, we will also put power back in your hands.

    In the last election our manifesto was leaked by someone who thought public ownership would be unpopular. It turned out to be something that unites people right across Britain, young and old, Leave and Remain. And that’s not surprising when you think about it.

    Even the Financial Times has conceded that privatisation was an organised rip off. People are fed up of paying higher bills just so that money can be siphoned off by shareholders, but they are also fed up of feeling like they’ve lost control over their lives.

    This isn’t just a feeling. Thanks to privatisation and outsourcing and offshoring and similar initiatives pursued by the Thatcher Government since in the name of market efficiency, more and more aspects of our lives are shaped by remote corporate interests over which we have little control.

    The second key priority for me and a Labour Government will be to change that.

    When we win power it will be to give it to you, because we believe in democracy and we believe in you.

    Since we first put public ownership back on the political agenda, we’ve been talking about our plans more, and consulting on them with experts, trade unions and industry. And we are ready to go.

    In our first hundred days we will start the process of bringing water and energy into public ownership. We’ll set up boards to run these utilities made up of who, the customer, and you, the worker, as well as representatives from local councils, metro mayors and others.

    We’ll make sure decisions are taken locally by those who understand the services – those who use them and deliver them.

    Meetings will be public and streamed online, with new transparency regulations set higher than ever before, so you can see if your road is being dug up, why, and for how long. And we’ll create new People’s Assemblies to give everyone the option of participating in how their utilities are run.

    Meanwhile of course, during this period, Jeremy Corbyn, our new prime minister, and his negotiating team will have secured a new Brexit agreement with our EU partners to put before the British people within 6 months.

    Despite all his promises it is clear to all now that far from getting Brexit done, under Johnson Brexit won’t be done for years or we risk a catastrophic no deal.

    And finally, but in some respects most importantly, our first Budget. The Budget which ends austerity once and for all.

    This is the budget that will save the NHS, that starts to rebuild the public services the Tories have brought to their knees.

    A Budget that will put money in people’s pockets, a Real Living Wage of £10 an hour. Money to fix the worst aspects of Universal Credit, while we design its replacement, a 5% pay rise for public sector workers after years of pay freezes.

    The Waspi compensation scheme will be established and legislation brought forward to scrap tuition fees

    Urgent funding will be brought forward rapidly to tackle the funding crisis in our NHS, our schools and education service. To establish free personal social care and childcare, to bring forward urgent homeless support, and inject much needed resources into our council services, with a full Comprehensive Spending Review to follow later in 2020 to allocate resources for the full five years.

    So I can tell you today that my first act as Chancellor will be write to the Office for Budget Responsibility asking them to begin their preparations for my first Budget which will be given on the 5th of February. The date when almost ten years of cuts will come to an end.

    And when it happens, it will be down to the millions who stood up against what they saw happening in society.

    Just in the last few weeks we’ve seen the dedication and creativity of Labour Party members, ordinary people, up and down the country, inspiring us and inspiring millions of others by stepping up.

    In the last few days, as we push as hard as we can for every vote, we should be immensely proud of what we’ve achieved already in this campaign.

    There will always be those at the top who will do anything to stop us – we’ve seen character assassinations, lies and smears taken to a new level.

    The more people we convince on the doorsteps, the more they ramp up their attacks because those who’ve had it good for so long are terrified, terrified of losing control.

    When they attack me, or Jeremy, we know it’s not really about us. It’s about you, they hate the people of this country.

    They think – and I quote the Prime Minister – that you’re drunk and criminal, they hate the idea you might dream of a better life. They hate the idea you might want real change in how things have been done for so long, and a say in how things are done in future.

    No wonder they will stop at nothing to keep you from taking control of the country where you live, and which you’ve given so much to.

    But when they come to write the history books, and write about when it all began to turn around.

    When your children or grandchildren ask you:

    “What did you do to end that world of rough sleeping and food banks?

    “What did you do to save the NHS and stop the Tories selling it off?”

    “What did you do to bring back pride to our town?

    “And to finally wrestle back control from those who had kept it to themselves for so long?”

    You can tell them:

    “It all began when we voted Labour, when together we laid the foundations of that new society, foundations so deeply rooted that no Tory could ever tear them up.”

    You can tell them:

    “It was when we proved, once and for all, that the doubters were wrong. That the doubters are always wrong: another world really *is* possible.”

  • Tony Blair – 2019 Speech on the General Election

    Tony Blair – 2019 Speech on the General Election

    Below is the text of the speech made by Tony Blair, the former Labour Prime Minister, at Reuters on 25 November 2019.

    Britain is home to a unique political experiment. We are testing – hopefully not to destruction – whether it is possible for a major developed nation to turn its politics into chaos and survive without serious economic and social damage to its essential fabric.

    Round the world where political leaders are gathered, there is often a conversation about whose politics is crazier. I agree that right now the competition is fierce. But I still believe British politics is unfortunately ahead of the pack.

    Populism of all sorts is rampant world-wide. My Institute has outlined the causes elsewhere. But in most cases the populism is focused on a Leader. Leaders are transient. In Britain our populism focused on a policy – Brexit – which may be permanent.

    This policy has become the defining feature of the main Party of Government in Britain for around 200 years, the Conservative Party.

    But then there is a populism of the left, and here the main Opposition Party in Britain of the last 100 years – the Labour Party – has been taken over by left wing populism.

    In June 2016, we were a reasonably successful and influential power, our economy the fastest growing in the G7, London possibly the premier financial centre of the globe, our technology sector the strongest in Europe, our society riven with inequalities and unacceptable levels of poverty due to austerity post the financial crisis; but nonetheless a country able to ease itself out of austerity and repair its social cohesion should it choose to.

    Fast forward to today and we’re a mess. The buoyancy of the world economy has kept us going up to now, but should that falter, we will be in deep trouble. Investment is down; jobs in certain sectors are already moving; our currency stays devalued sharply; and market sentiment swings between anxiety and alarm. And across a range of international issues which matter to us, we’re irrelevant, too preoccupied to spare over-stretched bandwidth of attention.

    Our politics is utterly dysfunctional. As proof, in the latest instalment of such dysfunction, we have a Brexit General Election; and in December to boot.

    If Brexit is blocked in Parliament, the way to unblock it is to go back to the People who originally mandated it. It is a specific issue and should be decided specifically.

    A General Election by contrast is about who runs the country for the next 5 years and is about many different issues.

    The two should not be mixed up together in one vote.

    But the reason why they have been mixed up is itself further evidence of the breakdown in politics.

    The Conservatives calculate that they can force people to elect them, despite worry over Brexit, because Jeremy Corbyn is the alternative.

    The Labour Party leadership calculate they can combine traditional Labour support around issues like the NHS, with Remain voters who hate Brexit, despite fear about the Labour Leader.

    In other words, both parties want to win on the basis that whatever your dislike of what they’re offering, the alternative is worse.

    And not forgetting the Lib Dems who, because of all this, thought they could turn a General Election into a by-election.

    The polls predict a Conservative victory; and put the chances of an outright Labour majority as negligible. But rightly, many like me don’t trust Boris Johnson with a blank cheque.

    The result is an Election where, despite the headline polls, there is unprecedented volatility and indecision, born both of uncertainty in the electorate as to what they want, and uncertainty as to how on earth they get it.

    Of course, there are those who love the Corbyn leadership and those who passionately believe Brexit is the most important thing in the world for Britain to do.

    But outside of these two extremes, a lot of people are scratching their heads, changing their minds, floating and unsure.

    The unifying sentiment is a desire, bordering on the febrile, to end the mess, to wake from the nightmare.

    This desire, though completely understandable, is in danger of leading us into a big mistake; and frankly we cannot afford another of those.

    Sometimes with a knot, you think that if you pull the string harder, the knot unravels; you pull it and discover its become even tighter; and then finally, you recognise you have to unpick it and however irritating and time consuming, it is the only way the knot gets untied.

    This is where we are today in British politics.

    The truth is: the public aren’t convinced either main Party deserve to win this Election outright.

    They’re peddling two sets of fantasies; and both, as majority Governments, pose a risk it would be unwise for the country to take.

    The Conservative Party say vote Tory and Brexit will be done; it will be over.

    They even add – do it and we can get back to dealing with the important issues.

    The cheek is quite breath-taking. So, having visited this debacle upon us, which has distracted us from those big issues for over 3 years, they now use the distraction as a reason for doing Brexit, not abandoning it.

    But it appeals.

    It is, however, a fantasy.

    Brexit isn’t over on 12 December, nor even on 31st January next year. We immediately begin the new phase of Brexit negotiation. Only this time, we are negotiating the future relationship of Britain with Europe, not simply the Irish border question, and without the leverage which comes from still being a member of the EU, since, legally, we will have left the Union and are in the transition period supposed to last up to the end of 2020.

    What has become apparent in the last weeks, is that this negotiation has no chance of being concluded in that transition period. None. Except in circumstances where, as Boris Johnson effectively did in respect of Northern Ireland, we concede that Britain stays in the trading system of Europe, the Single Market.

    It is belief that this might happen which motivated Nigel Farage to threaten to stand against the Conservative Party.

    But more likely is that a Conservative Government will be obliged to go for the Hard Brexit i.e. a 3rd Country FTA, like Canada, with divergence around tax, regulation and trade.

    This is what Ministers who are pro Brexit are already saying and the position Boris Johnson recently praised in the USA.

    If this is so, this negotiation is going to be horrible. I have spoken to many people in Europe over the past few weeks. Not a single person believes that there is any prospect of Britain reaching agreement with Europe on this timeline, if its position is divergence on rule making.

    On the contrary, they assert that Europe would be vigilant to ensure there was no ‘unfair competition’, particularly around tax and regulation.

    On Canada, I learnt two things. First, the Europeans, faced now with a Johnson Government, regard the Canada deal as a problematic analogy for the British deal. Trade with Britain is roughly six times that with Canada and whereas Canada is the other side of a large ocean, Britain is next door, geographically and physically linked. They are not going to allow a Brexiteer led British Government to establish a competitor with access to their market but undermining their rules.

    Second, despite being agreed 18 months ago, the Canada deal is not yet ratified and indeed is now facing considerable problems in various European legislatures. Should any of them block such ratification, the deal falls.

    The risk is obvious once this is understood. We will be back in the exact, same argument as we had over Ireland. One side of the Conservative Party will be demanding we leave without a deal if Europe refuses the access we want; the other will be wanting to compromise to get that access.

    This could last for YEARS!

    Yet though Brexit is a distraction, it is also the vital determinant of the nation’s future. It remains the single most important decision since 1945. Because of its effect on the economy, it impacts every one of the non Brexit promises the Parties are making.

    Doing it matters. How it is done matters. And exhaustion is not the frame of mind in which to do it.

    No Deal Brexit is not off the table. It is slap bang in the middle of it and if they mean their manifesto commitment to no extension past 2020, it is the probable outcome.

    When people hear the phrase No Deal, they often think we just mean failure to agree; which in Brexiteer language means we haven’t surrendered.

    What it really means is throwing our economy off a cliff and hoping it finds a parachute on the way down.

    It is a risk no responsible leader would take. Yet we may be about to empower a Leader – Boris Johnson – to take such a risk.

    The Labour Party manifesto is heralded by its leadership as the most radical ever.

    This is true. It promises a revolution; and if implemented it would indeed amount to one. I won’t go through the list of spending pledges, but they’re combined with renationalisation, repeal of union laws, new taxes on business, taking parts of a company’s shareholding into Government mandated Funds, a stack of new corporate and private sector regulation, and virtually every demand that any pressure group has ever submitted chucked in for good measure.

    The problem with revolutions is never how they begin but how they end.

    Meanwhile we have a policy debate devoid of rational analysis of the real challenges facing modern developed countries: the technological revolution; reform of the public realm as well as investment in it; and the rising power of China which is the biggest geo-political shift of modern Western history.

    So, the challenge is: we know the problem with both Parties manifestos, yet we want out of the paralysis. We crave clarity.

    But tugging on the knot harder isn’t going to bring it; we must unpick the knot.

    We should look at this election seat by seat. There is one General Election but 650 mini elections and each one matters.

    There are good, solid mainstream, independent minded MPs and candidates in both parties. Like many, I have been campaigning for great Labour candidates because we know Parliament will be poorer without them. I am sure the same is true of the Conservative Party and there are those who were expelled for their moderation also standing.

    The Lib Dems can’t form a Government; but they can play an important role in who does govern.

    Once we acknowledge all the above, and vote accordingly, yes untying the knot will take longer. The new Parliament will be obliged to let the country decide Brexit on its merits, in a referendum, whether in the light of what we now know, we want to proceed with exit from Europe and if so, on what basis.

    And then we will have a fresh Election to decide who governs.

    This is counter-intuitive. It will be resisted with all the force that the extremes can muster – extremes whose narrative runs through much of our present politics and media, reinforced by the scourge of social media, but the alternative is a choice between two risks, whose consequences we live with for a long time.

    This Election is the weirdest of my life time. But once you realise it is not conventional, you are liberated to think unconventionally.

    This is a moment to set aside the fatigue; to understand we’re taking a decision not just about a Government but about a future. So, we should think deeply.

    Then, at some later point, and not too later, we must set about the urgent task of reconstructing the sensible mainstream of British politics. Otherwise, this laboratory experiment in populism running riot, will end very badly for our nation.

  • Boris Johnson – 2019 Speech at Conservative Manifesto Launch

    Boris Johnson – 2019 Speech at Conservative Manifesto Launch

    Below is the text of the speech made by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, in Telford on 24 November 2019.

    Good afternoon everybody. Wonderful to see everyone here today. Thanks for coming along this afternoon

    We are now as you know less than three weeks away from the most critical election of modern memory

    when the stakes for this country have seldom been higher and the choice has never been starker

    because in just the last few days we have heard from every other party haven’t we?

    As they have launched their manifestos

    and we have heard

    how they would keep us stuck in the same rut

    how they would consign this country to yet more delay and yet more frustration and parliamentary paralysis

    and how they would refuse yet again to honour the will of the people

    how they would refuse, every other party, to get Brexit done

    The Lib Dems want to revoke Brexit

    the Scots Nationalists want to cancel Brexit and have another referendum on Scotland as well

    as for Labour – as for Labour, they will plainly give in to Nicola Sturgeon and waste the whole of next year in two more referendums, one on Scotland and one on the EU

    except that Jeremy Corbyn won’t tell us whether he would even be willing to advise people to vote in favour of his own deal

    He used to be indecisive – now he’s not so sure

    Do we want that kind of leadership my friends? Do we want more delay? Do we want more dither and drift and deadlock and division?

    Do we want 2020 to be a year of defeatism and despair?

    No we don’t. We want to move forward because this country has an incredible future

    and here – there it is – I believe is at least the partial blueprint for that future

    Here is the route map to take us forward

    because unlike any other party standing at this election

    We’re going to get Brexit done

    with a deal that is pre-cooked, ready to go, oven-ready as I keep saying, approved not just by our friends in the EU but by every single one of the 635 Conservative candidates standing at this election

    a deal that will allow us to deliver absolutely all the opportunities of Brexit

    from freeports to free trade to cutting VAT on sanitary products and improving the welfare of animals

    Get Brexit done – and we restore confidence and certainty to business and families.

    Get Brexit done – and we will see a pent-up tidal wave of investment into this country.

    Get Brexit done – and we can focus our hearts and minds on the priorities of the British people,

    because it is this one nation Tory party that is already embarked on the biggest cash boost for the NHS for a generation

    and today in this manifesto we pledge 50,000 more nurses and their bursaries and 50 million more GP surgery appointments

    and today we make this guarantee to the British people

    that we will tackle crime with 20,000 more police officers and tougher sentencing

    that we will sort out our immigration system with a points-based Australian style system

    that we will invest millions more every week in science, in schools, in apprenticeships and in infrastructure and control our debt at the same time

    and that we will reach net Zero by 2050 with clean energy solutions

    and that we can do all these things, here’s the kicker, we can do all these things without raising our income tax, VAT or National Insurance Contributions. That’s our guarantee

    and in this manifesto there is a vision for the future of this country in which we unite and level up

    with infrastructure, education and technology

    and it is appropriate of course that we are here in Telford

    because here more than 200 years ago

    the phlegethontian fires of Coalbrookdale

    created the first industrial revolution

    and this whole region was a giant crucible

    in which colossal quantities of hydrocarbons were burned to smelt iron and steel

    and turn water into steam and power

    and it is an incredible thing that here once again

    in the West Midlands

    a new industrial revolution is taking place

    not by burning coal

    not by emitting CO2

    but thanks to British ingenuity we can make electrons swoosh so efficiently from anode to the cathode, or possibly vice versa, but that’s the right idea.

    that after decades of trying we can make electric cars

    and we can make electric buses

    and it won’t be long before we will be making electric or part electric planes

    and we in this one nation Conservative government do not want to wait to begin this future

    because we believe that after three and a half years of being held back by a broken parliament

    it is time to unleash the potential of the whole country

    and to forge a new Britain

    and yes I am proud that we have in our national capital the greatest city on earth

    but I know and every survey confirms

    that genius, talent, ability, flair – all are distributed evenly throughout the UK

    Opportunity is not distributed evenly

    and I passionately believe that with education, infrastructure, technology

    we can tackle that unfairness

    we can unleash that potential and we can make those investments

    precisely we one nation Conservatives because we also support a dynamic market economy

    and that is why we are cutting taxes for small businesses

    and why when people get up at the crack of dawn to prepare their family business

    and when people take out a mortgage to fund a new venture

    or when they risk everything on a new product or try to find a new market

    we don’t sneer at them

    we cheer for them

    and that is the choice at this election

    that is the choice between out and out retrograde socialism and sensible one nation conservatism

    You can come with us, and have a government that backs our armed forces as a power for good around the world

    or you can have Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party who has said he wants to scrap them

    We support our police, putting more and more on the street, support them in fighting knife crime –

    they say stop and search is inappropriate and oppressive

    We want higher wages, and are raising the living wage by the biggest ever increase

    Corbynomics, McDonnellnomics, means higher taxes for everyone

    we stand up for the people of this country when other nations threaten us with harm

    and it was quite incredible that when Russia ordered the Salisbury poisonings

    Corbyn seemed actually to take the side of Moscow

    Above all, and here’s the most important difference we face in the next few days

    we will get Brexit done, we will end the acrimony and the chaos

    they want to rip up our deal – and negotiate a new one

    but we don’t yet know of a single Labour MP or indeed any other MP who would support it

    in fact we don’t know if anyone believes in Mr Corbyn’s new deal apart from Mr Corbyn – and not even he believes in it

    can you imagine the negotiations that would take place if a Corbyn-Sturgeon were to come in

    What on earth are they supposed to think in Brussels?

    Bonjour monsieur Corbyn comment allez vous? tell us about this that deal you want…

    what do you mean you don’t really want it? What do you mean you don’t really believe in it or want to advocate it? Who does believe in it?

    Not Monsieur McDonnell? not Monsieur Starmer? not Madame Abbott??

    Then who does believe in it??

    it would be farcical, it would be comical, if the consequences of that approach were not so disastrous for this country and for our prospects next year

    Let’s give that madness a miss

    I want you to imagine what the country could be like in just 10 years

    if we can get a working majority on the 12th of December

    I want you to look forward to a Britain where the streets are safer, where the air is cleaner, where we have built 40 new hospitals as a direct result of the decisions taken in the last 3 months

    a Britain where the ten year olds are not only doing better at reading and writing and maths but doing better across the whole country

    and where in ten years time scientists are starting to reap the huge rewards from our plans to double spending on for research

    from AI to the gigafactory for batteries that we will inaugurate

    to the new space ports in Cornwall and Scotland that will send British made satellites in to the heavens and drive one of our most exciting industries.

    a Britain where we are uniting and levelling up

    where great new infrastructure is helping to rebalance the economy, delivering Northern Powerhouse rail AND a metro style system for the whole of the west midlands

    a Britain where left behind towns have recovered their vibrancy and commercial life and optimism, with shops and businesses made possible by better transport and fantastic broadband

    and then in turn where better infrastructure is allowing us to build thousands of superb new homes, hundreds of thousands, on brownfield sites – giving young people the prospect of home ownership that they currently don’t have

    that every survey shows is what people in this country wants

    a Britain where the landscape is made more beautiful by the planting of millions of trees that also help us to deal with climate change

    and in ten years time I confidently prophesy that we people will be passionately proud of their Scottish identity, and their Welsh and Northern Irish, and yes their English identity. And that will be a great thing.

    But we will also all be proud strong and whole United Kingdom, more united than ever, flying that red white and blue Union flag that represents the best of our values, from democracy and the rule of law

    from free trade to free speech to the freedom to love whomsoever you choose

    from championing 12 years of quality education for every girl in the world

    to protecting the planet’s wildlife from the tragedy of habitat loss and extinction

    and a Britain that is able to lead the world – as we do – in tackling climate change and to reduce our CO2 to net zero by 2050 not because we hate capitalism, and want to destroy it, and want pointlessly to make an enemy of enterprise

    but because the private sector makes the brilliant technical breakthroughs that enable us to cut CO2

    AND pay for great public services and create great high skilled jobs

    And that is the vision we are offering – to make this country the greatest place to live, to breathe, to be, to raise kids, to start a business

    the greatest place on earth

    and I propose that we get on with it now

    I don’t want to waste 2020 in two more referendums

    I want it to be an exciting and productive year, a year of prosperity and growth

    Do you want to wake up on Friday 13th December and find a nightmare on Downing Street, a Corbyn-Sturgeon coalition of chaos?

    I say let’s go carbon neutral by 2050 and Corbyn neutral by Christmas!

    Let’s go for sensible moderate but tax cutting, one nation Conservative government, and take this country forward.

     

  • Sajid Javid – 2019 Speech in Bolton

    Sajid Javid – 2019 Speech in Bolton

    Below is the text of the speech made by Sajid Javid, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in Bolton on 26 November 2019.

    Good afternoon.

    I’m very pleased to be here at the Bolton Lad’s & Girls Club.

    When I were a lad, you wouldn’t have been able to keep me away from a place like this.

    When I was Home Secretary, and a bit more grown-up…

    … I saw the impact that Onside Youth Zones had in giving young people “somewhere to go, something to do, and someone to talk to”.

    It’s a real comfort to hard-working families to have services like this in the area.

    So I’m very proud that one of my first priorities as Chancellor was a £500million Youth Investment Fund.

    It was inspired by youth centres like this, and I hope has the potential to leave a legacy just as lasting.

    Amazingly, this club was founded 128 years ago.

    Back then, Bolton, Bury and Rochdale – where I’ve also been today – had the legacy of being boomtown milltowns.

    They’d been the engines of the Industrial Revolution.

    With more spinning machines than a general election.

    Some of those machines were still whirring in recent memory too.

    In the 1960’s, my Dad got off a plane in Heathrow and made his up to Rochdale, to find work in a cotton mill.

    After standing outside the mill for weeks, he got his first job, then started a family.

    He came up here with a sense of hope and opportunity.

    But I know that’s not how everyone in towns like this feel about their future now.

    Last night I stayed with family in Rochdale….

    … and this morning had the profound experience of walking down memory lane, talking to residents of the street that was my first home.

    It’s clear there’s still a lot of pride around here – and there should be.

    But it’s also true that too much of that is about the past, rather than the present or future.

    It shouldn’t be a surprise that most people here voted Brexit.

    They wanted change.

    They wanted government to listen.

    And now they want to Get Brexit Done…

    … and end the dither and delay in parliament.

    That’s the only way for their voices to actually be heeded, and to protect the fabric of our democracy…

    … and it’s the only way to unlock our politics so we can get on with all the other things that need to change.

    That’s not just resonating in towns like this.

    I’m visiting every corner of our country during this campaign, and I’m hearing the same thing everywhere.

    It’s time to end the paralysis in parliament, bring the country together, and look to the future.

    The Conservatives are the only party pledging to do that.

    On Sunday we launched our manifesto to Get Brexit Done, and unleash Britain’s potential.

    If we are elected by the British people on December 12th, we will pursue a bold agenda.

    We will finally leave the European Union in January…

    … and get to work on seizing the opportunities from that – including a best-in-class free trade deal.

    We will protect the historic Union of the United Kingdom, instead of spending £150million two more referendums, as the Prime Minister has reaffirmed today.

    We will boost our public services – building on our record NHS funding, investing in our schools, and putting 20,000 more police officers on our streets.

    And we will deliver an infrastructure revolution – probably the biggest our country has seen in decades.

    We have a positive agenda for Brexit and beyond.

    It’s one of the most ambitious platforms in a generation.

    It will change this country for the better…

    … improve the lives of workers, families and businesses up and down the country…

    … and prepare us for the challenges of the future.

    We can choose that clear and responsible path…

    … or as I will explain today, we can choose Labour’s fantasy economics…

    … a dangerous and disingenuous agenda that threatens to unravel the hard work of the British people over the last decade….

    …and hit them with twelve taxes for Christmas.

    You can trust in the direction that we will take the country, because our manifesto builds on all of the plans we have already put in train during just over 100 days.

    I’m proud of how much our government has achieved under fresh leadership in that time.

    And I’m excited by how we can move our country forward in the next few years if the British people put their faith in us.

    Our manifesto includes more measures to help working people:

    Cutting National Insurance Contributions for working people.

    Our major boost to the National Living Wage.

    And the Triple Tax Lock – something Labour will not and cannot commit to.

    We will also lay the foundations for our future prosperity, and bring our country together, with an infrastructure revolution.

    We have already electrified the railway line from Bolton to Manchester, Preston and Blackpool.

    At our budget in the new year we will electrify the nation’s ambitions on transport.

    From the biggest ever pothole-filling programme…

    … to intra-city deals that give city regions like Greater Manchester the funding to upgrade their bus, tram and train services to make them as good as London’s.

    And all of this underpinned by a credible set of fiscal rules that will allow us to invest in infrastructure while keeping a lid on debt, borrowing and interest.

    We understand that the only way to sustainably fund world-class public services is to maintain economic credibility, and to cultivate a dynamic market economy.

    And the policies laid out in our manifesto are the most comprehensively costed that any party has ever published.

    We are absolutely committed to being responsible custodians of taxpayers’ money – your money.

    Why should you expect anything less?

    If you hire anyone, any business, to do a job….

    You want to know that they’ll do the job competently…

    …that they’ll do what they promised…

    … and that they’ll deliver it at the same cost you agreed…

    If they didn’t, you’d lose faith in their service.

    That principle is even more important in a democracy.

    At this election you are putting your trust in the people who are going to run the government and spend your money for up to five years.

    They told businesses they had nothing up their sleeves, then announced the biggest share confiscation plan from private investors in the developed world.

    They said they’d reached the ‘limit of their ambitions’ for nationalisations, and then announced two more.

    They said they weren’t planning a so-called windfall tax, and announced one two days later.

    They said they’d fully cost their manifesto….

    Not only did they barely bother to pretend to do so, they then announced a new £58billion commitment two days later!

    Now, the PM has already pointed out the massive Brexit-shaped hole in Labour’s plans.

    That in itself is a huge failure of transparency, leadership and responsibility.

    There’s another hole too – a financial blackhole.

    You may remember at the start of this campaign we estimated the cost of Corbyn to be £1.2 trillion.

    It’s a big number.

    It’s hard to comprehend so many zeros.

    And it was right for people to interrogate the assumptions in that costing.

    Well now they’ve released their final plans, and the direct cost of Corbyn is confirmed.

    £1.2 trillion of extra spending over the next five years.

    And it could actually be worse than we feared.

    If anything it’s an underestimate.

    Labour’s costings document shamelessly overlooked many of the commitments in their manifesto.

    59 of which don’t have enough detail for us to cost fairly, so we have left those out.

    The kindest interpretation you could have about Labour’s approach is that it’s primary school politics not grown-up government.

    Rainbows every day and free teddy bears for all.

    But it won’t be all gain, no pain.

    It can’t be.

    You can’t defy basic economic principles any more than you can defy the laws of physics.

    Labour would hit ordinary workers and families hard from different directions:

    By wrecking the economy.

    By hitting lower and middle income earners directly with huge tax hikes.

    And by undoing the hard work of the last decade…

    … meaning more debt, less wealth creation, and ultimately less money for public services.

    First, let’s consider the impact the wider economy has on individual workers and families.

    Labour want you to see a big Santa bag of goodies.

    But the closer you look, it’s just a big bag of coal.

    This Labour manifesto is a recipe for disaster.

    What would that look like?

    I’ll tell you how that would play out.

    Imagine the nightmare on Downing Street on Friday 13th.

    The pound crashing in the early hours of the morning as Corbyn inches toward a majority…

    Foreign investors rushing their money out of the country in fear of exchange controls…

    A dramatic downgrade of government debt credit ratings…

    And the cost of our debt spiralling out of control as confidence in the British government collapses.

    All that means it won’t even take months and years for an economic crisis.

    It’ll happen in days and weeks.

    A crisis by Christmas.

    And who will pay the price for this?

    You.

    Ordinary workers.

    Families up and down the country.

    When an economic downturn comes, it’s never the rich that take the biggest hit.

    They have their buffers and financial safety nets.

    It’s people on low and average earnings that pay.

    Fewer jobs, lower wages and higher prices.

    Higher interest rates will increase mortgages.

    Pension pots will be slashed.

    So before they’ve even had a chance to implement their ideological experiments, a Corbyn government will already be a risk most people cannot afford.

    Secondly, Labour will hike taxes on the many, not the few.

    They talk about soaking the rich, and try to scare people about billionaire bogey-men.

    It’s all so simple they say.

    And they try to distract people with impressive sounding headline spending figures.

    But the ‘ying’ to that ‘yang’ is the cost it will exact on ordinary voters.

    Labour’s numbers only add up with significant tax rises for the 95%, not just the 5.

    They say they want to raise £83bn in new taxes every year.

    As Chancellor I can tell you, you can’t simply raise that amount of money from such a small group of people.

    But it’s worse than that because there’s currently an £385bn financial hole in Labour’s plans.

    And that means tax hikes on hard-working families on lower and middle incomes, like many of the proud people of Bolton.

    “It’s ludicrous to suggest that Labour could fund its ever-growing and expensive wish-list simply with tax rises on just a tiny number of very wealthy people.

    Because it will be ordinary families who will end up paying.”

    Those last few sentences were not my words, but those of a man who was Labour’s Shadow Chancellor just four years ago.

    And if that wasn’t enough, the Institute of Fiscal studies are unequivocal about Labour’s claims that they can raise £80billion from the highest earners:

    That is simply not credible.

    Labour is wrong to say their spending spree can be paid for by one segment of society – everyone will pay.