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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.”

December 10, 2019
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.

November 26, 2019
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.

November 26, 2019
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.

November 26, 2019
Jeremy Corbyn – 2019 Press Release on the Chagos Islands

Below is a press release issued by the Labour Party on 22/11/2019.

Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party, responding to news that the UK has ignored a deadline to give up control of the Chagos Islands, said:

“It’s clear that in refusing to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius and defying the UN General Assembly and International Court of Justice, this Conservative government shamefully considers itself to be above international law.

“A Labour government will end colonial rule. We immediately will enact our manifesto promise to allow the people of the Chagos Islands and their descendants the right to return to the lands from which they should never have been removed.”

November 23, 2019
Andrew Gwynne – 2019 Press Release on the Conservative Party Manifesto

Below is a press release issued by the Labour Party on 23/11/2019.

“This is a no-hope manifesto, from a party that has nothing to offer the country, after spending ten years cutting our public services to the bone. This pathetic offer from Boris Johnson’s Tories means more cuts, more failure and more years of Brexit uncertainty.

“Young people can’t afford to buy a home, older people are going without the care they need, our NHS is heading into the worst winter crisis on record and millions of children are growing up in poverty.

“The only people who benefit from this no hope manifesto are big business and the super-rich who don’t want to see the real change this country needs.

“This election is a once-in-a-generation chance to elect a Labour government that will transform our country, with a manifesto that offers real change, and take on the vested interests holding people back.”

November 23, 2019
Angela Rayner – 2019 Press Release on Tuition Fees

Below is a press release issued by the Labour Party on 19/11/2019.

Angela Rayner, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary, commenting on the launch of the Lib-Dems’ manifesto tomorrow and their new announcement on schools, said:

“This is an austerity manifesto from a party that has recently welcomed in many former Tory MPs with open arms.

“Young people getting into debts today of over £55,000 will never forget the Lib-Dems’ betrayal on tuition fees and austerity.

“Voting for the Lib-Dems in this election is a wasted vote that will only open the door to a post-Brexit Boris Johnson and Nigel Farage alliance with Donald Trump to sell off our NHS.”

November 19, 2019
John McDonnell – 2019 Press Release on Poverty

Below is a press release issued by the Labour Party on 19/11/2019.

Labour is tomorrow pledging to wage war on the “ten modern scourges of poverty” and reverse the damage that a decade of austerity under the Tories has caused.

The party is publishing a new Report – “Poverty Britain” – which highlights ten ways the Tories have failed to tackle poverty and entrenched hardship in society.

The report includes new analysis that shows:

Wage stagnation under the Tories has cost the average worker around £6,300 in lost wages.

Food banks have given out 65 million meals in the last five years, the equivalent of a meal for every person in the whole of the UK.

There are now over 20 million adults with no savings, an increase of nearly three million since 2010/11.

A near 50 per cent increase in the number of children in severe low income and deprivation between 2011/12 and 2017/18.

Poverty in families where someone is disabled has risen by over a million since 2010.

In-work poverty has increased by 1.5 million since 2010/11.

John McDonnell, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor, said:

“Poverty in Britain is now the most visible and widespread it has been in decades.

“This new report shows the Tories have failed to tackle ten modern scourges of poverty, each becoming more entrenched on their watch.

“The next Labour government will wage war on poverty in all its forms, eliminating in-work poverty, ending austerity and raising living standards across the country.

“The choice at this election couldn’t be clearer: more stress and struggle for millions to make ends meet under the Tories or real change with Labour.”

Labour will:

Introduce immediately a Real Living Wage of £10 an hour for everyone over 16

Eliminate in-work poverty over the course of our first parliament

Scrap Universal Credit, the benefit cap, the Two Child limit and end the freeze on working-age benefits.

Rebuild a social security system dedicated to dignity, universalism and ending poverty.

Clamp down on problem debt by capping credit card and overdraft repayments so that borrowers never repay more in interest than they originally borrowed.

Expand free childcare, open 1,000 new Sure Start centres and provide universal Free School Meals for all primary school children

Tackle the Tories’ productivity crisis with a programme of large scale investment in skills, infrastructure and innovation

Set a target for ending the need for food banks altogether within our first three years, and halve food bank usage within our first year.

End rough sleeping within a Parliament, starting with a plan to ring-fence an extra 8,000 homes for people with a history of rough sleeping and £100 million to tackle immediate winter pressures.

Protect pensioner incomes by legislating to keep the Triple Lock on state pensions as well as guaranteeing free TV licences, free bus passes and Winter Fuel Payments.

Bring justice for women born in the 1950s affected by the Tories’ changes to the State Pension age

November 19, 2019
Conservative Party – 2019 Press Release on Labour’s Pension Plans

Below is a press release issued by the Conservative Party on 19/11/2019.

New analysis of Corbyn’s tax raid on pensions reveals that 10 million savers could lose an average of over £11,000 and be forced to delay retirement by almost three and a half years.

Labour’s plans for a massive tax raid on the retirement savings of more than 10 million British people include a Financial Transactions Tax which experts have warned will hit pensions the hardest.

On top of this their plans to seize ten per cent of private firms would see shares tumbling – undermining the savings of hardworking people.

Analysis from the Conservative Research Department found that savers in the South East will be the hardest hit with a loss of over £14,000 whilst those in the East Midlands face the longest delay to their retirement, having to work for another four years.

On top of this, nearly eight in ten of those saving for retirement would be hit with a double whammy with Labour’s plans to renationalise the assets they have invested in – a move the CBI said would mean ‘workers and older generations could end up poorer as a result’.

‍Region Labour’s Pension Tax (£) Extra Months to Work

England 11,167 44
East Midlands 6,150 50
Greater London 12,871 45
North East 9,758 38
North West 6,835 47
South East 14,270 40
South West 7,407 45
West Midlands 10,729 41
Northern Ireland 13,718 35
Scotland 10,653 41
Wales 11,691 36
United Kingdom 11,253 43

Commenting, Therese Coffey, Secretary of State for the Department of Work and Pensions, said:

“Corbyn’s Pension Tax will see ten million savers facing a huge bill forcing them to delay their retirement for almost three and a half years.

“This is just one of the ways a Corbyn government would hammer hardworking people on top of his plans to hike up taxes by £2,400 a year, as well as the cost of his plan for unlimited immigration and the chaos of 2020 being dominated by two more referendums – one on Brexit and another on Scottish independence.

“Only Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party can get Brexit done with a deal, get parliament working again and turbocharge our economy to unleash Britain’s potential.”

November 19, 2019
Conservative Party – 2019 Press Release on Child Murderers

Below is a press release issued by the Conservative Party on 19/11/2019.

Adults who murder children will be imprisoned for life, without parole, under tough new justice plans to be introduced by a Conservative majority Government.

Whilst murder already attracts a mandatory life sentence, the vast majority of convicted murderers do not spend their whole life in prison.

The next Conservative majority Government will reform the law to make sure that the premeditated murder of a child is set a Whole Life Order – meaning that a prisoner will never be eligible for release.

This follows a commitment already made by the Government to toughen sentences for the most serious violent and sexual offenders by abolishing early release at the half way point of a convicted criminal’s sentence.

The move is part of a package of measures to improve the way justice works for law abiding British people. As well as clamping down on the early release of serious criminals, it contains plans to cut crime by reducing reoffending through a doubling of the number of prisoners in employment six weeks after their release. These include:

A dedicated Prison Education Service to oversee the education and skills training offered across all jails.
Prisoners to be offered more hours of work whilst in jail to provide them with the opportunity to learn new skills and better prepare them for employment on release.

More prison workshops where prisoners can be employed in dedicated workspaces

A dedicated work coach in every prison to link inmates with local jobcentres ahead of their release.

Commenting on the new announcements, Justice Secretary Robert Buckland said:

There can be no more sickening injustice than that of heartbroken parents watching the killer of their child walk free.

That’s why under a Conservative majority Government the law will be rewritten to be absolutely clear: any murderer who denies a young, innocent child the right to life surrenders their own right to liberty. They do so permanently, and they do so without exception.

There is nothing we can do to take away the pain of the families of murdered children. So we must do everything in our power not to compound it.

What you need to know:

A Conservative majority Government will change the law so that adults who commit premeditated murder of children will serve their whole life in prison without parole.

‍We will change the law so that adults who murder children will be imprisoned for life without parole.

‍We will reform the life sentence regime for murder by revising Schedule 21 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and setting a Whole Life Order (a life sentence with no parole eligibility) as the starting point for all adults who murder children.

This would apply to all convicted adult murderers over 21 who commit the premeditated killing of a child aged under 16 with intent to kill. The current rules require the murder to be of multiple children, or to be sexually or sadistically motivated, to attract a Whole Life Order, which is too restrictive. The sentencing decision in any given case would continue to rest with the judge.

The new policy will be subject to the usual judicial discretion.

A Whole Life Order in these cases will be the starting tariff, however judges will be able to depart from this if there are exceptional mitigating circumstances in an individual child murder case.

A Conservative majority Government will introduce measures in prison to give better chances to offenders once they have been released, double the number of prisoners in employment six weeks after release and reduce reoffending.

We will create a dedicated Prison Education Service focused on work-based training and skills.

‍This new service will oversee the education and skills training offered across all jails. This will build upon the new Prison Education Framework issued in April 2019, and provide a new focus across the whole system on raising educational standards of all prisoners serving sentences in England and Wales. To track progress and ensure prison regimes are delivering good results, we now require basic literacy and numeracy testing on reception into prison and at point of release.

We will increase the hours worked by prisoners and give them the opportunity to develop new skills.‍

The next Conservative government will increase the total number of prisoners in prison-based industries, and the total number of hours worked, every year of the next Parliament.

More prison workshops to provide the setting for skills to be developed.

‍As our prison estate is expanded, renovated and modernised, with capital expenditure of £2.75 billion, we will be able to create more space for prison workshops where prisoners can be employed in dedicated workspaces. New prisons planned at Glen Parva in Leicestershire and at Wellingborough will include dedicated workshop facilities.

A dedicated work coach for every prison.

‍From 2020 we will guarantee a work coach in every prison in the country, to provide support from an early stage of an offender’s sentence, through to the point of release. This will involve CV support and opportunities to develop skills and links to employers in the community.

November 19, 2019