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Tag: 2009

  • Yvette Cooper – 2009 Speech to Labour Party Conference

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    Below is the text of the speech made by Yvette Cooper, the then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, to the 2009 Labour Party conference.

    Conference.

    12 months ago we gathered in Manchester with the world economy on the brink of disaster

    Think back for just a moment

    Banks bigger than nations teetering on the edge of collapse.

    Fearful families moving their savings from bank to bank.

    The madness of markets in crisis.

    The terrifying realisation that things people had taken for granted might all come crashing down

    And yet in the midst of that crisis we learnt something else:

    The strength of peoples, governments and nations standing together, arms stretched from country to country;

    First to calm the wildness of the storm

    And then to stop recession turning into slump;

    And we learnt too how much we owe to the strong leadership of our Chancellor and our Prime Minister. And we should start our debate by thanking them now: Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown.

    Never forget how close we came to catastrophe last year.

    And never forget how easy it would have been for governments to stand back, to turn their backs, to retrench.

    That was what governments across the world did in the thirties. And for years working people paid the price.

    That was what the Tory government did here in the 80s. And for generations entire communities paid the price.

    And that is what David Cameron and George Osborne wanted us to do again.

    Conference we know unemployment is never a price worth paying. We will never leave people to stand alone.

    Our Labour government will never turn its back on those hit by recession or global crisis.

    We know unemployment hurts. Unemployment scars.

    That’s why we are putting an extra £5bn into jobs and training.

    And conference that support and our welfare reforms have made a difference. In just three months this summer more half a million people who were out of work found jobs.

    But it’s still hard. Now is the time to increase – not cut back – on the programmes that help people get jobs.

    Programmes like the Local Employment Partnerships between Job Centre plus and businesses that are getting people off benefit and into jobs in every one of our constituencies.

    Helping people like Anthony in Castleford, who got a job after 14 months on the dole and told me its transformed his life — he’s got his own place, started management training, and been on his first ever holiday abroad.

    I spoke to Rebecca Robertson, at Job Centre Plus in Castleford who helped Anthony get work about how she does it. She said; “I like to get under the employers skin – know what they really need. Then I can make sure I get people ready for the job.” She gets people training, boosts their confidence, and even goes to the interview with them if they need it – and she takes a spare tie and a spare pair of tights along just in case.

    Conference, its people like Rebecca, going the extra mile to help people not just get a job but build a future. That’s public service.

    But we need still to be much more ambitious. There are thousands more people like Anthony.

    So we will do more. I can announce today that we will expand those successful local partnerships to help far more people. Already they’ve helped over 250,000 people into jobs. Now we will treble our original plans to help a total of over 750,000 people into jobs by the end of next year.

    Because no one should be denied the dignity of work.

    Across the country, major employers have been signing up to the Backing Young Britain campaign.

    From Bradford to Brighton, Coatbridge to Cardiff, councils, housing associations, football clubs and countless community organisations are signing up to our £1bn fund to deliver over 100,000 youth jobs, as we guarantee no young person is stuck on the dole more than 12 months.

    Even Tory Councils are signing up. Praising the programme and claiming the credit in their local papers.

    But hang on. Where do they think the money is coming from for those jobs? I’ll tell you where. Its coming from £5bn extra this government has provided to boost the economy.

    £5bn that George Osborne believes should never be spent.

    £5bn the Tory party is determined to cut.

    Conference we need to challenge every Tory MP, every Tory councillor and candidate to tell young people why their party wants to destroy their jobs.

    Conference the Tory party want to turn their backs on young people again. And we must not let them get away with it.

    So what would David Cameron put in place of training places and support he would cut?

    Just one policy. As he told Tory party members in July: “50 of our candidates, MPs and councillors are setting up job clubs.” Instead of 100,000 youth jobs, 50 Tory job clubs.

    Imagine it. Job clubs run by Tory MPs.

    David Cameron might have some useful advice on interview techniques.

    William Hague would certainly be able to help on getting second jobs or making extra cash on the side.

    But what about the rest?

    John Redwood on how to look interviewers in the eye.

    Ken Clarke on how to dress for success.

    You know what Norman Tebbit’s advice would be: take a cycling proficiency course.

    Conference, may be there’s a reason why David Cameron doesn’t get the importance of training and employment support.

    For his first job he got a royal equerry to ring up on his behalf. For his second job he got his mother in law Lady Astor to put in a good word.

    Conference, that’s not how people like Anthony in Castleford get jobs.

    Back in the real world thousands of people rely on the help from training colleges and Job Centres the Tories want to cut.

    Conference, the Tories say we can’t afford to invest in the unemployed. I say  we can’t afford not to.

    Look at the facts. For every 100,000 people we get off unemployment we save £700m.

    There is no better way to cut the deficit once the economy is growing than to get people off benefit and back into work.

    That is why we will make sure no one is written off.

    Keeping up the employment support and the welfare reform that is getting people back off long term benefits and into jobs.

    Helping disabled people overcome discrimination to work.

    Helping parents get the child care they need.

    More support and also making sure everyone does their bit.

    Working with businesses, the voluntary sector in the Flexible New Deal.

    Not a passive welfare state, but active support for work.

    David Cameron doesn’t believe in active government to help the unemployed because he doesn’t believe in active government.

    Their campaigns for Broken Britain, for an age of Austerity, all designed to break people’s faith in a brighter future.

    He wants us to despair of purpose of politics or the role of government so they can roll back the bounds of government – a counsel of despair that would have run Britain into ground if we had followed it last year.

    We know things are tougher in recession. But we know if we stand together we can come through it stronger.

    And we know there will be tough choices on the public finances. But we will make those tough choices guided by our vision of a fairer Britain, for our parents, children, neighbours.

    That is why we will increase the top rate of tax and we won’t cut inheritance tax for millionaires.

    It is why we will keep helping families.

    Backing Sure Start and child benefit.

    Making sure mums and dads can balance work and family life.

    Helping carers.

    Putting into law our commitment to end child poverty for ever.

    That is why we will keep doing more to help pensioners.

    Tackling decades of unfairness so millions of women can get full basic state pensions that should be their right.

    Requiring employers to make pension contributions for the first time for millions of low paid workers.

    And conference, because fuel bills are still high, as well as paying the Winter Fuel Allowance at the higher rate again, I can announce we will also pay Cold Weather Payments at the higher rate again cold

    But conference you can’t do any of those things if you don’t believe in the role of government.

    You can’t do any of those things if you don’t believe in standing together to help build a fairer country.

    You can’t do any of those things if you have a Tory government

    In the thirties one of the first ever women Labour MPs, Ellen Wilkinson, marched with our fore fathers from Jarrow to fight for jobs.

    In the eighties I marched with my father and with many of you under the Union Banners to fight for Jobs.

    But Conference. We marched then in vain. Because we didn’t win the arguments. We didn’t win power. And there was nothing more we could do.

    That’s why we have to fight now. That is why there is so much at stake. That’s why the Labour Party today has more to fight for than ever.

    We owe it to the young people today, but also to the Jarrow marchers we couldn’t help, to the 80s unemployed we couldn’t support.

    We owe it to them to fight for every vote, to fight together to win the next election and to build a fairer Britain.

  • Nick Clegg – 2009 Speech to CBI

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    Below is the text of the speech made by the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, to the CBI. The speech was made in London on 23rd November 2009.

    We are in the teeth of one of the most difficult and unpredictable recessions we have ever face. The origins of the recession, at the heart of the financial services sector on which we have relied too heavily for far too long, begs profound questions about how we can rebuild the British economy on a different, more sustainable footing in the future.

    As the CBI said this morning – this recession can be a catalyst for positive change. In the short time we have today, I want to run through the five main areas where I believe urgent action is required not only to foster a rapid recovery in the short term, but to shape a new competitive, sustainable economy for the long term.

    First: stabilise, decontaminate and re-balance our financial industry. Second: a strong, credible plan to sort our Britain’s finances, to maintain confidence in our credit-worthiness. Third: invest in infrastructure, to create jobs now and the right environment for sustainable growth later. Fourth: decentralise decision-making and business support to drive growth in industries and regions that have been left behind. And fifth: change our tax system to put money into the pockets of people who both need it and spend it, helping rebuild consumer demand.

    Number One: The Banks 

    First, financial services, and especially banking.I believe we need to revisit the fundamentals of our banking industry. We need to ask ourselves: what are banks for? The simplest answer, in my view, is this: banks are there to keep depositors’ money safe, and to provide credit on a prudent basis to individuals, households and businesses. That simple vocation was lost in recent years as the deregulatory Big Bang of 1986 gave way to overleveraged and highly risky financial services innovations which put the whole financial system, and so our whole economy, in jeopardy. The first thing we must do now is get the banks lending – not to excess, as before, but responsibly.

    It is unacceptable that, when taxpayers actually own a huge proportion of the banking industry, credit still isn’t flowing as it should.

    Of course, in the long term, we should be looking to divest ourselves of these banks.

    And government shouldn’t make a habit of interfering in the day-to-day running of businesses.

    But at a time like this, when smaller businesses that don’t have access to capital markets often cannot get credit at reasonable rates…

    When banks are upping charges, fees and rates even for businesses they’re already lending to…

    Taxpayers’ representatives at these banks shouldn’t just be suggesting a change of strategy, they should be insisting on it.

    Next, we must ensure that the high street banks on which consumers, households and small businesses depend are never again put at risk by the casino culture of investment banking.

    As the governor of the Bank of England has repeatedly recommended, we need to separate high street and investment banking for good.

    There are of course many people who claim this is either undesirable or impossible to achieve in practice.

    I believe they are deluding themselves about the scale of change needed if we are to ensure that the implosion in banking which has taken place does not occur again.

    Of course, no single model of banking provides a guarantee against failure.

    But it seems to me that the refusal to properly insulate low risk banking from high risk banking serves as an invitation for history to repeat itself.

    Until this split can be introduced, the banks will remain the beneficiaries of a unique, open ended guarantee against failure from the taxpayer.

    I believe they should have to pay for that guarantee.

    That’s why last week, we proposed a new, temporary banking levy of 10% on the profits of the banks until such time as they can be split up.

    Finally, we need far greater competition and devolution in the way our whole banking system operates.

    We should be using the taxpayers’ stake to break up the big banks so that we can rebuild the kind of local banking and lending infrastructure we need in which banks are once again in closer contact with their own customers. We need more of the building societies and credit unions that used to be the bedrock of British financial services – a power shift from the big beasts of global finance back to local people, businesses and their communities.

    Number Two: Credible plan to reduce the deficit

    The second area of action is a credible plan to reduce the deficit. It is vital that we maintain the credit-worthiness of Britain with a clear and convincing plan to reduce government borrowing and to eliminate the structural element of the deficit – that part of the deficit which will not be eliminated by future growth… Currently estimated to be in the region of £90bn.

    Unfortunately, the debate over deficit reduction is currently generating much more heat than light. The British people are being confronted with a false choice: Labour says they will eliminate the deficit over the next eight years. But they are living in a state of denial about the need to cut public spending to achieve that.

    Meanwhile the Conservatives are talking a tough game about how inadequate Labour’s plans are. Yet they are playing hide and seek with British taxpayers because they won’t announce their plans until after the election. The British people deserve better. They deserve to be treated like grown ups. I know the CBI believes eight years is too long over which to eliminate the deficit. It may prove to be – and it may also be that the structural deficit is larger than current Treasury estimates.

    None of us yet know. We have to be flexible as well as responsible in our approach. In my view, credibility is the most important thing. It would be foolish and dangerous to propose rapid cuts that would cause so much economic and social disruption that they simply cannot be delivered.

    Remember: the structural deficit is about £90bn – almost enough to pay for the entire NHS. Removing it will be painful, come what may. And while the economy may be at the start of recovery, it could be on the edge of a double-dip recession. A premature fiscal contraction could cause a lot more harm than good.

    In that context, I think eight years is a reasonable starting point. The big question, the one to which neither of the other parties has yet provided an adequate response, is how to achieve it. In meeting this challenge, Liberal Democrats will be guided by three basic principles.

    First: A preference for spending cuts rather than tax rises. As I said earlier, we will introduce a new tax on the profits of banks, to ensure they pay for their taxpayer guarantee. That will raise about £2bn of what’s needed. But otherwise our focus is on public spending. The second principle is to focus on big areas of state expenditure, not relying on vague promises of efficiency savings.

    We are looking for big areas where the government simply shouldn’t be involved, or should be radically scaling back spending. Savings in paperclips, pot plants and general efficiencies are not enough. The third principle is rigour. We will provide costed plans with as much realistic detail as we can.

    Some of the big decisions which have to be made – like reforming public sector pensions or not renewing the Trident nuclear missile system – will take time to produce major savings. Others, like public sector pay, ending tax credits to above average income families, or cancelling some high profile Government schemes like the Baby Bond, will have a short term impact but will be very controversial.

    We have already gone far further than any other political party in spelling out in detail a series of proposed cuts and savings. We will build on that work with further specific proposals for additional savings and cuts. Anything less will rightly be regarded with scepticism by businesses and the public alike. Anything less will make it all the more difficult to protect front line public services even as we pay down this enormous structural deficit. I hope that when we spell out our plans in further detail we will have the backing of the CBI.

    I recall from my days as an international trade negotiator that businesses tended to be in favour of free trade for every sector except their own. I suspect the same might apply to public spending: we shall have much enthusiasm for cuts in general but howls of protest if it affects particular contracts or sectors – be it IT systems, defence procurement or business support schemes.

    You are rightly urging the political class to get real – it is a realism which we will all need to accept.

    Number Three: Investment in infrastructure

    Third, improving Britain’s infrastructure. It is important, as we reduce the deficit, that we do not put Britain’s long term future into jeopardy by cutting back capital spending. That would be a false saving, costing less today but costing us all a lot more tomorrow.

    Good infrastructure is crucial to competitiveness and growth. But our built environment, transport and energy infrastructure show badly the effect of neglect. The most expensive train infrastructure in Europe. The worst insulated homes. An energy infrastructure barely capable of dealing with new generation technologies, and so outdated we risk blackouts in coming years.

    And yet, astonishingly, the government is about to make it worse, slashing back capital spending by nearly £17bn next year. It is economic madness to put infrastructure spending first on the list for cuts. It should be a priority if we want to put in place a framework for future sustainable growth.

    So, in our manifesto, Liberal Democrats will be proposing a switch from current spending to capital investment in our first year – protecting the vital investment our country needs. And later this week, we will be spelling out in some detail our ideas for a National Infrastructure Bank, to leverage government investment, so that the money available goes further, and private and institutional investors can be part of building Britain’s future, while making a decent, reliable return.

    Number Four: Decentralise

    Fourth, the need for radical economic devolution. Infrastructure investment, in particular in transport, will give an economic boost to parts of the country outside London. But there is more we should do to ensure growth returns more broadly across the whole country.

    Earlier this year, Richard Lambert proposed re-establishing the old Industrial and Commercial Finance Corporation, a public-private partnership investment fund that provided equity and debt backing to small and medium-sized businesses from the 1940s on.

    It filled the gap between where banks left off and the Stock Exchange could take over. The ICFC invested through a network of regional offices, which had strong local and sector knowledge. In its lifetime ICFC provided investment capital to over 11,000 businesses.

    So I’ve asked Vince Cable and my business team to look into how we could re-establish an ICFC-like investment fund, with a strong local and regional basis. It could look to provide venture capital, including from private investors, as well as equity and loan backing, adding a new string to the bow of the old ICFC. And it could work in concert with a new network of regional stock exchanges offering a route for regional businesses to move into public equity without the huge risks and costs of a London listing.

    Creating sustainable, diverse growth across Britain and across our industries.

    Number five: Tax

    The final building block of the Liberal Democrat recovery plan is tax reform. My basic philosophy on tax is this: a fair tax system should reward hard work, enterprise and initiative. It should penalise pollution or other threats to the common good.

    It should bear down on unearned wealth. And it should be simple to understand and administer so that everyone, from small businesses to large, from low paid workers to the very rich, play by the same rules. At the moment, we have a tax system which fails every one of those tests.

    That is why the Liberal Democrats will make fundamental tax reform one of the key planks of our General Election manifesto. And let me reassure you: we will be proposing a tax switch, not a tax rise. With the exception of the new, temporary banking levy, the changes we propose will be tax neutral – they raise money from one part of the tax system to give money away in lower taxes elsewhere.

    And the money will be overwhelmingly moved into ordinary working people’s pockets to help increase consumer demand at a time when it is heavily suppressed. Helping your businesses and so boosting rather than suppressing economic growth.

    I believe all these changes are both necessary and possible. That is why, despite the continuing anxieties of this recession, I remain optimistic. Britain is struggling – yes – but we are also an extraordinarily resilient, diverse and innovative nation.

    We should have all the confidence in the world that – if politicians get the playing field right – we have the potential we need for a fresh start and a bright future. By dispersing power, giving a boost to local and regional businesses and industries which have long been neglected in favour of finance, we can create a stronger, more sustainable economy which encourages creativity and innovation, and creates opportunities for people, no matter their background, their home town or their choice of industry.

  • Nick Clegg – 2009 Speech to Liberal Democrat Party Conference

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    Below is the text of the speech made by the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, to the party conference on the 23rd September 2009.

    In the last eight weeks, 28 British soldiers and Royal Marines have been killed in Afghanistan. However easy it may be to forget, we are a nation at war. Already more than 75,000 British men and women have done tours of duty in Afghanistan.

    Thousands upon thousands of our compatriots, putting their lives on the line in the burning heat and the frozen winters of a country on the other side of the world. I want to pay tribute, on behalf of all of us, to the tenacity, bravery and extraordinary professionalism of every one of them. Their families, too, have borne with incredible fortitude the separation, the fear, and the anguish of bereavement. We salute them.

    I’m afraid the hardship has been deepened, for all of them, by the enormous difficulties of this war. After nearly 8 years, victory not only seems more distant than ever, failure seems inevitable unless we change course.

    I know some of you believe we should call for British troops to withdraw now. If things continue on the present disastrous course, then sooner or later that is a judgement which we may need to make. That is why we must change course. We have one more chance, one only, to turn things around.

    Success cannot be secured through military means alone. Development assistance must be bigger and faster. Talks with moderate elements of the Taliban network must commence. The international community must at last agree to a single plan in place of the present patchwork of duplication, disunity and muddle.

    The threadbare legitimacy of the government in Kabul must be strengthened by reaching out across ethnic and tribal divisions. And here at home Gordon Brown must change gear, too. He must now show the leadership and conviction that has so far been so disastrously lacking in making the case to the British people.

    You cannot win a war on half horse power. We owe it to the young men and women serving in Helmand to give them all the political leadership and all the resources they need to do the job. We should either do this properly or we shouldn’t do it at all. So I say to the Prime Minister: time is running out.

    Unless you change course, there will be no choice but to withdraw, and that would be a betrayal of the servicemen and women who have already made such enormous sacrifices on our behalf. I do not want British troops to come home defeated by political failure. I want them to come home, mission successfully completed, with their heads held high.

    Today is the beginning of real change in Britain

    Let me tell you why I want to be Prime Minister. It’s because I want to change our country for good.

    Because I want to live in a country where prejudice, insularity and fear are conquered by the great British traditions of tolerance, pluralism and justice. Where political life is not a Westminster village freak show, but open, accessible and helpful in people’s everyday lives. Where fine words on the environment are translated into real action.

    Where every child can grow up safe and secure, able to flourish, no matter their background, their income, or the colour of their skin. Where we make sense of the complex, globalised world of our times and play a creative role in shaping it.

    Where rights, freedom and privacy are not the playthings of the government but safeguarded for everyone. I want to be Prime Minister because I want to be the first Prime Minister in my lifetime to be on the side of the weak against the powerful, on the side of freedom against conformity, on the side of human innovation against government decree.

    I want to be Prime Minister because I have spent half a lifetime imagining a better society. And I want to spend the next half making it happen.

    I was lucky enough to be brought up in a large, warm family that had almost no time at all for the status quo. By parents who encouraged us, required us, as children always to ask why. Always to assume that there is a better way of doing things. If you only bother to look for it. That’s the spirit I found in the Liberal Democrats. It’s why I joined, and why I wanted to lead our party.

    Friends, this has been quite a week for us. I’ve been called a number of names. Even “a good leader”. By Evan Harris. I am never going to duck asking the important questions, however difficult they are. But I am immensely proud to lead a party that actually debates things, openly and democratically. Let’s always remember: we are in this together.

    So let us not look back any longer. Let us look forward. From this point on, keep your eyes on our goal. Let today mark the beginning of real change in Britain.

    These are extraordinary times. A global recession. Mass unemployment. A broken political system. Government finances in crisis. And still: inequality rising and climate change spinning out of control. Faced with these extraordinary challenges; We need an extraordinary government.

    Blue-Red, Red-Blue

    Because one thing, above all others, is certain. The way we got here is not the way out. The blue-red, red-blue politics that got us into this mess cannot clear it up. The way we got here is not the way out. Britain needs a change of direction. Let today mark the beginning of real change in Britain.

    Look at what the old red-blue politics offers. Back in 1997, Peter Mandelson told us to judge Labour after 10 years in government. It’s been twelve years. And we have made our judgement.

    If you’re poor, you’re still far less likely to go to university than if you’re better off.

    If you’re from an ethnic minority, you’re more likely to be stopped by the police, even when you haven’t done anything wrong.

    If you’re a woman, you’ll probably be paid less than the men you know. And if you’re a child born in the poorest neighbourhood of my city, Sheffield, you will probably die 14 years before a child born the same day, just up the road, in a more affluent part of town. We have made our judgement of Labour. They betrayed the best hopes of a generation.

    People are hungry for change. So the question now is: what change? David Cameron talks about change. But is it real change?

    He talks about broken Britain but campaigns for tax breaks for the very rich. He says he cares about the environment but then teams up with climate change deniers in Europe. He claims he wants to clean up politics but won’t tell you whether his biggest donor pays taxes in Britain. That isn’t real change, it’s fake change. And Britain deserves better.

    To be fair, the Conservatives do have one belief. That it’s their turn to govern. They think power should come easily. You get the sense from so many of them that they became Conservatives mostly because it looked like the simplest route to a job in the cabinet.

    I chose the Liberal Democrats. Not because I thought it would be an easy route to power. I knew it would be hard. But because I wanted to fight for what I believed in, however hard, however long it took.

    The Conservatives want to inherit power; I want us to earn it.

    The thing about David Cameron is – the PR might be good, but what’s behind it? It’s like my grandmother would have said. There’s less to him than meets the eye.

    As for me? Well, occasionally I’m a bit too blunt in interviews – but at least you know I’m not just spinning you a line. I speak out.

    On the Speaker of the House of Commons.

    On Afghanistan.

    On bankers’ bonuses.

    On citizenship rights for the Gurkhas.

    And I am so honoured that some of you have been able to be here with us today.

    People are turning to the Liberal Democrats. Because they see there’s something different about us. It’s our pioneering spirit.

    It was a liberal, Gladstone, who helped develop the concept of universal human rights. It was a liberal, Lloyd George, who introduced the world’s first universal state pension. It was a liberal, Beveridge, who invented the NHS.

    Ours is the party of Paddy Ashdown, the first person to put climate change on the national agenda. Ours is the party of Charles Kennedy. Of Ming Campbell. Who used all the courage of their convictions to oppose the illegal invasion of Iraq. Ours is the party of Vince Cable, the first to see problems brewing in our economy, the first with a vision of how to take us to recovery.

    It’s because Liberal Democrats are different that, when Gordon Brown let casino investment banking loose on our economy. The Conservatives said yes, and only Liberal Democrats said no.

    When Gordon Brown let house prices rocket and personal borrowing get out of control, the Conservatives said yes, and only Liberal Democrats said no. When the contracts were being drawn up for new polluting runways. When our civil liberties were being torn up. When our troops were massing on the borders of Iraq. The Conservatives cheered from the sidelines, and only Liberal Democrats said no.

    We are the only party that offers real change at the next election. Labour is dying on its feet. We are replacing them as the dominant force of progressive politics. We are the alternative to a hollow Conservative party that offers just an illusion of change.

    Make no mistake. There is only one party that will bring real change to Britain. The Liberal Democrats.

    The Challenge

    The biggest challenge for the next government will be sorting out the public finances. It’s a challenge neither exhausted Labour nor fake Conservatives are fit to take on. This year’s deficit is likely to be one of the highest in Europe. We will borrow £175bn this year alone – £5,550 every single second. Total national debt could hit £1.2 trillion next year – £20,000 for every man, woman and child.

    I’ll be straight with you. There is no easy solution. There isn’t a serious economist in the world who agrees with the Conservatives that, right in the grip of recession, with two and a half million unemployed, we should pull the rug out from under the economy with immediate spending cuts. But, once the economy recovers, we are going to have to control spending tightly for many years to come.

    We were right, in years gone by, to campaign for new spending to help people, to support them, as children, as young adults, as parents and as pensioners. As Charles Kennedy rightly says: our commitments demonstrate generosity of spirit. And those manifestos were right for an age of plenty. Now something different is needed.

    But let me make something very clear. I am not going to abandon our vision for a better Britain because money’s tight. It makes me more determined. Balancing the government books isn’t a maths test.

    Fiscal discipline is not an end in itself. We offer discipline for a purpose. Not just austerity, but progressive austerity. Reducing the deficit, yes, but also building a fair society and a green economy. Still driven by generosity of spirit, but fit for the circumstances of the day. It’s the only way to deliver real change in Britain.

    That’s why our approach is completely different from the two other parties’. We aren’t going to salami-slice budgets like Labour and the Conservatives. Pretending that you can save billions of pounds just by using fewer paperclips and putting up the price of Parliamentary salads.

    It isn’t true, and everyone knows it isn’t true. We know what happens when you simply squeeze budgets, across the board, until the pips squeak. We know, because we lived through it before, under the Conservatives. We remember the tumble-down classrooms, the pensioners dying on hospital trolleys, the council houses falling into total disrepair. We remember, and we say: never again.

    Liberal Democrats will do things differently. Not shaving a bit off everything, but asking fundamental questions about what the government should and shouldn’t be doing. Working out, openly and publicly, what works and what doesn’t. So we can completely cancel the things that don’t work. In order to protect, and even in some cases extend, investment that really matters. That is progressive austerity.

    We’ve already identified big areas where substantial long-term savings can be made. Reducing the bureaucracy of Labour’s centralised state, databases and agencies. Cutting the cost of politics – changing our electoral system and having 150 fewer MPs. Reforming tax credits so they go to the people who really need them. Spending less on defence procurement.

    We heard yesterday Gordon Brown is considering taking one of the Trident nuclear submarines out of service. I welcome that step in the right direction. But if you want to lead nuclear disarmament around the world, you need to be more decisive. That is why we say no to the like-for-like replacement of Trident.

    Some people have asked me why we’ve talked so much about identifying cuts. I know it doesn’t feel comfortable some of the time. But we’re doing it because we know that the more we save, the safer our schools and hospitals will be. And we know that if we save enough, we will still be able to include in our manifesto, despite these difficult times, some of the pledges for new investment that we hold so dear.

    Because if we end the child trust fund, we can pay for smaller classes for five, six and seven year olds. If we stop the waste of money on the useless NHS IT system. We could improve maternity services so every new family gets a great start.

    If we substantially reform politics, with fewer MPs, government ministers, departments and quangos, we could save billions. And we could put the money into insulating homes and improving public transport, creating thousands of new, green jobs. Building up Britain’s infrastructure not our bureaucracy.

    Many of these decisions will be difficult. Taking them is the price of fairness. But if we are brave enough to take them. It will be the beginning of real change in Britain.

    I want to say something to teachers, doctors, nurses, police officers, social workers, in fact to everyone who works in our public services. Britain depends on people like you and the services you provide. I know these are anxious times for you.

    Everyone is talking about cuts. But neither Labour nor the Conservatives has come clean about what that means for you. They’re not treating you like grown-ups. I want to work with you, hand in glove, to agree the way forward on pensions and on pay.

    On pensions. Of course, we will guarantee every penny of entitlements you’ve already built up. But we do need to have a proper, independent review of what’s fair, not just for public sector workers, but also for the taxpayers who pay your salaries. Let me reassure you: my particular focus will always be on the gold-plated pensions enjoyed by senior civil servants, quangocrats, judges – and MPs. At a time of pressure for everyone, it’s only right for those with the broadest shoulders to take the greatest weight.

    Next: pay. We will never go back on an existing pay deal. That would be a betrayal. But in future, we need to work together to agree strict, disciplined limits. Again, I believe people with the most generous salaries should take the brunt of cuts so their lower-paid colleagues don’t have to. But if it comes down to discipline on pay or mass redundancies. I think we all agree: protecting jobs must come first.

    Young people are bearing too much of the burden of this recession. Imagine how it must feel to have slogged your way through school, college or university, maybe racking up thousands of pounds in debt, only to find there isn’t a job, any job, at the other end. This is supposed to be one of the most hopeful, optimistic moments in your life.

    Imagine sitting at home day after day, no money, nothing to do but wait for your fortnightly appointment at the JobCentre. We used to worry about getting our children onto the property ladder. Now we have to worry whether they’ll ever get a job. There can be nothing more dispiriting at this formative moment. It destroys your self-confidence, perhaps for good.

    I want to say, to young people. I am sorry. I am sorry that you have been, already, let down so many times. I am sorry that you will spend your working lives burdened by the debts of a previous generation.

    But sorry isn’t good enough. Our job isn’t to feel bad about problems, it’s to fix them. My commitment to the next generation is simple. The Liberal Democrats will not fail you.

    A New Promise

    So today we make a new promise to young people that they will not be unemployed for longer than 90 days before we find them work or training. Let me spell out what that would mean: If you lost your job today, we’d find you work, training, or a paid internship by Christmas. Right now, we would cancel Labour’s VAT cut and use the money to invest in young people’s futures.

    We would pay for 10,000 more university places and 50,000 more college places this year. And we would introduce a new “Paid Internship” scheme to give people real job experience. With an allowance of £55 a week. Young people would get experience that could make all the difference when it comes to looking for a job.

    And you know. We could pay for 800,000 placements. for 800,000 young people. For the cost of just one weekend’s VAT cut. If it’s between 15p off a cinema ticket and a decent future. I know what we should choose.

    I have always believed that you can’t make progress as a society unless every generation tries to do better for its children. That’s an idea that’s at the core of Liberal Democrat values. Providing opportunity for our children, even as we provide dignity and security in retirement and old age.

    To build a fair society, you have to start with children. And you have to start young. In Britain today, a poor, bright child will be overtaken by a less intelligent, but wealthier child by the time he is seven. This has to change. The first few years are the most important in determining a child’s future. Those first few years when their character, their personality are being shaped.

    The first few years are the most important ones. That’s why we’ve always said: scrap the Child Trust Fund, which gives people a cash handout on their 18th birthday. And invest the money when it can really make a difference. With classes of just 15 for five, six and seven year olds. The beginning of real change in Britain.

    If you want to know how fair a society is. Look at its tax system. Britain’s is painfully unfair. The poorest pay a bigger slice of their income than the richest. Polluters are allowed to get away with harming our environment without paying for the clean-up. And we lose as much as £40 billion a year to tax dodgers.

    That’s why the Liberal Democrats are going to reinvent the tax system to make it fair. Not changing the amount we raise, but changing who pays.

    We will raise the income tax threshold to £10,000, funded by closing loopholes that the wealthy exploit. And by making sure polluters pay for the damage they cause. I’ll be honest. If you’ve got a house worth over a million pounds. If you fly trans-Atlantic a couple of times a month. If you get a seven-figure bonus paid in share options to get round income tax. You will pay more.

    That is what is fair. Why on earth should you get tax subsidies paid for by people whose salaries are just a tiny fraction of yours? I don’t want to penalise people who work hard. If you can make it big: all credit to you. But what it should win you is respect, not exemption from your tax bill.

    In exactly the same way as on public spending. Many of these decisions on tax will be difficult. Taking them is the price of fairness. If we are brave enough to take them. It will be the beginning of real change in Britain.

    So if there’s one policy you take away from this conference. One policy to mention on every doorstep, in every phone call, in every leaflet. Let it be this one.

    We will deliver fair taxes Under a Liberal Democrat government, people will not pay a single penny of tax on the first £10,000 they earn. Millions of people will find themselves with an extra £700 in their pocket, and up to four million low earners and pensioners will pay no income tax at all. The beginning of real change in Britain.

    After the expenses scandal, people are crying out, rightly, for something different at Westminster. Labour and the Conservatives have betrayed them. They offered warm rhetoric about change when the scandal was at its height. And then did nothing. They will defend the status quo to the last breath.

    Only the Liberal Democrats will clean up Westminster, reform expenses, end big donations and elect the Lords. Only the Liberal Democrats will give people the right to sack MPs who are found guilty of serious wrongdoing. And only the Liberal Democrats will secure, once and for all, fair votes for everyone.

    That means radical electoral reform, argued for from first principles. Not just some minor tinkering, put forward by a dying Labour government as a last, desperate attempt to save its skin.

    We must do away with safe seats. Did you know, nearly half of Britain’s constituencies have elected the same party in every election since I was born? These are seats where you could put a red or blue rosette on the back end of a donkey and it would still win. Only when every MP has to do a decent job and win the trust of the people they represent will we ever clean up politics for good. It will be the beginning of real change in Britain.

    Imagine a Liberal Democrat Cabinet

    Imagine a Liberal Democrat cabinet. Maybe the odd heated meeting. But imagine Liberal Democrats at work.

    Dr Vince Cable, of course, in his office at the Treasury. Ushering in fairer taxes.

    Cutting the banks down to size. Tearing up the Treasury red tape that strangles local government. And that’s all between breakfast and lunch before he rattles off another book for the day.

    I tell you, when it comes to bankers’ bonuses, I can’t think of anyone better to send into the negotiating room. You think Vince would listen to those reckless bankers demanding their millions? He’d say what we all believe: There will be no bonuses for failure, not today, not tomorrow, not ever again.

    Then there’d be David Laws at the schools department, hunting down all those boxes and boxes of bureaucratic rules and paperwork that get in teachers’ way, and throwing them out. I mean, recycling them. And if the civil servants say the pupil premium is too complicated. They can’t work out how to invest the extra money to the benefit of the most deprived children. You know David will do the maths himself.

    Chris Huhne at the Home Office. Restoring the civil liberties so shamefully discarded by this Labour Government on his first day with a Freedom Bill. Cancelling ID cards to help fund 10,000 more police on the streets. You know Chris won’t be put off by technocrats saying it can’t be done. He’ll produce volumes of statistics showing he’s right and look sternly over his glasses until they cave in.

    Norman Lamb reinventing our NHS for modern times, giving communities and patients a real say. Professor Steve Webb getting to work at the crack of dawn to improve pensions for women. Sarah Teather and Norman Baker, building Britain’s infrastructure – the homes we need and the public transport we deserve. Julia Goldsworthy, devolving so much power to local communities she finds she can halve the size of her department.

    And, Simon Hughes, taking charge of environment and energy policy. This is a man who’s faced death threats to bring a killer to justice. Who’s been involved in every environmental campaign you can think of since the 1980s. He isn’t going to listen to vested interests who say “it’s too difficult”. He’d set our course for the zero carbon future we need. The beginning of real change in Britain.

    The Beginning of Real Change for Britain

    Climate change is the greatest challenge of our age, no doubt about it. But it’s also, very much, a challenge of our age. Like so many of the problems governments have to deal with. From financial regulation to terrorism and internet crime.

    It crosses borders.

    You can’t stop the weather at the cliffs of Dover. That’s why the big deals, the ones that matter, are struck at international forums – like Copenhagen this December. A summit that must, must agree an international plan of action to keep global warming not just below 2 degrees, but below 1.7 degrees. Because that’s what the best science tells us is now needed to prevent catastrophic climate change.

    Who do you want representing Britain at a crucial summit like that? Labour? They have let us down internationally. It wasn’t just Iraq. It was their disregard for European colleagues, refusing to attend summits, grandstanding about how superior they were. It was their disregard for international law. Their backroom deals with Saudi Arabia over BAE, with Libya over Lockerbie, with America over torture. Labour has undermined Britain in the world.

    But what’s the alternative? William Hague? David Cameron and William Hague think the nineteenth century state still makes sense in a twenty-first century world. They simply do not understand that in an age of globalisation power must be exercised by nations together, not squandered by nations going it alone.

    William Hague gives speeches about the enduring importance of the English speaking world. When everyone knows the new power centres are China, India and Brazil. A Cameron-Hague foreign policy would be the most insular and self defeating in modern times. How much influence would they have in Berlin, in Paris, in Brussels? Not a gram. Or even an ounce. And because they wouldn’t stand tall in Europe, they would count for little in Washington too.

    But there is a third option. Imagine Liberal Democrats around the negotiating table.

    Ed Davey, our outstanding shadow foreign secretary. Drawing on the wisdom of Shirley Williams. Paddy Ashdown. Ming Campbell. We would secure Britain a stronger role in the world. By putting us at the heart of the European Union and committing us to abide fully by international law.

    The beginning of real change for Britain.

    Go with Your Instincts: Vote Liberal Democrat

    You know, before I went into politics I managed development aid projects in Central Asia. I led negotiating teams on international trade deals with China and Russia. I worked on new rules to help create the largest single market in the world, here in Europe. I’ve seen how different things could be if Britain would only play its cards right.

    I know there are people who agree with a lot of what we’ve got to say. But who still don’t vote Liberal Democrat. You don’t think we’re contenders. I urge you to think again.

    If you don’t agree with our policies. If you don’t want big change in Britain. Then don’t vote for us. But if you like what you hear. If you share our vision for a different kind of future. Then go with your instincts; vote Liberal Democrat.

    Elections are decided by your cross on the ballot paper. Power is not any party’s to be inherited. Power is yours to give to whoever you choose.

    So don’t turn away, don’t stay at home, don’t vote Conservative just because you think it’s the only option. This is Britain. We don’t settle for second best because we think it’s inevitable. We don’t compromise on our beliefs because people might not agree with us. We stand up for our values with our heads held high.

    So when you enter that polling booth, choose the future you really want.

    Make no mistake: the Liberal Democrats will do things differently in Britain. But if you want real change in Britain, you have to take a stand. If you want what we propose, you have to vote for it.

    If you want tax cuts for ordinary people, paid for by closing loopholes for the very rich. If you want the right to sack your MP if they’re proved corrupt. If you want children to start out at school in classes of just 15. Then vote for it.

    If you want our prisons to work, so there’s less crime. If you want a lasting job in a new, green economy. If you want Britain to stand tall again in the world. Then vote for it. This is a vital moment in the history of our country. And you have the power to shape it.

    Labour is lost. They haven’t the ideas, energy or vision to start again. If you voted for them in the past, you have a choice. You can give away your vote to a fringe party. You can stay at home in despair. Or you can join with the Liberal Democrats and make the difference.

    If you supported Labour in 1997 because you wanted fairness. You wanted young people to flourish. You wanted political reform. You wanted the environment protected. Or you simply believed in a better future. Turn to the Liberal Democrats. We carry the torch of progress now.

    The choice at the next election is fake change from the Conservatives. Or real change from the Liberal Democrats. At a time like this.

    A time of real crisis. Britain cannot afford to be taken in by David Cameron’s illusion of change. Britain needs leadership from a party with real passion, and it’s the Liberal Democrats.

    There is hope for a different future, a different way of doing things in Britain, if we are brave enough to make a fresh start. So let today be the first day of the future of British politics. It may be only the beginning. But it is the beginning. The beginning of real change in Britain.

    If you want things to be different, really different, choose the party that is different.

    Choose the Liberal Democrats.

  • Vince Cable – 2009 Speech to the Liberal Democrat Spring Conference

    vincecable

    Below is the text of the speech made by Vince Cable to the 2009 Liberal Democrat Spring Conference on 7th March 2009.

    Good afternoon Conference.

    I will ignore the usual plesantries and jokes because we have a national economic emergency.

    The economic position of the country is dire.

    It is deteriorating fast.

    It dominates every political conversation.

    In the coming months we face unremitting bad news about factory closures, job losses and home repossessions.

    There has never been a time in our lifetime when there was a greater need for politicians to give clear, honest, economic, analysis combined with a realistic message of hope.

    Yet the current political debate across the Tory-Labour divide is as depressingly predictable as the Christmas pantomime,

    ‘It’s all your fault, Gordon’.

    ‘No it isn’t’.

    ‘Oh, yes it is!’

    ‘Oh, no it isn’t!’

    Sterile, Puerile and Childish.

    The Government claims that this is an international crisis.

    And of course it is.

    We are living with the consequences of the collapse of a giant international pyramid selling scheme.

    But it isn’t only an international crisis.

    Liberal Democrats have long warned that the British economy was unbalanced and over reliant on a consumer borrowing spree and fantasy house prices.

    That the mountain of personal debt would come crashing down and that the housing bubble would burst.

    That a heavy price would be paid for the Thatcherite destruction of mutual building societies and the weakness of bank regulation.

    I don’t claim that we got everything right; but, unlike the Tories, the Liberal Democrats consistently identified the structural weaknesses of the house that Gordon built.

    For their part, the Tories give the impression that they are absolutely loving every minute of this crisis.

    They calculate that the worse it is, the easier it will be to obliterate the memory of the two Tory recessions and the easier it will be, once in office, to make savage cuts in public services.

    Britain does have deep problems, for sure, and the Government has messed up big time.

    But the Tory narrative is feeding the downward spiral of fear and lack of confidence.

    And they offer no convincing alternative.

    What the public wants, instead, is a balanced assessment of where we are, and practical, positive, serious proposals to get our country out of the mire.

    This is a crisis for us all.

    None of us knows all the answers.

    The immediate problem is that demand has dried up; people are hoarding cash, because they are afraid.

    The Liberal Democrats were the first party to call for deep cuts in interest rates to stop us getting into a deflationary downward spiral.

    That said, we need to acknowledge the anger of millions of savers who resent paying for other people’s profligacy and now receive nothing on their bank deposits.

    And the savers are needed since Britain needs a strong personal savings culture for retirement, personal care and higher education and to prevent a reversion to the debt fuelled boom and bust cycles.

    The Conservatives are offering standard rate tax relief on savings interest which is superficially attractive to the better off savers.

    But, in the present context, 20% of nothing is nothing.

    It would be much better to concentrate on removing the outrageous confiscation of savings under means tested benefits like pension credit.

    The heart of the crisis is in banking.

    The Government had no alternative to save the leading banks from collapse.

    That is not the same as saving Woolworths or steel or car makers.

    If the banks collapse – and in October they almost did – almost every other business goes down with them and we go back to barter.

    But we argued from the outset that we cannot have the taxpayer taking all the risks and losses and the banks continuing to be run by bankers in their own interests or hoarding capital.

    Lloyds/HBOS has now joined the list of effectively nationalised banks.

    But only after prolonged damaging dithering.

    Rather, those banks which have failed and been rescued should be taken over and run in the public interest.

    The purpose of control is clear:

    – to stop jobs haemorrhaging as sound companies run out of cash;

    – to identify and manage the ‘bad debt’; to deal with abuses like large scale tax avoidance;

    – to deal with remuneration scandals;

    – and to split off low risk high street banking from the global, casino-type operations – in other words, run the banks on safe, traditional lines.

    British taxpayers must never again guarantee gambling by our banks.

    Once this is sorted, the Government’s stake can be sold, hopefully at a profit to the taxpayer.

    The Government is clearly terrified of being accused of nationalising the banks.

    We have an extraordinary situation where John McCain, the right wing Republican candidate for the US Presidency recognises the need for bank nationalisation and our own supposedly Socialist government won’t face up to its responsibilities.

    I am proud that the Liberal Democrats have been clear and consistent on this issue from the outset.

    This is a moral as well as a financial crisis.

    The shocking stories coming out of banks reveal a deep corruption of values which has now spread into government and society.

    A decade ago Brown and Blair made a pact with the Devil.

    In order to bolster New Labour’s reputation for economic competence they got into bed with the financial aristocracy.

    They turned a blind eye to massive salaries and bumper bonuses, the large scale use of tax havens and tax dodging and dangerous high risk activities of some investment banks – ultimately underwritten by the British taxpayer.

    In return they were showered with compliments and party donations and enough tax revenue to spend more on public services.

    The pact is now breaking down and we can see in all their ugliness the characters to whom Labour bartered its soul.

    We all now know about Fred Goodwin and Adam Applegarth.

    Less well known is Roger Jenkins whom Barclays pay £40 million a year – £40 million! – to find ways of dodging taxes and Peter Cummings whose bad deals destroyed the 313 year old Bank of Scotland and is in line for a £6 million pension pot.

    It isn’t just the extreme greed of the super-rich who gloried in success but still expect to be massively rewarded for failure.

    The bonus culture has become all pervasive.

    I understand the annoyance of bank employees who do not get the pay they were expecting.

    But without the taxpayer, they would not have a job, let alone a bonus.

    Many in other industries have not been so lucky.

    And it isn’t just the private sector.

    Civil servants now expect big bonuses if they meet their targets, and if they don’t bonuses to encourage them to try harder.

    Although the scale of greed is smaller the self-serving instincts of the public sector aristocracy are fundamentally no different from the bankers.

    We can wave our arms about Sir Fred’s pension but the practical question is what we do about the extreme, obscene, inequalities of reward which bear so little relation to performance.

    One modest step is full public disclosure.

    So the Fat Cats have nowhere to hide.

    Public companies should publish the full pay package for all highly paid employees as well as directors.

    The starting point for disclosure could be the Prime Minister’s pay: £194,000 a year.

    Of course, those entrepreneurs who want to risk their own money should still be free in a liberal society to make their fortune.

    Alas, this country does little to encourage any British Bill Gates; and too much to featherbed top dogs in big organisations.

    We must also remember that while most of us have reasonably secure jobs or entitlements well over a million British families will be plunged into hardship this year as workers lose their jobs.

    Job Seekers Allowance – for those entitled to it – is the grand sum of £60.50 a week, not much more than a tenth of average income.

    Families who are not rich are seeing their incomes slashed.

    And they have to keep their mortgages going or they will become one of the 75,000 who will be repossessed.

    There are many little cruelties and indignities which will befall many of these families.

    Let me just mention one: the vicious action of a Labour government giving powers to bailiffs to force entry to debtors homes using sledgehammers and to use force to hold down people who resist.

    Labour is taking us back to the pre-Victorian morality of the debtors’ prison.

    To restore a sense of fairness to such a divided and distorted society will be a massive project.

    Our proposed tax reforms make a start.

    They would establish the principle, revolutionary in itself, that companies and high net worth individuals are not free to decide that paying UK taxes is discretionary, like tipping the waiter.

    We have to crack down hard on corporate tax avoidance and tax havens, made easier by the fact that the US and the EU are determined to do the same.

    Nor can we continue to offer Sir Fred Goodwin and his ilk top rate tax relief on their pension contributions or, to private equity investors, CGT rates which are less than the tax rate paid by their cleaners.

    These loopholes should be closed.

    And the revenue should be redistributed in a progressive way to cut taxes on the low paid and those on average incomes putting cash into the pockets of people who need it and will spend it.

    A tax cut financed by taxes on the very wealthy and a clampdown on tax dodging will be at the heart of our election offering.

    The spirit of our alternative budget will be the same which inspired the People’s Budget 100 years ago – when liberal radicals led by Lloyd George laid the foundations for progressive politics in Britain.

    I make that renewed commitment in the full knowledge that the public sector finances are getting rapidly worse and will need to be sharply corrected once the recession is abating.

    Our tax cutting plans will be fully costed and fully affordable.

    It is also right, in the short run, for the government to sustain the economy; to borrow to keep people in work rather than borrowing to pay them to be unemployed.

    But instead of the VAT cut we would have carefully targeted public investment aimed at providing more social housing, environmental improvements to the housing stock and better public transport.

    At a time when there are massive unemployed resources in the construction industry there has never been a better time to fight worklessness and homelessness simultaneously.

    There will be economic recovery.

    But the Government cannot continue for long to borrow a staggering 10% of GDP.

    There is no imminent threat of bond markets drying up and a sterling crisis but there will be one unless there is a clear route back to public sector spending discipline.

    As a credible political force we accept these realities.

    We cannot and should not make unrealistic spending commitments.

    There are two ways of approaching this looming challenge.

    One is the traditional way: salami slicing key services; using councillors as butchers for central government; abandoning necessary public investment.

    There is a better way.

    Setting priorities.

    To govern is to choose: knowing when to say no.

    We have argued already that an axe has to be taken to wasteful IT programmes and ID cards must go; that tax credits must be chopped back; that new motorways should not be built; that we cannot take on the liabilities of new nuclear power.

    There are bigger questions looming.

    Do we seriously believe a Britain in dire financial straits can afford a new  world-wide military role?

    How long can we continue the pretence that we can sustain generous pensions for public sector ‘fat cats’?

    This year hundreds of thousands of university students will join the dole queue.

    Perhaps half of all new graduates.

    They will have to be helped.

    But how much longer can we pretend that it is sensible or affordable to chase the government’s target of half our population studying full time at university?

    These are enormous issues.

    We must be bold and under Nick Clegg’s leadership we are being bold.

    People are crying out for a believable explanation of the mess we are in and a credible message of leadership on how to get out of it.

    Labour has dominated the progressive side of British politics for 80 years.

    But no more.

    Labour has lost its moral authority.

    And Economic failure has killed the New Labour brand.

    We, the Liberal Democrats not Labour, are the future of progressive politics.

    In these difficult and uncertain times the Liberal Democrats under Nick Clegg’s leadership have the ideals, the policies and the competence to meet the national need.

  • Gordon Brown – 2009 Speech to Labour Party Conference

    gordonbrown

    Below is the text of the speech made by the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, to the 2009 Labour Party Conference.

    You know friends, it is the fighters and believers who change the  world. We’ve changed the world before, and we’re going to change the world again.

    And you know, our country faces the biggest choice  for a generation. So we need to fight; not bow out, not walk away, not give in, not give up, but fight. Fight to win for Britain.

    Because if anyone says that to fight doesn’t get you anywhere, that politics can’t make a difference, that all parties are the same, then look what we’ve achieved together since 1997: the winter fuel allowance, the shortest waiting times in history, crime down by a third, the creation of Surestart, the Cancer Guarantee, record results in schools, more students than ever, the Disability Discrimination Act, devolution, civil partnerships, peace in Northern Ireland, the social chapter, half a million children out of poverty, maternity pay, paternity leave, child benefit at record levels, the minimum wage, the ban on cluster bombs, the cancelling of debt, the trebling of aid, the first ever Climate Change Act; that’s the Britain we’ve been building together, that’s the change we choose.

    And so today, in the midst of events that are transforming our world, we meet united and determined to fight for the future.

    Our country confronts the biggest choice for a generation.  It’s a choice between two parties, yes.  But more importantly a choice between two directions for our country.

    In the last eighteen months we have had to confront the biggest economic choices the world has faced since the 1930s.

    It was only a year ago that the world was looking over a precipice and Britain was in danger. I knew that unless I acted decisively and immediately, the recession could descend into a great depression with millions of people’s jobs and homes and savings at risk.

    And times of great challenge mean choices of great consequence, so let me share with you a little about the choices we are making.

    The first choice was this: whether markets left to themselves could sort out the crisis; or whether governments had to act. Our choice was clear; we nationalised Northern Rock and took shares in British banks, and as a result not one British saver has lost a single penny. That was the change we chose. The change that benefits the hard working majority, not the privileged few.

    And we faced a second big choice – between letting the recession run its course, or stimulating the economy back to growth. And we made our choice; help for small businesses, targeted tax cuts for millions and advancing our investment in roads, rail and education. That was the change we chose – change that benefits the hard working majority and not just a privileged few.

    And then we had a third choice, between accepting unemployment as a price worth paying, or saving jobs.  And we in Britain made our choice, it’s meant half a million jobs saved. And so Conference even in today’s recession there are 29 million people in work.  2 million more men and women providing for their families than in 1997.

    And then we faced the mortgage choice –to do nothing as repossessions rose or save the family homes people have worked so hard to buy. 200,000 homeowners given direct government support to stay in their home. That was the change we chose – change that benefits the mainstream majority and not just a few.

    And then we faced another choice; between going our own way, or acting with other countries. And everybody knows the choice we made – we picked internationalism over isolationism, leading the G20 to a global deal that will save 15 million jobs.

    Every government across Europe made the choice to act.  Every government across the G20 chose to act. Almost every major political party across the world chose to act.

    Only one party thought it was best to do nothing.

    Only one party with pretensions to government made the wrong choice; the Conservative Party of Britain.

    They made the wrong choice on Northern Rock.

    The wrong choice on jobs and spending.

    The wrong choice on mortgage support.

    The wrong choice on working with Europe.

    The only thing about their policy that is consistent is that they are consistently wrong.

    The opposition might think the test of a party is the quality of its marketing but I say the test for a government is the quality of its judgement.

    The Conservative Party were faced with the economic call of the century and they called it wrong.

    And I say a party that makes the wrong choices on the most critical decisions it would have faced in government should not be given the chance to be in government.

    And what of the big choices that this country has to make now – to help young people into work or to see, like the 80s, a wasted generation. And I’ll tell you the choice we’re making. To reject every piece of Conservative advice and instead we will ensure school leavers training, guarantee the young unemployed work experience, expand university places and to increase, not cut the apprenticeships we need. I’m sorry to say that by opposing these measures conservative policy would callously and coldly return us to the lost generation and cardboard cities of the 1980s – we say never again. That’s the change we choose, the change that benefits the many, not the few.

    Every day we are facing the business choice – to support our companies from car manufacturers to the self-employed or simply let great British businesses go to the wall. And we are making our choice. Labour believes in the businesses and enterprise of Britain. More than 200,000 agreements signed to give direct support to small businesses.

    That was the change we chose; change that benefits the enterprising backbone of Britain. In opening up planning in improving transport, in opting for nuclear energy it is Labour that is the party of British business and British enterprise and the Conservative Party’s whose policy has been to walk away.

    And the Conservatives were wrong on all these choices, because they were wrong about something more fundamental still.

    Because what let the world down last autumn was not just bankrupt institutions but a bankrupt ideology. What failed was the Conservative idea that markets always self-correct but never self-destruct. What failed was the right wing fundamentalism that says you just leave everything to the market and says that free markets should not just be free but values free.

    One day last October the executive of a major bank told us that his bank needed only overnight finance but no long term support from the government.

    The next day I found that this bank was going under with debts that were among the biggest of any bank, anywhere, at any time in history. Bankers had lost sight of basic British values, acting responsibly and acting fairly.  The values that we, the hard working majority, live by every day.

    Like the small businessman who came to see me when his credit dried up at the bank. He was crying with the shame of missing some payments, but so responsible was he, that he was determined that every penny he owed would be paid. Or like the woman who wrote to me and said that when we announced our decision to rescue Icesave and her family’s savings it was the first night’s sleep she’d had since the crisis started.

    When markets falter and banks fail it’s the jobs and the homes and the security of the squeezed middle that are hit the hardest. It’s the hard pressed, hard working majority – the person with a trade, the small business owner, the self-employed. It’s the class room assistant, the worker in the shop, the builder on the site.

    It’s the millions of people who do their best and do their bit and in return simply want their families to get on not just get by.

    It’s the Britain that works best not by reckless risk-taking but by effort, by merit and by hard work.

    It’s the Britain that works not just by self-interest but by self-discipline, self-improvement and self-reliance.

    It’s the Britain where we don’t just care for ourselves, we also care for each other.

    And these are the values of fairness and responsibility that we teach our children, celebrate in our families, observe in our faiths, and honour in our communities.

    Call them middle class values, call them traditional working class values, call them family values, call them all of these; these are the values of the mainstream majority; the anchor of Britain’s families, the best instincts of the British people, the soul of our party and the mission of our government.

    And I say this too; these are my values – the values I grew up with in an ordinary family in an ordinary town.

    Like most families on middle and modest incomes we believed in making the most of our talents.

    But we knew that no matter how hard we worked free education was our only pathway to being the best we could be.  Because like most parents, my parents could not easily afford to put me and my brothers through fee paying schools.

    And I come from a family which, independent and self reliant as it was, could not have kept going without the compassion and caring of the NHS, because my parents could not easily have afforded to pay for operations on my eyes.

    So I come from a family for whom the NHS was quite simply the best insurance policy in the world.

    For us the NHS has not been a sixty year mistake but a sixty year liberation.

    And it has been those experiences, and that background, that has taught me that yes, too much government can make people powerless. But too much government indifference can leave people powerless too.

    Government should never try to do what it cannot do but it should never fail to do what it needs to do. And in a crisis what the British people want to know is that their government will not pass by on the other side but will be on their side.

    So we will not allow those on middle and modest incomes to be buffeted about in a storm not of their making.

    And so this is our choice – to toughen the rules on those who break the rules.

    Markets need what they cannot generate themselves; they need what the British people alone can bring to them, I say to you today; markets need morals.

    So we will pass a new law to intervene on bankers’ bonuses whenever they put the economy at risk. And any director of any of our banks who is negligent will be disqualified from holding any such post.

    Some people believe that the public will end up subsidising the bankers’ mistakes.

    And so I tell you this about our aims for the rescue of the banks: the British people will not pay for the banks.  No, the banks will pay back the British people.

    That’s what we need to do to rectify the problems of the past. Now it’s time to make changes that are even more fundamental for a world that is being utterly transformed.

    In the uncharted waters we sail, the challenge of change demands nothing less than a new model for our economy, a new model for a more responsible society and a new model for a more accountable politics.

    Staying with the status quo is not an option.

    The issue is not whether to change, but how.

    And always a party of restless and relentless reformers, the new mission for new Labour is to realise our passion for fairness and responsibility in these new global times. And as we rise to the challenge of change so this coming election will not be a contest for a fourth term Labour government, but for the first Labour government of this new global age.

    Our new economic model for a strong economy is founded on three guiding principles.

    That in future finance must always be the servant of people and industry and not their master

    That our future economy must be a green economy

    And that we must realise all of Britain’s talent if we are to lead and succeed

    The best way finance can serve our country now is to help ensure that the inventions and innovations pioneered in Britain are developed and manufactured in Britain.  So we will create a new national investment corporation to provide finance for growing manufacturing and other businesses; our £1 billion innovation fund will the back the creativity and inventions that are essential to the economy.

    And I want the Post Office – to play a much bigger role, bringing banking services back to the heart of people’s communities.

    And our economic future must be green.

    We are already global leaders in wind power, green cars, clean coal and carbon capture. And now we will lead again, with new designated low carbon zones around the regions of this country. And I say to you today – we will create over a quarter of a million new green British jobs.

    And every day we stall on a climate change deal, the people of the world are denied the chance to protect their world. And so I say –  I will go to Copenhagen and I will go with our British plan to secure a climate change deal this year.

    And the new model for education in the 21st century –the biggest step we can take into the future – is to unlock the talents of all young people.

    Let the new economy be one where social mobility is not held back and in this new economy there must be no cap on aspiration no ceiling on opportunity and no limit on where your talents can take you.

    And so I can tell you that in the next five years we cannot and will not cut support to our schools. We will not invest less, but more.

    And our guarantee to parents is a ruthless determination to raise standards in every school.

    We will aggressively turn round underperforming schools so that your child will have a good local school no matter where you live.

    Our guarantee to all young people is that with millions of new opportunities from apprenticeships to internships to a new class of modern technicians, we will discover, coach, develop and showcase the wealth of aspiration and talent that exists in Britain.

    And to add to the 100 thousand new young people’s jobs we are already creating, we can today offer in partnership with the Federation of Small Businesses, ten thousand skilled internships so that, even in the midst of tough economic times, we are encouraging a whole new generation of young Britons to embrace ambition and British enterprise.

    And I can also announce that we will work with the Eden project and Mayday Network to create the biggest group of green work placements we have ever done- up to 10,000 green job placements so that our young people can make the most of the opportunities the low carbon economy will open up to them.

    And friends let me talk bluntly; to pay for our schools, hospitals, police, and the change we want to make we have to make choices about taxation and public spending.

    Let no one be in any doubt: as a result of Labour’s economic management, Britain started the downturn with the second lowest debt of any G7 economy.

    And just as we have always taken the hard and tough decisions on stability in the past, we will continue to apply the same rigour to our decisions in the future.

    Our deficit reduction plan to cut the deficit in half over four years, will be made law in a new fiscal responsibility act. And I can say today that every change we make, every single pledge we make, comes with a price tag attached, and a clear plan for how that cost will be met.

    For there are only two options on tax and spending – and only one of them benefits Britain’s hard-working majority.

    One is reducing the deficit by cutting front line public services – the conservative approach.

    The other is getting the deficit down while maintaining and indeed improving front line public services – the Labour approach.

    So we will raise tax at the very top, cut costs, have realistic public sector pay settlements,  make savings we know we can and in 2011 raise National Insurance by half a percent and that will ensure that each and every year we protect and improve Britain’s frontline services.

    Our opponents would take a different approach.

    They want to cut spending now, so that means less money now for frontline services.

    They want to cut inheritance tax for the 3,000 wealthiest estates, so that means even less money for frontline services.

    And they are against the measures we took to raise taxes and so that means even less money for frontline services.

    These are not cuts they would make because they have to – these are spending cuts they are making because they want to.

    It is not inevitable – it is the change they choose.

    And when people say faced with the constraints of the recession can you make progress towards a fairer and more responsible Britain let us tell them we did, we can, and we will.

    In 1997 we held back spending and people said there could be no progress – but we introduced the new deal, sure start the minimum wage and paved the way for tax credits and new hospitals and schools

    In the last 12 years we’ve already given teenagers educational maintenance allowances to help them stay on until 18.  And in the next five years not just some but all young people will be staying in education or training until 18.

    We’ve already ensured that three quarters of our GP practices are open out of hours – and in the next five years we will ensure every patient has the right to see a GP in the evening or at the weekend.

    We’ve already lifted 900 thousand pensioners out of poverty – and in the next five years will restore the earnings link for the basic state pension.

    And in the last twelve years we created the first legal national minimum wage.

    And in every year of the next five years we will increase it.

    The minimum wage was the dream of Neil Kinnock – and he’s with us today.

    It was the dream of John Smith – whom we remember today.

    And it was one of the achievements of Tony Blair, and we thank him today.

    And when the minimum wage rises this month it will be 60% higher than when it started.

    And I can say today that not just the minimum wage, but child benefit and child tax credits for families will continue to rise every year.

    And for all those mums and dads who struggle to juggle work and home, I am proud to announce today that by reforming tax relief we will by the end of the next Parliament be able to give the parents of a quarter of a million two year olds free childcare for the first time.

    And I do think it’s time to address a problem that for too long has gone unspoken, the number of children having children. For it cannot be right, for a girl of sixteen, to get pregnant, be given the keys to a council flat and be left on her own.

    From now on all 16 and 17 year old parents who get support from the taxpayer will be placed in a network of supervised homes. These shared homes will offer not just a roof over their heads, but a new start in life where they learn responsibility and how to raise their children properly. That’s better for them, better for their babies and better for us all in the long run.

    We won’t ever shy away from taking difficult decisions on tough social questions.

    Because we have to be honest – its not just bankers and politicians that have lost the people’s trust. Even though there is so much that is amazing about Britain, if you ask your neighbours or your workmates how they feel right now in this fast changing world, they will probably talk about their sense of unease.

    The decent hard working majority feel the odds are stacked in favour of a minority, who will talk about their rights, but never accept their responsibilities.

    In a faster changing more mobile world of communities where family breakdown is more common, where children are at risk on the internet, where elderly people are too often isolated in their communities, the new society must be explicit about the boundaries between right and wrong- and about the new responsibilities we demand of people in return for the rights they have. And I stand with the people who are sick and tired of others playing by different rules or no rules at all.

    Most mums and dads do a great job – but there are those who let their kids run riot and I’m not prepared to accept it as simply part of life.

    Because there is also a way of intervening earlier to stop anti-social behaviour, slash welfare dependency and cut crime. Family intervention projects are a tough love, no nonsense approach with help for those who want to change and proper penalties for those who don’t or won’t.

    I first saw this tough approach at work in Dundee where a young single mother who got into trouble with drugs was at risk of her kids being taken into care. But within months she was going to college to get a decent job to look after the children she loved.

    Family intervention projects work. They change lives, they make our communities safer and they crack down on those who’re going off the rails.

    Starting now and right across the next Parliament every one of the 50,000 most chaotic families will be part of a family intervention project – with clear rules, and clear punishments if they don’t stick to them.

    And we have said that every time a young person breaches an ASBO, there will be an order, not just on them but on their parents, and if that is broken they will pay the price.

    Because whenever and wherever there is antisocial behaviour, we will be there to fight it.

    We will never allow teenage tearaways or anybody else to turn our town centres into no go areas at night times. No one has yet cracked the whole problem of a youth drinking culture. We thought that extended hours would make our city centres easier to police and in many areas it has. But it’s not working in some places and so we will give local authorities the power to ban 24 hour drinking throughout a community in the interests of local people.

    And let me say this bluntly; when someone is found guilty of a serious crime caused by drinking, the drink banning order which is available to the courts should be imposed. And where there is persistent trouble from binge drinking, we will give local people the right to make pubs and clubs pay for cleaning up their neighbourhood and making it safe.

    Neighbourhood policing is now a reality in every council ward in our country.

    Recent cases have shown it is time for a better service for the citizen. So if it’s an emergency you must get action in minutes, where it’s a neighbourhood priority within the hour, and where it’s a general but not urgent enquiry no one will have to wait more than 48 hours for a reply or a visit. That’s what I mean by public services personal to people’s needs.

    And I can tell the British people that between now and Christmas, neighbourhood policing will focus in a more direct and intensive way on anti-social behaviour.  Action squads will crackdown in problem estates, protect the public spaces you want safe and hold monthly beat meetings to consult you directly on your priorities for action.

    This is a new and more mobile world and so we have to step up the protection of our borders against terrorism and illegal immigration. And it means we must take a tough approach to who gets to come to our country and who gets to stay.

    Tightening our points-based immigration system ensures that those who have the skills that can help Britain will be welcomed, and those who do not, will be refused.

    And the ID cards for foreign nationals are working.

    But in the last two years we have looked again at how we can give the best security to our British citizens whilst never undermining their liberties.

    We will reduce the information British citizens have to give for the new biometric passport to no more than that required for today’s passport.

    And so conference, I can say to you today, in the next Parliament there will be no compulsory ID cards for British citizens.

    So I have been candid about the challenges we face. But we are also proud of our achievements and what makes this country we love so special.

    Britain – the four home nations – each is unique, each with its own great contribution and we will never allow separatists or narrow nationalists in Scotland or in Wales to sever the common bonds that bring our country together as one.

    And let me say to the people of Northern Ireland we will give you every support to complete the last and yet unfinished stage of the peace process which Tony Blair to his great credit started and which I want to see complete – the devolution of policing and justice to the people of Northern Ireland, which we want to see happen in the next few months.

    I want a Britain that is even more open to new ideas, even more creative, even more dynamic and leading the world and let me talk today about how we will do more to support the great British institutions that best define this country.

    The first is the one I spoke about in detail on Sunday when I talked about the mission of our brave men and women in Afghanistan.

    The heroism of our fighting men and women is unsurpassed and we owe them a debt we can never fully repay. And let us on behalf of the British people pay tribute to them and their courage today.

    The British armed forces truly are the finest in the world. And let us say to them – all British forces will always have all the equipment they need and the best support we can give.

    And conference let me say, Britain will work with President Obama and 40 other countries for peace and stability for the people of Afghanistan, and to make sure that terrorism doesn’t come to the streets of Britain.

    And we will work for peace and stability for the peoples of Israel and Palestine.

    We will work to end nuclear proliferation and as I said last week when I talked of the contribution Britain can make; we will work as partners to end the world’s nuclear arms race.

    And I say to Iran as they face a crucial date this week; join the international community now or face isolation.

    And let me say what was once an aspiration – 0.7% of national income spent on international development aid, has become with Labour a promise, and will in future become a law. We will pass legislation that the British government is obliged to raise spending on aid to the poorest countries to 0.7% of our national income. Others may break their promises to the poorest, with Labour Britain never will.

    And there is huge debate around the world today about how countries can manage health care. Countries from every continent look to our NHS for inspiration. And this summer didn’t we show them – we love our NHS.

    We can sometimes talk about the NHS purely in statistics – purely about the record numbers of doctors and nurses and operations and treatments under Labour. But it isn’t about the figures – it’s about the individuals who get help.

    I got a letter from Diane, a mother from Rugby who wrote to me saying her life had been saved because the NHS used its extra investment to reduce the age for breast cancer screening.

    Before she would have had to wait until 50 – and her surgeon told her that if she had, she’d probably be dead. But thanks to the changes we made, Diane was diagnosed early, treated early, and was back at work within three weeks.

    When she wrote to me about us lowering the screening age she said “this may seem small in comparison to all the other issues you deal with, a small thing to do but it probably saved my life.”

    And so I say to you today; Labour fought for the NHS, you fought to save and invest in the NHS, and because you did, you are saving lives every day.

    You should be very, very proud.

    Because if you’ve changed one life you’ve changed the world.

    And because we know that our investment in breast cancer screening works and early intervention saves lives, I am proud to announce that we will go much further.

    We will finance a new right for cancer patients to have diagnostic tests carried out, completed and with results – often same day results – within one week of seeing your GP. That is our early diagnosis guarantee, building on our current guarantee of only two weeks wait to see a specialist.

    And so with three major steps forward – early diagnosis, early treatment and our historic investment in research for cancer cures, we in Britain can transform cancer care; and our ambition is no less than to beat cancer in this generation.

    That is the change we have chosen; change that benefits not just the few who can pay but the mainstream majority.

    For a few days this summer Sarah and I worked  helping in a local hospice near our home and I say now that the care and compassion shown by volunteers and staff must by matched by greater support for this work of mercy.

    And in our times there is a new challenge that no generation has ever had to face before.  We have an ageing society and new rightful demands for dignity and for support in old age. And so we need social care for our elderly which is not subject to a post code lottery, but available to all – to the hard working majority, and not just the few who can pay.

    And so we will say in Labour’s manifesto that social care for all is not a distant dream, that to provide security for pensioners for generations to come – we will bring together the National Health Service and local care provision into a new National Care Service. That is the change we chose.

    And we can start straight away.

    Today more and more people see their parents and grandparents suffering from conditions like Alzheimer’s and dementia, and they see their dignity diminish.

    And for too many families the challenge of coping with the heartbreak is made worse by the costs of getting support.

    The people who face the greatest burden are too often those on middle incomes, who have savings which will last a year or two, but then they will see their savings slip away. And the best starting point for our National Care Service is to help the elderly get the amenities to do what they most want: to receive care and to stay in their homes as long as possible.

    And so for those with the highest needs we will now offer in their own homes free personal care.

    It’s a change that makes saving worthwhile, makes every family in this country more secure and is a much needed reassurance for the elderly and their children.

    This is the change we choose; change that will benefit not just the few who can afford to pay, but the mainstream majority.

    But a fair and responsible Britain must be an accountable Britain – a nation not of powerful institutions but powerful people.

    And just as I have said that the market needs morals I also say that politics needs morals too.

    Let me say that the vast overwhelming majority of our Labour Members of Parliament are in Parliament not out of self interest but to serve the public interest. And our new generation of Parliamentary candidates want to join them not to make a personal gain but to make a difference.

    But there are some who let our country down. And never again should any Member of Parliament be more interested in the value of their allowances than the values of their constituents.

    Never again should it be said of any Member of Parliament that they are in it for what they can get; all of us should be in Parliament for what we can give.

    And so where there is proven financial corruption by an MP and in cases where wrong-doing has been demonstrated but Parliament fails to act we will give constituents the right to recall their Member of Parliament.

    And if we want a politics that is more open, more plural, more local, more democratic, then we will need to make big changes because the only way to ensure politics serves the people’s values is to make all those who wield political power genuinely accountable to the people.

    There is now a stronger case than ever that MPs should be elected with the support of more than half their voters – as they would be under the Alternative Voting system. And so I can announce today that in Labour’s next manifesto there will be a commitment for a referendum to be held early in the next Parliament it will be for the people to decide whether they want to move to the Alternative Vote.

    In this next year we will remove the hereditary principle in the House of Lords once and for all. And then unlike the last election we will ask for a clear mandate to make the House of Lords an accountable and democratic second chamber for the very first time.

    I’ve been honest with you about where we’ve got it right. And where we’ve fallen short and have to do more. And I am determined to fight for change to benefit the mainstream majority.

    All that we have talked about today would simply not happen if the Conservatives were in power.

    The Conservative Party want people to believe that the ballot paper has an option marked change without consequence – that’s it’s only a change of the team at the top.

    They’ve deliberately held their cards close to their chest.

    They’ve done their best to conceal their policies and their instincts. But the financial crisis forced them to show their hand and they showed they had no hearts.

    And so I say to the British people the election to come will not be about my future – it’s about your future.  Your job.  Your home.  Your children’s school.  Your hospital.  Your community.  Your country.

    And so when our opponents talk of change, ask yourself.  Is that change that will benefit my family, or only a privileged few?

    Listen to what they say – but more importantly demand to know what they would do.

    If you’re a family that’s feeling the pinch – don’t take it from me – just ask them the question. If you care about me, why is your first priority to give a 200 thousand pound tax giveaway to each of the 3,000 wealthiest estates?

    And if you’re one of the millions of Britons who loves our NHS– don’t take it from me – just ask them the question. If you care about us, why would you scrap the right to see a cancer specialist within two weeks?

    And if you’re worried about crime – don’t take it from me – just ask them the question. Why would you cut the Home Office budget by the equivalent of 3,500 police officers this year alone and then make it harder for them to catch the most violent criminals using DNA evidence?

    And if you care about a proud Britain – don’t take it from me – just ask them the question.  Why would you put this country’s prosperity and power at risk by placing Britain at the fringe of Europe rather than at its heart?

    Ask them; how can you deliver change when you so clearly haven’t even changed your own party?

    Because there is a difference between the parties. It’s the difference between Conservatives who embrace pessimism and austerity and progressives like Labour who embrace prosperity and hope.

    And this is a timeless difference in our approach. It’s between those like them whose vision is limited to how things are and those like us who reach for the world that can be.

    And isn’t this the story of Britain at its best and the Labour Party at its best, that we are people who strive for and achieve great changes even when others say it is impossible?

    They said a free National Health Service was impossible, then argued it was unworkable, then said it was unaffordable, but in the last 12 years we have rebuilt it and it is now quite simply, for the British people, irreplaceable.

    They told me debt relief for the poorest was impossible – but we refused to give in and now thanks to debt relief and aid 40 million more children across the world are going to school.

    And even when they told us last year that a great depression was inevitable and the world could not come together, we did, even when others said it was beyond our grasp.

    Maybe you think it’s because I’m the guy who doesn’t take no for an answer, and you’re right; I don’t.

    But it’s really because I grew up in a family, a party and a country that believes no obstacle is so great that it can stop the onwards march of fairness and of justice.

    And so I urge you, as the poet said, dream not small dreams because they cannot change the world. Dream big dreams and then watch our country soar.

    We can build a new economy which tames the old excesses.  We can meet and master the challenge of an ageing society with a National Care Service, we can in this generation be the first to beat cancer.

    We can transform our politics.

    We can do all these things and more if we think big and then fight hard.

    Since 1997 Labour has given this country back its future. And we are not done yet.

    We love this country. And we have shown over the years that if you aim high you can lift not just yourself but your country – that there is nothing in life which is inevitable – it’s about the change you choose.

    And I say to you now –

    Never stop believing in the good sense of the British people.

    Never stop believing we can move forward to a fairer, more responsible, more prosperous Britain.

    Never stop believing we can make a Britain equal to its best ideals.

    Never, never stop believing. And because the task is difficult the triumph will be even greater.

    Now is not the time to give in but to reach inside ourselves for the strength of our convictions.

    Because we are the Labour Party and our abiding duty is to stand. And fight. And win. And serve.

  • Gordon Brown – 2009 Speech to the RCN Conference

    gordonbrown

    Below is the text of the speech made by Gordon Brown, the then Prime Minister, to the 2009 RCN Conference in Bournemouth.

    Last summer, a campaign built up in response to comments by a member of the European Parliament who said the NHS was a sixty year mistake.

    The response was as impassioned as it was immediate: across the web first hundreds, then thousands, then hundreds of thousands, than, literally, millions of messages said – we love the NHS.

    What they were actually saying was – we love the staff of the NHS.

    And most particularly of all you know we the country were saying — we love the nurses of the NHS.

    It was a spontaneous national outpouring of gratitude and g oodwill for the nursing staff of the NHS, which I want to endorse and reiterate today on behalf of the entire country.

    Let me express the NHS simply.

    Our commitment is national.

    Health is a fundamental human right.

    And we believe in a service free for all, no ifs, no buts, no maybes about it.

    And it is your care and healing that makes the NHS not an impersonal organisation, but a personal service valued by all.

    And the NHS achievement I am most proud of is not mine but yours – because the achievement which I think has done most to reassure patients and to improve the experience of those families who rely on the NHS, is that you are a force now of almost half a million nurses – 80,000 more than since 1997.

    Now the largest ever nursing profession in the history of our country, you are the greatest force for compassion our country has ever seen.

    And the progress is your achievement: shorter waiting times, a million m ore operations, greatly improved infection control, far better survival rates for cancer and heart disease, none of them possible without the care and healing of nurses and midwives …..so from the British people thank you.

    So I am here with Sarah, to say not just thank you from our family, but thank you from millions upon millions of families.

    Because, rich and poor, there is barely a family in Britain who does not depend upon our NHS and your care.

    As I found when I, myself, was cared for by great nurses, you make the difference not just between sickness and health but also between pain and comfort, between loneliness and friendship, sometimes, between despair and hope and often, for so many patients, between life and death.

    Like every other family in our country, Sarah and I know the benefits of your care, and life is such that none of us knows what fate may befall each of our families.

    Who of us knows what costly treatments we may need?

    Who of us knows what days and months of tender care we may need from nursing and the NHS?

    In other countries, people have to fear the costs -and cannot afford the treatment.

    Even in America and even after all their health care reforms, millions still fear the escalating health costs of health care. And in Africa sometimes mothers incarcerated in hospital after their baby is born because they cannot pay the bills for their maternity care, and mothers often say goodbye to their family and friends before childbirth, because what should be the happiest day in your life – the day your child is born – is also the most dangerous day in these countries, because in some countries one in seven mothers die.

    But in Britain – because we have a service free at the point of need – the British people know that the NHS is there for us, when we need it.

    Because we don’t have to rely upon private health paid for by private health insurance, but have a National Health Service, paid for by national insurance, people know that when they are sick, they can receive treatment free of charge.

    And that is why, there for everyone who needs it, the NHS is the best insurance policy in the world and I am here today to say to you: I am determined to work with you day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, to make the NHS even better.

    Every family has its own story to tell.

    I myself feel fortunate that apart from a few operations on my eyesight, for which I am grateful for the skilful and loving care of the nursing staff, I have had a life free of ill health.

    But we also know what you and the NHS achieved for us, when our son has had to undergo treatment and when our daughter was born prematurely and was with us for all too short a time.

    So we feel like parents who have been in the presence of angels dressed in nurses’ uniforms, performing the most amazing works of mercy and care. And I will never forget seeing in real time every minute of the day that idea of service and selflessness summed up by the great poet William Blake;

    Can I not see another’s woe?

    And not be in sorrow too?

    Can I see another’s grief?

    And not seek for kind relief?

    That is the spirit of nursing – and so I see my mission in government as to support your mission in the wards.

    This is who I am; my passion is to support your compassion, improving the NHS every year makes the job I do worth doing.

    For I know the NHS will be safe for our nation and safe for our children, only as long as with the investment you receive and the support you are given you can say as nurses that the NHS is safe in your hands.

    To make the NHS safe I made the decision as Chancellor to double investment in the NHS.

    I asked the country to increase National Insurance by one penny to fund the renewal of the National Health Service.

    And from 2011, I am ensuring the same way that the NHS does even better for you and your families.

    For me, brought up in the NHS, this is matter of what you believe in and what being in this job is all about.

    You know, a few months ago, in Westminster Abbey, the nation held a commemorative service to mark the success of 60 years of the NHS.

    And of all the speeches, the greatest speech came from a nurse who told us of the joy she had at the foundation of the NHS, and her observation that over sixty years the practises of doctors, not least their writing, hadn’t changed, but nursing had been totally transformed.

    That day, I asked Lesley Garratt to Downing Street and on that evening in front of nurses who had served the NHS all their lives, she chose the song we should associate most with the NHS.

    She sang the impossible dream.

    And why?

    Because the very existence of the NHS has taught us that even things thought impossible and unachievable – and beyond our grasp and reach – can be realised if we have the vision and the will to reach for them.

    Because as the words go – we can fight the unbeatable foe. Right the unrightable wrong. Reach the unreachable star.

    The very existence of the NHS has taught us that we should never accept that the status quo is the final word.

    Never resign ourselves to injustice as a permanent and unalterable condition, never believe that where we stand today is a determinant of what we are capable of tomorrow, never accept that there is an immovable fate that imprisons our future.

    Because what the NHS proves is that it is what we do ourselves and not just for ourselves that matters.

    The achievement of the NHS teaches us something even bigger: that the truest measure of the character of a society is not the size of its wealth but the width of its generosity, the breadth of its humanity and the depths of its compassion.

    And so, the new test of our society must be how we strengthen the work of care and compassion you do everyday and ensure that the standing, the reach and the invaluable contribution of the nursing profession grows every year to meet old and new needs.

    You know better than anyone that you can’t talk about the future of the NHS without talking about nursing. And in the last few weeks we have had the publication of the report of the Nursing Commission – so that we can listen to you, the professionals, on how we should be making investments and how we should be changing services.

    I just want to say this about its recommendations and its proposals for the future of the NHS:

    When we rightly talk of the future of the NHS as more personal care, we mean more focus on nursing. When we rightly talk of the future of the NHS as more care in people’s own homes, we mean more attention to nursing. When we rightly talk of the future of the NHS as offering preventive treatment, that means more of a role for nursing. When we rightly talk of the future of the NHS in social care for the elderly, that means more need for nursing. When we talk of the NHS as more than a universal service but also a personal service meeting more individualised needs too, we mean more power for nursing. So what we are talking about is the nursing profession rightly taking more day to day control of our NHS.

    So just as the NHS tackled infections in the NHS, with more matrons, with more control for ward sisters, we know that with more power for nurses to report directly to boards that whenever and wherever we give nurses real control, real influence, you have been the force for progress and for the better, safer, more patient-focused NHS we are creating.

    And today, because of your skills, nurses are undertaking work unimaginable even a few years ago. So I conclude that we need more specialist nurses, not fewer. We need to invest not only in developing your skills but in ensuring you have greater autonomy in making referrals, prescribing and work to extend the nurse consultants, the nurse practitioners, the nurse specialists and we now have and we need to support you financially. That means protecting and in fact growing frontline investment in the NHS, making efficiencies, and cutting management costs by a third, but reinvesting these savings in frontline care.

    But it also means protecting pensions, because you can’t protect the NHS and not protect those who work in it. And look, there has been a lot of speculation about all this, so let me be clear where I stand and where this government stands.

    You work hard for your pensions and you deserve a good one. And the reforms already agreed make the pensions sustainable in the long-term and we will stick to those. Your pensions are safe with us. And while on pay, with the next few years tighter, we will be looking for restraint across public sector pay, but we don’t believe a pay freeze is the way to a better NHS.

    Yes, with your support we have built more than 100 new hospitals and we have built hundreds upon hundreds of new health centres and walk-in clinics.

    And now, because of these achievements we want to work with you to extend to patients guarantees of service:

    – Operation waiting times less than 18 weeks

    – A&E less than four hours

    – Cancer specialist seen within two weeks

    – Cancer diagnosis within one week

    I know this is a big issue of controversy, but we have worked together so hard for so long to ensure that cancer patients get the best treatment and I am not prepared to go backwards. I am not prepared to see removed the life-saving guarantee that a cancer patient will see a specialist within two weeks and that if they need an operation it will be done well within the 18 weeks that is the maximum wait.

    And today because too many currently wait more than a month for cancer tests and because w e know that with cancer speed is so important, we are publishing plans to ensure 1.5million people will get their cancer tests more quickly and no-one will wait longer than a week.

    And for those who are diagnosed with cancer we will invest in more specialist nursing, so that everyone can have the reassurance of dedicated nursing.

    Across our NHS we want to support you in providing a more personal service to patients, when they are vulnerable and particularly when they are elderly. So today we have also set out our plans to help services change and offer more patients a choice of care in their homes, new choices to have the personal care that makes a difference to so many families when it is offered at the moment – the ‘NHS in your home’ – there when you need it.

    You know every single thing that we have achieved – all of it would have been worth it, if we’d saved just one life. Because anyone who has ever lost someone knows that every single person is precious, every single person is unique, and every single person, once they are gone, leaves a hole that no other person can fill.

    And so if we had kept just one person alive to see their grandchild’s first day at school, or attend their nephew’s graduation, or have just one more family Christmas – then everything we have done would have been worth it. Because if you save one life, you change the world.

    But today let us be proud, because we have changed the world not once, but millions upon millions of times. And these are not my achievements, but yours – the achievements of nurses whose work is compassion in action.

    I said the NHS was a dream that once seemed impossible but did come true and it teaches us one more thing: to never stop believing in the best in people – that human caring reaches beyond self, that aspirations reach higher than self interest and the human endeavour transcends self advancement.

    Because the NHS shows that there is something greater even than value and price – there is the equal worth of every person – and the moral sense we share when we refuse to pass by on the other side. You never pass by on the other side. You are the guardians of the British people’s most treasured institution and most precious values. And that is why you are our country’s heroes – and mine.

  • Gordon Brown – 2009 Speech to the United States Congress

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    Below is the text of the speech made by Gordon Brown, the then Prime Minister, to the United States Congress on 4th March 2009.

    Madam Speaker, Mr Vice-President, distinguished members of Congress, I come to this great capital of this great nation, an America renewed under a new President to say that America’s faith in the future has been, is and always will be an inspiration to the whole world.

    The very creation of America was a bold affirmation of faith in the future: a future you have not just believed in but built with your own hands.

    And on January 20th, you the American people began to write the latest chapter in the American story, with a transition of dignity, in which both sides of the aisle could take great pride. President Obama gave the world renewed hope, and on that day billions of people truly looked to Washington D.C as “a shining city upon a hill”.

    And I hope that you will allow me to single out for special mention today one of your most distinguished Senators, known in every continent and a great friend. Northern Ireland is today at peace, more Americans have health care, more children around the world are going to school, and for all those things we owe a great debt to the life and courage of, Senator Edward Kennedy.

    And so today, having talked to him last night, I want to announce that Her Majesty The Queen, has awarded an honorary Knighthood for Sir Edward Kennedy.

    Madam Speaker, Mr Vice-President, I come in friendship to renew, for new times, our special relationship founded upon our shared history, our shared values and, I believe, our shared futures.

    I grew up in the 1960s as America, led by President Kennedy, looked to the heavens and saw not the endless void of the unknown, but a new frontier to dare to discover and explore. People said it couldn’t be done – but America did it.

    And 20 years later, in the 1980’s, America led by President Reagan refused to accept the fate of millions trapped behind an Iron Curtain, and insisted instead that the people of Eastern Europe be allowed to join the ranks of nations which live safe, strong and free. People said it would never happen in our lifetime but it did, and the Berlin Wall was torn down brick by brick.

    So early in my life I came to understand that America is not just the indispensible nation, it is the irrepressible nation.

    Throughout your history Americans have led insurrections in the human imagination, have summoned revolutionary times through your belief that there is no such thing as an impossible endeavour. It is never possible to come here without having your faith in the future renewed.

    Throughout a whole century the American people stood liberty’s ground not just in one world war but in two.

    And I want you to know that we will never forget the sacrifice and service of the American soldiers who gave their lives for people whose names they never knew, and whose faces they never saw, and yet people who have lived in freedom thanks to the bravery and valour of the Americans who gave the “last full measure of devotion”.

    Cemetery after cemetery across Europe honours the memory of American soldiers, resting row upon row – often alongside comrades-in-arms from Britain. There is no battlefield of liberty on which there is not a piece of land that is marked out as American and there is no day of remembrance in Britain that is not also a commemoration of American courage and sacrifice far from home.

    In the hardest days of the last century, faith in the future kept America alive and I tell you that America kept faith in the future alive for all the world.

    Almost every family in Britain has a tie that binds them to America. So I want you to know that whenever a young American soldier or marine, sailor or airman is killed in conflict anywhere in the world, we, the people of Britain, grieve with you. Know that your loss is our loss; your families’ sorrow is our families’ sorrow and your nation’s determination is our nation’s determination that they shall not have died in vain.

    And let me pay tribute to the soldiers, yours and ours, who again fight side by side in the plains of Afghanistan and the streets of Iraq, just as their forefathers fought side by side in the sands of Tunisia, on the beaches of Normandy and then on the bridges over the Rhine.

    And after that terrible September morning when your homeland was attacked, the Coldstream Guards at Buckingham Palace played the Star Spangled Banner. Our own British tribute as we wept for our friends in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

    And let me promise you our continued support to ensure there is no hiding place for terrorists, no safe haven for terrorism. You should be proud that in the hard years since 2001 you have shown that while terrorists may destroy buildings and even, tragically, lives, they have not, and will not ever, destroy the American spirit.

    So let it be said of the friendship between our two countries; that it is in times of trial – true, in the face of fear – faithful and amidst the storms of change – constant.

    And let it be said of our friendship – formed and forged over two tumultuous centuries, a friendship tested in war and strengthened in peace – that it has not just endured but is renewed in each generation to better serve our shared values and fulfil the hopes and dreams of the day. Not an alliance of convenience, but a partnership of purpose.

    Alliances can wither or be destroyed, but partnerships of purpose are indestructible. Friendships can be shaken, but our friendship is unshakeable. Treaties can be broken but our partnership is unbreakable. And I know there is no power on earth than can drive us apart.

    We will work tirelessly with you as partners for peace in the Middle East: for a two state solution that provides for nothing less than a secure Israel safe within its borders existing side by side with a viable Palestinian state.

    And our shared message to Iran is simple – we are ready for you to rejoin the world community. But first, you must cease your threats and suspend your nuclear programme. And we will work tirelessly with all those in the international community who are ready to reduce the threat of nuclear proliferation.

    Past British Prime Ministers have travelled to this Capitol building in times of war to talk of war. I come now to talk of new and different battles we must fight together; to speak of a global economy in crisis and a planet imperilled.

    These are new priorities for our new times.

    And let us be honest – tonight too many parents, after they put their children to bed, will speak of their worries about losing their jobs or the need to sell the house. Too many will share stories of friends or neighbours already packing up their homes, and too many will talk of a local store or business that has already gone to the wall.

    For me, this global recession is not to be measured just in statistics, or in graphs or in figures on a balance sheet. Instead I see one individual with their own aspirations and increasingly their own apprehensions, and then another, and then another.

    Each with their own stars to reach for.

    Each part of a family, each at the heart of a community now in need of help and hope.

    And when banks have failed and markets have faltered, we the representatives of the people have to be the people’s last line of defence.

    And that’s why there is no financial orthodoxy so entrenched, no conventional thinking so engrained, no special interest so strong that it should ever stand in the way of the change that hard-working families need.

    We have learned through this world downturn that markets should be free but never values-free, that the risks people take should never be separated from the responsibilities they meet.

    And if perhaps some once thought it beyond our power to shape global markets to meet the needs of people, we know now that is our duty; we cannot and must not stand aside.

    In our families and workplaces and places of worship, we celebrate men and women of integrity who work hard, treat people fairly, take responsibility and look out for others.

    If these are the principles we live by in our families and neighbourhoods, they should also be the principles that guide and govern our economic life too.

    In these days the world has learned that what makes for the good economy makes for the good society.

    My father was a Minister of the church and I have learned again what I was taught by him: that wealth must help more than the wealthy, good fortune must serve more than the fortunate and riches must enrich not just some of us but all.

    And these enduring values are the values we need for these new times.

    We tend to think of the sweep of destiny as stretching across many months and years before culminating in decisive moments we call history.

    But sometimes the reality is that defining moments of history come suddenly and without warning. And the task of leadership then is to define them, shape them and move forward into the new world they demand.

    An economic hurricane has swept the world, creating a crisis of credit and of confidence.

    History has brought us now to a point where change is essential. We are summoned not just to manage our times but to transform them.

    Our task is to rebuild prosperity and security in a wholly different economic world, where competition is no longer local but global and banks are no longer just national but international.

    And we need to understand what went wrong in this crisis, that the very financial instruments that were designed to diversify risk across the banking system instead spread contagion across the globe. And today’s financial institutions are so interwoven that a bad bank anywhere is a threat to good banks everywhere.

    So should we succumb to a race to the bottom and a protectionism that history tells us that, in the end, protects no-one? No. We should have the confidence that we can seize the opportunities ahead and make the future work for us.

    Why?

    Because while today people are anxious and feel insecure, over the next two decades literally billions of people in other continents will move from being simply producers of their goods to being consumers of our goods and in this way our world economy will double in size.

    Twice as many opportunities for business, twice as much prosperity, and the biggest expansion of middle class incomes and jobs the world has ever seen.

    And America and Britain will succeed and lead if we tap into the talents of our people, unleash the genius of our scientists and set free the drive of our entrepreneurs. We will win the race to the top if we can develop the new high value products and services and the new green technologies that the rising numbers of hard-working families across our globe will want to buy.

    So we must educate our way out of the downturn, invest and invent our way out of the downturn and re-tool and re-skill our way out of the downturn.

    And this is not blind optimism or synthetic confidence to console people; it is the practical affirmation for our times of our faith in a better future.

    Every time we rebuild a school we demonstrate our faith in the future. Every time we send more young people to university, every time we invest more in our new digital infrastructure, every time we increase support to our scientists, we demonstrate our faith in the future.

    And so I say to this Congress and this country, something that runs deep in your character and is woven in your history, we conquer our fear of the future through our faith in the future.

    And it is this faith in the future that means we must commit to protecting the planet for generations that will come long after us.

    As the Greek proverb says, why does anybody plant the seeds of a tree whose shade they will never see?

    The answer is because they look to the future.

    And I believe that you, the nation that had the vision to put a man on the moon, are also the nation with the vision to protect and preserve our planet earth.

    And it is only by investing in environmental technology that we can end the dictatorship of oil, and it is only by tackling climate change that we create the millions of new green jobs we need.

    For the lesson of this crisis is that we cannot just wait for tomorrow today. We cannot just think of tomorrow today. We cannot merely plan for tomorrow today. Our task must be to build tomorrow today.

    And America knows from its history that its reach goes far beyond its geography. For a century you have carried upon your shoulders the greatest of responsibilities: to work with and for the rest of the world. And let me tell you that now more than ever the rest of the world wants to work with you.

    And if these times have shown us anything it is that the major challenges we all face are global. No matter where it starts, an economic crisis does not stop at the water’s edge. It ripples across the world. Climate change does not honour passport control. Terrorism has no respect for borders. And modern communications instantly span every continent. The new frontier is that there is no frontier, the new shared truth is that global problems need global solutions.

    And let me say that you now have the most pro-American European leadership in living memory. A leadership that wants to cooperate more closely together, in order to cooperate more closely with you. There is no old Europe, no new Europe, there is only your friend Europe.

    So once again I say we should seize the moment – because never before have I seen a world so willing to come together. Never before has that been more needed. And never before have the benefits of cooperation been so far-reaching.

    So when people here and in other countries ask what more can we do now to bring an end to this downturn, let me say this: we can achieve more working together. And just think of what we can do if we combine not just in a partnership for security but in a new partnership for prosperity too.

    On jobs, you the American people through your stimulus proposals could create or save at least 3 million jobs. We in Britain are acting with similar determination. How much nearer an end to this downturn would we be if the whole of the world resolved to do the same?

    And you are also restructuring your banks. So are we. But how much safer would everybody’s savings be if the whole world finally came together to outlaw shadow banking systems and offshore tax havens?

    Just think how each of our actions, if combined, could mean a whole, much greater than the sum of the parts

    – all and not just some banks stabilised

    – on fiscal stimulus: the impact multiplied because everybody does it

    – rising demand in all our countries creating jobs in each of our countries

    – and trade once again the engine of prosperity, the wealth of nations restored.

    No one should forget that it was American visionaries who over half a century ago, coming out of the deepest of depressions and the worst of wars, produced the boldest of plans for global economic cooperation because they recognised prosperity was indivisible and concluded that to be sustained it had to be shared.

    And I believe that ours too is a time for renewal, for a plan for tackling recession and building for the future. Every continent playing their part in a global new deal, a plan for prosperity that can benefit us all.

    First, so that the whole of the worldwide banking system serves our prosperity rather than risks it, let us agree rules and standards for accountability, transparency, and reward that will mean an end to the excesses and will apply to every bank, everywhere, and all the time.

    Second, America and a few countries cannot be expected to bear the burden of the fiscal and interest rate stimulus alone. We must share it globally. So let us work together for the worldwide reduction of interest rates and a scale of stimulus round the world equal to the depth of the recession and the dimensions of the recovery we must make.

    Third, let us together renew our international economic cooperation, helping the emerging markets rebuild their banks. And let us work together for a low carbon recovery worldwide. And I am confident that this President, this Congress and the peoples of the world can come together in Copenhagen this December to reach a historic agreement on climate change.

    And let us not forget the poorest. As we strive to spread the values of peace, political liberty, and the hope for better lives across the world, perhaps the greatest gift our generation could give to the future, the gift of America and Britain to the world could be, for every child in every country of the world, the chance millions do not have today; the chance to go to school.

    For let us remember there is a common bond that unites us as human beings across different beliefs, cultures and nationalities. It is at the core of my convictions, the essence of America’s spirit and the heart of all faiths.

    And it must be at the centre of our response to the crisis of today. At their best, our values tell us that we cannot be wholly content while others go without, cannot be fully comfortable while millions go without comfort, cannot be truly happy while others grieve alone.

    And this too is true. All of us know that in a recession the wealthiest, the most powerful and the most privileged can find a way through for themselves.

    So we do not value the wealthy less when we say that our first duty is to help the not so wealthy. We do not value the powerful less when we say that our first responsibility is to help the powerless. And we do not value those who are secure less when we say that our first priority must be to help the insecure.

    These recent events have forced us all to think anew. And while I have learnt many things, I keep returning to something I first learned in my father’s church as a child. In this most modern of crises I am drawn to the most ancient of truths; wherever there is hardship, wherever there is suffering, we cannot, we will not, pass by on the other side.

    But working together there is no challenge to which we are not equal, no obstacle that we cannot overcome, no aspiration so high that it cannot be achieved.

    In the depths of the Depression, when Franklin Roosevelt did battle with fear itself, it was not simply by the power of his words, his personality and his example that he triumphed.

    Yes, all these things mattered. But what mattered more was this enduring truth: that you, the American people, at your core, were, as you remain, every bit as optimistic as your Roosevelts, your Reagans and your Obamas.

    This is the faith in the future that has always been the story and promise of America. So at this defining moment in history let us renew our special relationship for our generation and our times. Let us restore prosperity and protect this planet and, with faith in the future, let us together build tomorrow today.

  • Ben Bradshaw – 2009 Speech to Labour Party Conference

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    Below is the text of the speech made by Ben Bradshaw, the then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, to the 2009 Labour Party conference on 29th September 2009.

    Friends, that film was about our hopes to secure the football world cup in 2018.

    If our bid is successful it would cap what is already one of the most remarkable periods in British sporting history.

    The 20/20 cricket world cup earlier this year.

    The Ryder cups in golf – next year in Wales, and then in Scotland.

    The rugby league world Cup in 2013

    The Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014.

    The rugby Union world cup in 2015,

    And, of course we are approaching the thousand day countdown to the start of the first British Olympics and Paralympics for over 60 years.

    A golden decade of sport built on a golden decade of Labour investment in sport at every level.

    A sporting record to be proud of.

    Labour values driving change.

    Labour delivering on its promises.

    Remember what the Tories did to to Britain’s sports, culture and the arts.

    They considered them luxuries to be paid for by those who can afford them. For us, they are a common good for all. Central to our sense of community and health and well being as a nation.

    Ten years ago only one child in four did two hours of sport a week in school. Today, 90 per cent of children do. But we will go further and ensure, by the time of the Olympics, that every child can do five hours of high quality sport a week.

    In just three months after we launched free swimming this spring people over 60 and youngsters 16 and under had enjoyed four and a half million extra swimming sessions. Rubbished  – like everything we do – by the Tories.

    They believe something can only have value if you make people pay for it.

    Free swimming has been championed by Labour councils and is already one of our great successes.

    Just as Labour has delivered Britain a sporting renaissance, we’ve delivered a cultural and artistic renaissance too.

    More than twice as many people have enjoyed our great museums and galleries since Labour made them free.

    Since April this year young people under 26 have been able to get free tickets in many of our theatres. Tens of thousands of young people who would never have thought it possible to see the best of what British theatre has to offer, have taken up the chance. And as well as ensuring young people can enjoy 5 hours of quality sport every week,we will guarantee the same for cultural, music and artistic activity too.

    British theatre, film, music and other creative industries are the best in the world. They are a major and growing part of our economy. And Labour is supporting them to grow even more in the future.

    Anyone who has watched the news in America or continental Europe can only be extremely grateful for the BBC. Labour will always be committed to the BBC and the values of public service broadcasting. No, Mr Murdoch, we do not believe that profit is the only guarantee of independence. We will never sacrifice the BBC on the altar of free market dogma. But like all successful organisations the BBC must change to survive. It must be more sensitive to the views of the public who pay for it and to the impact its power and size on the rest of the media.

    Good quality local news is vital for the health of our democracy. We face losing it completely from ITV unless something is done and many of our local newspapers are also struggling to survive.

    Labour is the only party that will guarantee high quality news on ITV in the English regions, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and say how it’ll be paid for. Our solution and other measures we are taking will help local newspapers too.

    Let Britain be in no doubt what the Tories would do to our culture, media and sport. Boris Johnson let one cat out of the bag last week when he advocated charging for museums.

    And George Osborne says he wants to copy Tory councils.

    Like Barnet in North London perhaps? They want to provide a quality service for those who can afford to pay but what they call a “ryanair” service for everyone else. This is also a council that has slashed support for the arts, culture and sport boasting:

    “We don’t do culture in Barnet.”

    Well, I guess that figures, from the local Conservative Party that selected Margaret  Thatcher.

    Friends, we need to wake up and wake the British people up to what the Tories would do to our country if they won in a few months time.

    Sport and culture decimated. The BBC fighting for its life.

    The death of local and regional news.

    Millions of people, particularly young people, whose lives are being transformed by culture and sport under Labour losing that chance.

    One of my predecessors in this job, the great Jenny Lee – said our mission, Labour’s mission is to ensure the best for all.

    That’s what Labour’s done.

    That’s what we’re doing and that’s what we’ll continue to do.

    The Tories never have; they never would.

    We must ensure they never will.

    Thank you.

  • Tony Blair – 2009 Speech to Trimdon Labour Club

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    Below is the text of the speech made by Tony Blair to Trimdon Labour Club in 2009.

    When I was Prime Minister I was known as an optimist. I still am. I’m optimistic about Britain, its future and the opportunities the world holds for us. Provided we take the right decisions, imbued with the right attitude of mind.

    Strange as it might seem, the financial crisis does not diminish this optimism. The way we are coming through the crisis instead reinforces it. We are not out of the woods yet; but we are on the path out.

    This did not happen by chance; but by choice. Think back 18 months, think back to the collapse of September 2008, and where the world was. It was poised on the brink of catastrophe. The prediction indeed of many – economists, commentators, even at least in private, leaders, was that we were doomed to repeat the collapse of the 1930’s. The spectre of prolonged recession stalked the corridors of economic and political power.

    Britain, like all other major nations, was hit hard by the crisis. In a deluge such as this, no one escapes. But now, March 2010, Britain has just had a Budget signalling a return to growth, a slow, difficult recovery, but a recovery nonetheless. The world economy is now similarly poised: not for catastrophe but for recuperation. It will mean here and elsewhere adjustments, tough action on deficits, changes in the way both public and private sectors work. All round the globe, in Cabinets, in boardrooms, at work places such a debate is happening about how best to proceed. We cannot understate the pain some people have gone through as a consequence of the global crisis or the insecurity they now face. For many young people and equally young families or people whose livelihoods have been badly hit, the anxiety has not abated, it continues. What we can say is compared to the fear of what might have been, we have emerged better than virtually any predicted. Hard decisions l ie ahead undoubtedly. But though the sea is still rough, the storm has subsided.

    This is for a simple reason, both in respect of Britain and of the world. The right decisions at the outset of the crisis were taken. Governments were mobilised, the financial sector put on emergency support, demand stimulated and most of all, there was an immediate recognition that decisive action was necessary and urgent. At the moment of peril the world acted. Britain acted. The decision to act, required experience, judgement and boldness. It required leadership. Gordon Brown supplied it.

    Since then, Gordon and Alistair Darling have been striving to keep the country moving, capable of meeting not just future challenges, but seizing future opportunities.

    The issue for the future is very clear: how does Britain emerge from the financial crisis; how do we compete in the new markets; how do we re-energise our dynamism, enterprise and sense of possibility?

    This is not just about policy, but about mindset. Who “gets” the future? That’s always the political question. Who understands the way the world is changing and can be comfortable in it? Who sees the excitement where others see the fear?

    The New Industries, New Jobs paper from Peter Mandelson, for me, correctly identifies both challenge and opportunity. It is the right judicious mix of Government and market, reserving for the first the role only it can play, and giving the second the help it needs to prosper. It represents a vision of how Britain can do well and how individuals and families can do better. It’s a platform for the hope of prosperity to come.

    So now our country has to debate the direction for our future. It’s a big thing for Labour to win a 4th term. Remember prior to 1997 Labour had never won two successive full terms. Now we have won three. So it’s a big moment for the Party; but of course, most of all, it is a momentous decision for the country.

    The tough thing about being in government, especially as time marches on, is that the disappointments accumulate, the public becomes less inclined to give the benefit of the doubt, the call for a time to change becomes easier to make, prospect of change becomes more attractive. But as I always used to say when some in our ranks urged a mantra of “time for a change” in 1997, it is the most vacuous slogan in politics.

    “Time for a Change” begs the question: change to what exactly? And the reason an election that seemed certain to some in its outcome, is now in sharp contention, lies precisely in that question.

    As the issue has ceased to be “what makes me angry about the government”, and has focused instead on “if I get change, what change exactly am I getting”, so the race has narrowed. Because that is not a question readily or coherently answered; and in so far as it can be answered, gives as much cause for anxiety as for reassurance.

    On some issues like racial equality the Conservatives have left behind the prejudices of the past. I welcome that.

    But when it comes to the big policy issues, there is a puzzle, that has turned into a problem that has now become a long hard pause for thought: Where are they centred?

    Is there a core? Think of all the phrases you associate with their leadership and the phrase “you know where you are with them” is about the last description you would think of. They seem like they haven’t made up their mind about where they stand; and so the British public finds it hard to make up its mind about where it stands. In uncertain times, there is a lot to be said for certain leadership.

    What happens after a long period of one party in Government, is this: the flipside of change being attractive, is that the public put a question mark over the Party seeking to be the change. It is not a cynical question mark. It is not loaded. It’s just a simple inquiry: what is it that I am getting?

    Prior to 1997, Gordon and I were acutely conscious of this. We sought to answer the question by saying, again, then again, then further again, that we were a new and different progressive force, that we would combine ambition and compassion, that we understood why Labour had been rejected and we had learnt. Even when we were 20 points ahead in the polls and some of my colleagues would say “oh come on, Tony, ease off now” I would say: no it is at the very moment when we are ahead, that we reinforce and repeat the message that our agenda is different from the past and we reassert New Labour.

    However, more than that, we had worked out a set of positions – not always defined policy but positions – that were clear and mutually coherent. We advocated a New Labour policy on the economy and also on law and order; we aimed to be as forward-looking on defence as on public services. We were New Labour throughout. It was a philosophical concept woven across the whole fabric of the case we were putting to the people. We re-wrote the Party constitution; changed policy on education, Northern Ireland, trade union law, crime. There was no compromise with the essential manifesto of New Labour. This was for a straightforward reason: we believed in it. We wanted to define not only our case for government but the way we would govern.

    So over time, the question mark faded and was answered. The question mark over the Tories has gone into bolder print. It has grown not faded. They look like they’re either the old Tory Party, but want to hide it; or they’re not certain which way to go. But either is not good news.

    On Europe, they’ve gone right when they should have gone centre. On law and order, they’ve gone liberal when actually they should have stuck with a traditional Conservative position; and on the economy, they seem to be buffeted this way and that, depending less on where they think the country should be, than on where they think public opinion might be.

    The Europe policy is really not trivial. It is bad enough to end up trying to form an alternative far right group to the mainstream Conservatives like Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy. That really isn’t smart. Of course those leaders will work with whichever Party is elected; but forfeiting goodwill in such a spectacular fashion won’t be a great beginning. Withdrawing from the Social Chapter will expend vast amounts of political energy and capital. It is a truly regressive step and for what? The feeling I get is that this is all a sop to the Tory Party. But that’s worrying at two levels. The issue is too important to be a sop, so that’s not good judgement and if it is a sop, what does that say about the Tory Party? Either way, Britain will pay the price, as it did before 1997. And by the way, no Party has won an election in Britain on an avowedly anti Europe platform since we joined the Common Market in the 1970’s.

    On law and order the Tories have opposed the stronger anti-terrorism measures and much of the anti-social behaviour agenda. They even want to restrict the use of the DNA database. This employs the advanced technology of DNA tracking and matching, to provide incontrovertible evidence of guilt or innocence. Its use so far has resulted in extraordinary breakthroughs. Old crimes, whose victims or their families never received justice, can be solved and perpetrators brought to book. Innocent people have been freed. As the database builds up, it becomes an invaluable crime fighting tool. In time, it will also be a fierce deterrent, since criminals particularly murderers, rapists and those who commit violent assault, will know they run a big risk of detection. It is an absolutely sensible use of modern technology. It can actually help prevent abuses of civil liberties. Yet the Tories oppose it.

    Everywhere you look, where you want certainty, you get confusion.

    So the Conservative leader speaking about his policy on the NHS a few weeks back spoke of his pride at how his party members “wrote out the placards, marched on the streets, campaigned to save our community hospitals, our maternity units, our GP’s surgeries.” Well, ok. That’s a policy of preserving the status quo in the NHS.

    But here’s Oliver Letwin, now Shadow Cabinet member in charge of policy for a Conservative Government speaking yesterday in the Wall Street Journal: He talks of bringing transformational free-market principles to public services and says: “We will implement a very systematic and powerful change agenda where hospitals compete for patients, schools compete for pupils, welfare providers compete for results…”

    That’s also clear. That’s a policy of radical transformation of the status quo.

    Or on economic policy, one week the absolute priority is deficit reduction. Ok, again clear. But yesterday a big tax cut became the centrepiece and not a vague ‘when things are better’ aspiration; but a full-on pledge.

    Leave aside for a minute, the rights and wrongs of the policies. What can’t be left aside is that they are plainly diametrically opposite. So why the confusion?

    The benign but still disqualifying explanation is that the policy-makers are confused, not just the policies. The less benign one is that one set of policies represents what they believe in; the other what they think they have to say to win. That’s not a confusion, actually; that’s a strategy and the British people deserve to have that strategy exposed before polling day.

    By contrast, Labour has chosen its path. It is mapped out. It is consistent. It is solid. It matches a strong commitment to public services with a strong commitment to reform. It is clear on crime. The economic policy is measured and set out by the steady hand of Alistair Darling. The package is coherent and thought through.

    It does two other things that are defining. It acknowledges completely that difficult choices lie ahead. But it seeks to do them fairly, to balance the tough medicine with the compassion. There are policies to cut the deficit but also to help the unemployed, to protect pensioners from poverty, to ensure that opportunity is spread as widely as possible and today a new plan to provide a National Care Service. It seeks to keep Britain together as a nation through troubled times.

    But it does something else. It recognises that we must make these choices and map out our path in a world whose challenges are increasingly global and whose solutions therefore must be. It is outward not inward looking.

    Thirteen years of power has seen its share of bad times and good, for the people and for the government. That’s for sure.

    But just cast our mind back and recall the change for the better. Not just the pledges on the famous pledge card back in 1997, every one met and more.

    Remember how people used to wait 18 months queuing on a hospital waiting list. Now it is a maximum wait of 18 weeks from GP to operation. Delivered by a Labour Government.

    Thousands fewer deaths from heart disease and cancer. Delivered by a Labour Government.

    In 1997 half of all schools got fewer than 30% of their pupils 5 good GCSEs. Today it is only 1 in 12. Delivered by a Labour Government.

    And the biggest schools and hospitals re-building programme since the Welfare State began. Delivered by a Labour Government.

    New services like Sure Start.

    New frontline workers.

    Help for families through tax credits and the winter allowance.

    Delivered by a Labour Government.

    Crime down, having doubled in the 18 years of the last Tory Government, the chances of being a victim lower than at any time since the Crime Survey began.

    Delivered by a Labour Government.

    Then the changes that we delivered and that would never have happened under the Tories: a minimum wage, flexible working, devolution, a ban on handguns. And how do we know they wouldn’t have happened under the Tories? Because in each case they opposed the change.

    Then there are the things done which define the spirit of the society we believe in: civil partnerships, the Human Rights Act, the boost for arts and culture and yes even bringing the Olympics to Britain in 2012.

    This has been part of a global vision. One of my charities today works in Africa. We have teams in Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Liberia. In each country, Britain’s role is celebrated as a leader in the fight against global poverty. We can be proud of what we done in development. Our troops continue to perform heroically and brilliantly in Afghanistan. And just recently in Basra, we have seen the huge change in the local economy, due in part to the way British troops held the line there through the most fraught times and of course the Iraq election. In Europe, Britain is standing up for our interests but reckoned and respected as a sound partner for Europe’s other nations. When Gordon sought to bring the world together to act in the financial crisis, it came naturally. He understands it.

    Which leads me back to the central point of the election: who “gets” the future? This is not a matter of age or personality. It is a matter of comprehension. This is a very, very important moment in which to exercise understanding. Since leaving office, and spending much time abroad, I can tell you one thing above all else. The characteristics of today’s world are: it is interdependent; it is changing; and power is moving East. And all of this is happening fast, faster than we can easily imagine. Britain’s challenge is not a 20th Century one and its politics cannot afford 20th Century political attitudes. The country has to go forward with energy, drive, determination and above all understanding. Closed minds close off the future. That would mean the challenge is failed, but it would also mean the opportunity is squandered.

    This country faces big challenges in the futures.

    I want this party to be the one able to meet those challenges.

    This country needs strong leadership.

    I want our leadership to be the one that gives it.

    There is still vast potential and promise in our nation.

    I want our government to be the one that develops it.

    I want a future fair for all.

    I believe a 4th term Labour Government can deliver it.