Below is the text of the speech made by Menzies Campbell, the then Party Foreign Affairs spokesman, to the Liberal Democrat Party Conference in Bournemouth on 26 September 2001.
With the exception of some ritual skirmishing over the single currency, Foreign Affairs were noticeably absent from the general election campaign of 2001.
Foreign Affairs hardly seemed to register in the collective mind of the British electorate.
But as the events of two weeks ago show, there is no other area where policy is more influenced by external events over which we have no control, than the conduct of our relations with other countries and institutions.
It has become trite to claim that “the world will never be the same again” or that we have reached a “defining moment” or that we have reached a “watershed”.
We do not know any of these things are true.
But what is true is that before the 11th of September there were and still remain foreign policy issues which are urgent and acute;
Such as our military commitments in the Balkans and Sierra Leone;
The proper British response to American proposals for ballistic missile defence;
Or the impact of the slowdown in the Japanese economy on the inward investment upon which 65,000 jobs in the United Kingdom depend;
Or the political and economic consequences of remaining outside the single currency.
We have not suspended all political activity in the United Kingdom since 11th September but I sense that the electorate has little stomach for the partisan political exchanges which normally characterise the party conference season – and that least of all in Foreign Affairs.
So, let me today adopt a more reflective tone and try to set out a purely Liberal Democrat view of Foreign Affairs – leaving others to conclude how and to what extent that view conflicts with the policies of the other parties.
Our aim must be to offer a clear, constructive and credible foreign policy in which, by means of effective international and regional organisations, we can help to promote prosperity, peace and freedom, combat poverty and disease, and tackle global environmental problems.
Our natural inclination is towards internationalism – celebrating diversity, recognising that state borders provide no defence to environmental threats – accepting that the desperation of asylum seekers knows no boundaries – always holding to an unwavering commitment to the universality of human rights.
Freedom should not be the prerogative of the well governed, the well off, or the well connected.
A Liberal Democrat view embraces freedom from want and disease, freedom from oppression and fear, freedom of assembly and expression.
In short – a foreign policy with an ethical dimension.
But neither we nor any other country will fashion a foreign policy which meets these objectives unless by multilateral action; by acknowledging our dependence and by supporting international institutions; by collective and not unilateral action.
If the events of the last two weeks have taught us anything it is surely that no nation however powerful can hope to defend its citizens or seek redress on their behalf unless it acts in concert with those of like mind.
However much a sense of national pride may seduce us to believe we have the ability to stand alone, the truth is that our survival depends on our allies and our alliances.
It is no accident that in seeking legitimacy for prospective military action, the USA was compelled to seek the support of the United Nations, of NATO and of the EU.
It is no surprise that in order to maintain the coalition of support it has gone outside even of these institutions to try to forge an alliance of those who will look neutrally, at least, on a military response.
In renouncing unilateralism the USA has been compelled to cede to allies old, new and improbable, a measure of influence over its own decision-making.
When we argue as we have for a military response based on clear intelligence, precise and proportionate to the need, and consistent with the principles of international law this is not an over-cautious response, as it is crudely characterised by some, it is no more than the cement necessary to keep together the newly constructed coalition.
Abandon these principles and the coalition will be impossible to maintain.
Such ad hoc coalition may be a matter for congratulation, even astonishment, but it is no substitute for the permanent coalition of interests which a reformed, effective and fully funded United Nations would provide.
The mechanism for crisis management needs to be in place before the crisis erupts.
The United Nations will only fulfil these aspirations when it commands the unqualified support of all the nations, no matter how powerful.
A system of international justice will only be effective if all nations no matter how powerful accept the universal jurisdiction of an International Criminal Court.
And if we put our trust in a reformed and revitalised United Nations we must here also assert our belief in the web of mutually reinforcing treaties for arms control and disarmament which have maintained the strategic balance.
We are not signatories to the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, but we have been its beneficiaries and we have a legitimate interest in the stability it brings and the consequences of its abrogation.
We are entitled to call upon the declared nuclear powers to fulfil their obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
We support the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty – we want all nuclear powers to do so too.
Landmines and biological weapons verification, measures to control the global trade in small arms and the Kyoto protocol – how shall we make a success of these unless we approach them from a collective and not a unilateralist standpoint?
Today is the 15th day after the events in Washington and New York, but it is also the 30th day of NATO’s operation to collect up weapons in Macedonia – a collective successful action in which the United Kingdom has played a prominent and leading part.
But if we are to go on playing such a role – if we are to go on being a force for good – if we are to assert and implement the right of humanitarian intervention where there are systematic breaches of human rights, I simply do not believe that we can do all this on the existing defence budget.
I lost the argument inside our party for a commitment to increase defence spending in our budget proposals for the general election.
But I was in good company.
So did Iain Duncan Smith and Geoff Hoon.
No UK political party campaigned in the General Election on the footing of increasing defence spending.
And yet every party wants the armed forces to do more, to be better equipped, better manned, to make a better contribution to our foreign policy objectives – just plain better.
It can’t be done without better resources.
The Labour Government’s Strategic Defence Review was supposed to provide conceptual stability for defence policy and it largely succeeded.
But without adequate resources to match its objectives we shall be driven to a further review before long.
We shall find it difficult to deal with turbulence abroad if the armed forces are facing financial turbulence at home.
And finally let me turn to Europe.
A party of reform in Britain has to be a party of reform in Europe.
Better scrutiny, better control of expenditure, less waste, less bureaucracy, more subsidiarity, more transparency.
Our commitment to Europe will not survive sceptical challenge unless it is accompanied by frank acknowledgement of Europe’s weaknesses and credible proposals to put them right.
But let us acknowledge the burgeoning foreign policy influence of the European Union.
In its achievements as a partner with Nato in Macedonia and its mature political response to President Bush, it is coming of age in foreign affairs.
These last two weeks have been a curious time in foreign affairs.
So much of what seemed certain has been disproved.
So much of what we took for granted has been destroyed.
In uncertain times a political party confronts challenges by rigorous adherence to its principles.
Be in no doubt, our principles and our resolve will be tested as never before.
Below is the text of the speech made by John Major, the then Prime Minister, to the Young Conservatives Conference held in Scarborough on 9 February 1991.
In each of the last three General Elections well over a million young people voted Conservative – three times as many first time voters supported us for every two who voted Labour in 1987.
That is good, but not good enough.
Why did we enjoy that support? It was because young people shared the values that we care about. I believe we want to strengthen and deepen that commitment.
I want them to know that the Conservative Party is open to them and to their ideas.
They will be welcome – and we need them.
Their idealism.
Their willingness to challenge accepted wisdom.
Their readiness to try new ways. And we must respond to their hopes as well.
To their concern for the sort of life they want to build for themselves.
Today the world is changing at an unprecedented rate. We cannot be immune from that.
Our principles and our philosophy are firm. But we must still adapt in order to thrive.
We must be open to originality, to innovation, and to change. And so long as I am able to ensure it, we will.
In a few moments I want to share with you some of my thoughts about our priorities for the future.
But first I want to speak of one group who are uppermost in our minds at present – those in our armed forces in the Gulf.
A few weeks ago I had the privilege of meeting many of them. They made a lasting impression.
They had no doubt that the task they had been set was just. And they left me in no doubt that they were wholly equal to that task.
And since then – night after night and day after day – we have seen them prove that with a skill and courage we can only admire.
They deserve all the support they can get – and they will get from us all the support they need.
And when they have done their job we will bring them back home – as soon as we can.
For here, at home, there are deep anxieties faced by their families.
I have received in recent weeks many letters from them.
Some are worried. Some emotional. All proud.
I believe the whole nation shares those feelings.
We did not want this war.
But we have it.
And we face a difficult period ahead.
But Saddam Hussein must know what he faces.
He faces defeat.
The timing maybe uncertain.
But the outcome is absolutely certain.
Because we intend to complete the job they have begun.
The British people understand very well the key principle underlying the Gulf conflict.
Throughout history the instinct of Britain has always been to defend freedom.
To uphold the rule of law.
That above all is why our troops are in the Gulf.
For our troops back home and all over it is not enough simply to protect the rights and freedoms that we have inherited. We must look beyond the present.
We must extend them.
In the last ten years tremendous advances have been made. Now we must move forward again.
We must look now at the opportunities that should be there and are not.
At the choices we do not yet have.
And at the people who have not yet benefited from change. The success of our Party since 1979 has sprung from our readiness to reform – our willingness to make the changes necessary to produce a better quality of life.
And I promise you today that great programme of reform will continue in the years ahead
In our Party we know you have to produce wealth before you can use it.
Like many other nations, Britain faces economic difficulties at present.
The next few months will be uncomfortable.
I regret that.
But short term expedients won’t do.
They will only lengthen and worsen the problems themselves.
We must follow a policy that will cure those problems, not simply mask them.
That is precisely what people expect of us.
Every time we have faced economic difficulties we have brought the country out of them.
We have a good track record.
And we will come through our problems yet again.
The centre piece of any strong economy is low inflation. And in that there are good signs for Britain.
Inflation is coming down, and will continue to fall throughout the year.
It will halve from its peak.
And we will still be driving it down.
There are some who that say inflation doesn’t matter so very much.
What that shows is that to them people don’t matter so very much.
Well, people matter to me.
I know that inflation is the enemy of personal security and peace of mind – for people of all ages.
It gnaws away at the hard won savings of the pensioner. It disrupts business and destroys jobs.
It betrays the basic trust in the value of money that lies behind every transaction in our daily lives.
That is why we must and will defeat inflation as our first priority
But, you know, when we talk of efficiency, of competition, and of economic success, we do it not for its own sake.
Not for material reasons only.
But for what we can achieve with the resources we create.
In the year ahead we will set out our ideas for the 1990s and beyond.
We have an agenda to work through.
Some of those ideas will be tried and tested.
Some will be new.
Some will involve novel concepts.
But all of them will have one thing in common – the long-term needs of this country and the people that live in it.
Our Party exists to give more people more choice, more independence, more control over their daily lives.
We know that the role of government should be limited. At present it is still too big.
But let there be no question about one thing.
We must never accept the contention that limited Government means lower standards.
That state services must be second-best.
I want to see an unending search for better quality in all our public services. When we deprive people of their money in never taxes, they have a right to ensure that it is never wasted in government.
So I want to see new ideas flowing into public service. More privatisation, yes, of course.
But also more partnership with the voluntary and private sectors.
More use of the best private skills.
For far too long we have tolerated public services that are just not good enough.
Council house repairs that are shoddy and slow.
Hospital appointments that take all day.
Trains that run late and buses that travel in packs. Children refused admission to the schools to which their parents wanted them to go.
In all of these areas we have been investing enormous sums – in health, in transport, and in education.
But are we getting proper value?
We must make those services operate better for the people who use them.
And operate with the same efficiency within the public sector as we would expect outside the public sector.
At the top of my personal agenda for the 1990s is education.
Education is the key to opening new paths for all sorts of people, not just the most gifted and for doing so at every stage of their lives. And it is also the key to the Tory ideal of a mobile, dynamic and diverse society.
So my objectives are straightforward – improving quality and standards.
More pupils staying on in education after 16.
Much more choice, and better training for all young people. I want to see more vocational options in schools of equal rigour and repute to the academic courses.
And this must go hand in hand with greater coherence and quality in post-school training.
There has been great progress over the last ten years. Some parts of our education system are unrivalled.
But others clearly are not.
Right back to the 60s and before, serious mistakes were made. Tried and tested methods were swept aside.
Unproven theories were foisted on our children.
And as a result, standards were lowered. And as a result of that the status of teachers was undermined.
As a nation we cannot be proud of what has been done over the last thirty years for many of our children.
Too many of them have been allowed to expect too little of themselves and too many other people have expected too little of them.
Over a decade ago the Labour Party recognised all this to be true.
They launched what they called a “great debate” about education.
But of course it was not debate that was needed.
It was action.
As usual, it was left to a Conservative Government to take it up after 1979.
In 1979 we set ourselves to tackle those problems.
And since then, we have introduced a great range of reforms in our schools.
Given more choice and influence to parents.
More responsibility to governors.
Set out the building blocks of a new system with better education in the National Curriculum.
These policies are working.
More pupils are getting more out of their education.
There are now five 16 year olds staying on at school for every four just two years ago.
Ten years ago only one person in eight went on into higher education.
Now it is one in five.
And soon it will be one in four.
We have many more young people graduating from our universities than ever before in the past.
Those are the real tests of success. And the policies of the Conservative Government have passed them in the last ten years.
And we are passing them.
So the 1980s have seen an opening of freedom and choice.
But I for one have no intention of resting on the Government’s achievements.
I want to bring the benefits of the best possible education to all. We cannot accept a situation where in some places nearly 40 per cent of school leavers get at least five higher level GCSEs, while elsewhere, less than ten percent do so. The Conservative Party has never accepted the notion that excellence for the few excuses mediocrity for the many.
It is, of course, the teaching profession that must lead the drive to higher standards and aspirations in our schools. I want to see dedicated teachers rewarded fairly.
But I also want to see more effective scrutiny of performance in schools.
And I want the most rigorous standards applied in teacher training.
We must ensure that every subject is taught to a high standard.
Teachers may need to be better trained in the subjects they are going to teach.
It is no good having hours of study of the theory of education if you actually fall down in the practice of teaching it when you get into the classroom.
So we want to see an educational system that is the equal of anything abroad.
Doing the basic things well.
It is not only a question of reading and spelling.
Although it is most emphatically a question of every child having the right to be taught how to read fluently and spell accurately.
And it is also teaching to a good standard with the right combination of factual knowledge and critical understanding in every subject.
And of training people for worthwhile qualifications in job related skills when they choose a vocational course.
And so what is it we seek? In summary we seek a system of education and training able to equip the children of today for the twenty-first century.
That is the objective that we will be seeking in our education policy throughout the 1990s.
And we need that for a variety of reasons, we need it because we need that education, that excellence in education to maximise our success both domestically and in Europe. And also of course, because that education equips people so much better to enjoy all the aspects of life both in work and in leisure, that will be opening up before them in the years to come.
Above all in the 1990’s we will face a competitive future in a world that is becoming increasingly competitive and most especially in a European community that will become increasingly competitive. There will be no hiding place for inefficiency, no hiding place for the shoddy and the second-rate once we get into the Europe of the 1990’s. That will all change as the reforms of 1992 increasingly come to place. Those who are well equipped and do well, work well, think well, produce well, are efficient and effective will be the leaders of the Europe in the 1990’s. And we are, and will remain, an important and enthusiastic part of the European community. It is simply not enough for some people to say, ‘I don’t really like Europe, but I will tolerate it’, for if we take that view about Europe we will never be the centre of it and can not lead it in the direction which we wish it to go.
It may be true in some ways that we need Europe but by golly it is equally true that Europe needs us and we had better make sure we are a key part in it.
It is not only the opportunities in Europe, though I will return to those in a moment. Look at the opportunities opening up in other parts of the world, the increasing democratisation of so much of Eastern Europe, a part of the world that for a very long time indeed we have seen subjugated, and unable to open itself up to a free enterprise system and all the opportunities that will flow from that.
That is all changing and has been changing in the most dramatic fashion in recent years.
And then you see the extent to which throughout the whole of South East Asia and elsewhere there are growing industrial giants with whom we will have to compete in the future and then there is the increasingly growing and important market throughout the whole of Latin America. Those are the opportunities that lie there for British industry, British commerce, and British people in the future.
And to return to the central point, providing we have the education system, the skills and the enterprise we will be able to win in those markets and winning in those markets will mean a much higher standard of life and living for all people who live in this country in the future.
And nowhere will that competitiveness be more needed than within the European community itself.
And that is why I say again that we must remain an enthusiastic partner in Europe.
It is not for nothing that we led the way in the drive for the Single Market. It was not without good reason that we took sterling into the Exchange Rate Mechanism. We propose to play a leading part in Europe’s future and no-one should doubt that for a single second.
And Britain will have a strong voice in the new Europe. Strong because of our commitment.
Strong because we have hard heads as well as soft hearts. Strong because Britain under a Conservative Government has firm principles and a very clear idea of where it wants to go and what needs to be done to get there.
And we will also resist the unworkable.
Set realism in place of impractical dreams and protect the diversity of Europe while removing obstacles to partnership and enterprise.
Necessarily you in the Young Conservatives must look to the long-term, to the year 2000 and beyond.
And so you should.
It is your future for a good deal longer than it is mine. Your Government has the same instincts. We will set our sights on the same horizon and so we should because it is our responsibility to do so.
Mr Chairman, I have a total faith in Britain and in its future.
I don’t accept for a second the craven argument that we cannot compete with the Germans and the French.
I don’t agree with the pessimists who always believe we must devalue in order to remain competitive and I despise the defeatists who run down this country and write off its future. Defeatism is always an excuse for doing nothing. But we have no intention of doing nothing. In the months ahead our agenda will unfold. Throughout the last decade Conservative Governments have proved successful to an extent beyond most peoples’ imagination. I believe that will be increasingly recognised.
Throughout the past decade Conservative Government’s have shown very clearly what it is possible for the British economy and people in this country actually to achieve and do. That is a record that people will look back on, I believe, in years to come with some envy and with a considerable amount of pride.
Below is the text of the maiden speech made by John McDonnell in the House of Commons on 6 June 1997.
I have been made aware of the conventions of maiden speeches, especially the tradition of paying tribute to one’s predecessors. I have no problem with praising many of the previous Members of Parliament for Hayes and Harlington: men such as Walter Ayles, a good socialist who took a special interest in aid to Africa; Arthur Skeffington, a superb housing Minister in the Wilson Government; and Neville Sandelson, a good man who unfortunately fell victim to the delusions of grandeur of David Owen.
Despite my respect for the conventions of the House, I shall not perjure myself by praising my immediate Tory predecessor. Many saw him simply as a Tory buffoon, and he was once described as a “pig’s bladder on a stick”. When he chose as his election slogan, “We love Dicks”, we were not sure whether to laugh or to call in the obscene publications squad. However, Terry Dicks was not a joke. He was a stain on the character of this House, the Conservative party which harboured him and the good name of my constituency. He brought shame on the political process of this country by his blatant espousal of racism and his various corrupt dealings. He demeaned the House by his presence, and I deeply regret that the Conservative party failed to take action to stem his flow of vile bigotry. Thankfully, my constituents can now say good riddance to this malignant creature.
My speech in this debate, and many others today, have been more than 10 years in the waiting. In the newspapers this week, we have seen pictures of 50,000 people demonstrating for democracy by holding candles in a park in Hong Kong. More than a decade ago in our capital city, more than 250,000 Londoners stood silently in Jubilee gardens on the last night of the GLC when the lights were turned out in County hall. As the GLC councillor for Hayes and Harlington council and deputy leader of the authority, I was among them, and we tearfully sang “We’ll Meet Again”. After all this time, we are about to meet again.
The abolition of the GLC was self-evidently an act of malignant spite by a Prime Minister in the first demented throes of megalomania. Harold Laski, a good socialist and once the chair of the Labour party, prophetically explained that Britain would not experience fascism in the form of a strutting Mussolini or Hitler, but instead was vulnerable to a form of Conservative authoritarianism arrived at by the slow incremental erosion of our civil liberties and democratic institutions. Under the Thatcher regime, the institution of democratic local government was bombarded by the introduction of rate capping, the surcharging of the Lambeth councillors and the abolition of the GLC, culminating in the establishment of the government of our capital city by an appointed state: the appointment of Tories, by Tories, to line the pockets of Tories.
What has that plethora of quangos and joint committees achieved for our city? In the custodial care of the Tory appointees, 40,000 families in London are homeless every year; up to 3,000 people sleep on our streets in winter; crime has doubled, with a terrifying and unrelenting increase in violence; our manufacturing and economic base has collapsed; our health service is in crisis; and our transport system is gridlocked, with the effect that traffic is slower than at the turn of the century. Many of us will never forget or forgive the Tories for the scale of their neglect of our city.
For most of the past decade, I served as the chief executive of the Association of London Authorities, and latterly the Association of London Government. After 10 long years of designing blueprints for a new strategic authority in that capacity, I am naturally pleased that, at last, we have the opportunity to start the reconstruction process. I also warmly welcome the fact that, in the spirit of open government and inclusiveness, there is to be a thorough consultation process, including a Green Paper, a White Paper and a referendum before the final legislation.
It is critical in the consultation process that views are honestly expressed and listened to if we are to avoid putting in place a structure that we shall live to regret. In that spirit, I want to set out some initial views on the basic architecture of the proposed new government for the capital.
There was a consultation process in the Labour party on the structural options for the new authority, but it is no secret that the proposal for a directly elected mayor was the result of enthusiasm from above.
I have tried to analyse why, deep within me, I have such reservations about the proposal; it is certainly not because of an emotive claim that the system is somehow alien to this country. It is partly because it grates against my notion of democratic socialist practice, which involves the development of a policy programme by the party for presentation to the electorate, and in which the electors vote primarily for a set of ideas and policies associated with an ideology and advocated by a party rather than voting for their impressions of an individual. That is a vote for the many, not the few—and certainly not for one.
I also have practical concerns about accountability and the potential for the abuse of power and corruption in a mayoral system. Nevertheless, the proposal for a directly elected mayor was contained in the manifesto on which our party was elected, so I look to the detail of the design of the relationship between the mayor and the elected authority to ensure political accountability and to secure probity.
The checks and balances that are essential to ensure accountability would at a minimum include, for example, the election of the mayor’s cabinet by, and from among, the authority members; the approval by the authority of the overall budget and major spending decisions; a system of scrutiny of policy making; the ratification by the authority of any senior staffing appointments; and the right of the authority to express no confidence in the mayor and to trigger an election—in effect, a right of recall.
The strategic role and powers of the new authority are almost self-evident in terms of the immediate and concrete needs of Londoners: economic regeneration; an efficient integrated transport system; a decent environment; and a feeling of safety from crime and hazards.
My plea is simply that the legislation that we pass be sufficiently flexible to enable the new authority to meet new challenges as they arise. That may require a more general power of intervention, if necessary triggered by a decision by the electorate, the Secretary of State or the House.
On funding, I agree that the allocation of powers and responsibilities without resources is pointless. The inheritance of existing precepts and the transfer of grant from central Government without capping, combined with the ability to borrow, would go a long way towards resourcing the new authority and achieving some economies of scale that would release new money. I also plead for flexibility in the legislation, to enable the new authority to explore new funding streams, possibly by hypothecated levies again triggered by the Government, by the House or by referendums.
Some discussions have already taken place on the location of the new authority. Naturally, I prefer the retrieval of county hall, if necessary by compulsory purchase. I would certainly welcome an inquiry into the sale of county hall under the previous regime.
As an alternative, the Middlesex guildhall across Parliament square would be suitable. We have been informed that the Prime Minister has assured the Corporation of the City of London of its continued existence. Thus, the City’s guildhall is not available for use.
Labour remains committed to reforming the City’s archaic and undemocratic procedures. I hope that the City corporation will produce its own options for reform. By way of an incentive to expedite matters, I give notice that, unless reform proposals are forthcoming at the appropriate stage of the Bill enacting the new authority, I am minded to seek to insert a clause to abolish the City corporation—a generally uncontentious measure, I suggest.
On the representative nature of the authority, whatever its size and method of election, I would argue that it should reflect the gender balance and ethnic diversity of our community. We should ensure the full involvement of all the social partners, of both sides of industry in the capital, in its deliberations and decision making.
As a child, my first political awareness came when Wilson was in Government, John F. Kennedy was President of the United States and Martin Luther King had a dream—a dream of a new society, of equality and decency for our children. I believe that the last Greater London council administration was part of that dream; it was about building a new beginning for our city. The new authority that we are putting in place will be part of the procedure that will allow us to dream that dream again; a dream of a decent civil society in which equality reigns. I am pleased that I am going to be part of the process of making that dream a reality.
Below is the text of the speech made by John McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, at Imperial College on 20 November 2015.
I’m grateful to you here at Imperial College for having me here to speak today. And what an inspiring place it is to speak about the future of the economy and the world of work, at the College’s new Incubator where start-ups and entrepreneurs can work alongside some of the leading minds in science.
My own experiences of work began with the technological revolution of the time.
Looking back at it now, I think about the possibilities open to us then. There were skilled jobs available for the millions who, like me, didn’t go straight from university. There was generous access to courses at local FE colleges. There was free education for those who did go to university.
On modest means, a young person could buy a house. After all the advances we have made, why is it that so many things we took for granted back then are no longer available to our children’s generation? Wages for the under 30s have been decimated since the financial crisis, and are still 10% below their 2010 level.
Home ownership in many parts of the country is out of the reach of the millions whose parents are unable to help with a deposit. Social housing is almost a distant memory, and the insecurity of private renting means upheaval and uncertainty for a majority.
How did this come about?
How can it be, with all the productive and creative advances of the last few decades that in some of the most important aspects of life, my grandchildren have a less secure life to look forward to than mine?
John Maynard Keynes famously predicted in the 1930s that these expanding capacities would lead to a fifteen hour working week, the rest of the time filled with leisure activities rather than worrying about how to find more money.
For today’s young people, more than any other generation since, his dream could not seem further from coming true.
This is the backdrop to Jeremy Corbyn’s election. Jeremy was elected leader of the Labour Party by an overwhelming majority of members and supporters on the basis of a programme that rested on three pillars.
First, a New Politics, the creation of a more democratic, engaging and kinder politics in both the Labour party and society.
Second, a New Economics, laying the economic foundations of a prosperous, fairer and sustainable society.
Third, a New Relationship with the World, based upon a foreign policy promoting mutual co-operation, conflict prevention and resolution rather than military aggression.
The good society that I think most of us envisage is one that is free, democratic, prosperous, environmentally sustainable, safe and secure, based upon the values of fairness, equality and social justice, where everybody has the ability to develop their talents and enjoyment of life to the full.
Austerity provides none of this. Worse, it moves us further and further away from that vision. The impact is felt by the poorest and most vulnerable. Just one example, amongst many. The number of those sleeping rough has risen by a shocking 55 percent since 2010.
In the sixth-richest country in the world, that anybody should be without a roof over their head is a disgrace. And there is worse to come. Unless reversed by the Chancellor, under public pressure, tax credit cuts threaten over three million households with losing £1,300 a year. These raw figures hide the real stories – of huge suffering and personal tragedies now being borne across the country.
Yet none of this suffering is necessary. Austerity, as I argued in September and have continued to argue, is a straight political choice. There is no economic necessity behind it. There is a broad consensus, from the International Monetary Fund and across the economics profession, against it. Austerity is a political choice. It threatens our future economic security. It is, however, for George Osborne and the Conservatives, the easy option.
Since the late 1970s, governments across the World have promoted gains for the few in the belief that the many would, eventually, share. Capital markets were liberalised and taxes cut. But under successive governments, inequality rose. Not trickle-down, but trickle-up. It is time to change the rules of the game.
Neoliberalism – the current rulebook – has outlived its time. The old rules are failing the majority. And they will not cope with the changes that are ahead of us. My real concern is for the long term well-being of our economy.
If we are to thrive as an economy we have to base our future on the rapidly developing new technologies. It’s what many are calling the new machine age. Miss this boat and we will struggle to keep up in a competitive global market place. We will have a country divided geographically between the finance sector of the City of London – surrounded by a sea of low-paid, service sector jobs – and the rest of the country.
In many areas, the pace of industrial decline will continue to destroy lives and devastate communities. If this sounds dystopian, take a trip to Teeside and see what the loss of steel, of Potash mining and the loss of 300 HMRC jobs can do to threaten the life of a community.
Technological advance is forcing the pace of change. Bank of England research suggests that 15 million jobs could be at risk of automation over the next decade or so. And those most at risk from automation are the lowest-paid.
For those who own the robots, of course, it will be a different story. Wealth will flow faster into fewer hands. A minority will continue to profit immensely. But there is a different way. First we need government to understand and accept the strategic role it has to play in our new economy.
The current government is blocking the path to our future. They are willfully blind to the changes taking place. They privilege vested interests and the old ways of working. Our giant corporations are enjoying a boom time, taking their biggest ever slice of our national income as profits.
Some of the most powerful institutions in the land appear to act almost unhindered. Think about how little has been done to get even our publicly owned banks to clean up their act since the crash. So many of our underlying problems can be traced back to the domination of a few powerful institutions that have failed, over many years, to act in the public interest. And yet we have a government all but captured by vested interests.
Corporation tax, already the lowest in the G7, has been cut again and cut, heading towards just 18%. Featherbedding, through a wildly complex system of tax reliefs that now comes to £110bn a year.
Cutting HMRC, while turning a blind eye to rampant tax avoidance and evasion, running into billions. And whilst large corporations are treated with kid gloves, those who work are shown the iron fist. We already have the most repressive union laws in Western Europe.
The Trade Union Bill will tighten the screw still further. Labour will oppose the Trade Union Bill at every step of the way and, should it become law, repeal it in government. Unlike France or Germany, in the UK rights of workers to speak up in their own companies are limited in the extreme.
No formal provision exists for workers to have a say in decisions that affect not only their own lives but potentially those of their customers. We are throwing away the chance for those who work to bring their skills, talent, and in-depth knowledge into how our corporations make decisions.
Democracy isn’t just a political question. It is a bread-and-butter issue. A new contract for the workplace means securing a better balance between those who work, and those who employ. We will open a review on workplace representation, drawing on the best practice from around the world to unlock democracy in our workplaces and release its creative potential.
We will seek to break open the monopolies and oligopolies that dominate our essential industries, offering extended support to those seeking to set up cooperative and community ownership of their companies and assets. Meeting the challenges of the future requires a state that can think and act strategically. A new economics can start to provide an alternative.
We need to think about how government can operate on the basis not only of providing necessary public services, but also to meet challenges in the future. That is why we have launched reviews of the mandate of the Bank of England, and the Treasury’s function, to report on how they can operate in the best interests of society.
That is just the first step in a process that will see us work with businesses, entrepreneurs, scientists, trade unions and wider civil society to shape the economy of the future.
We know this can be done. Finland met its disastrous recession in the 1990s by transforming its economy from an exporter of lumber, to an exporter of technology. At the centre of its transition it established the Science and Technology Policy Council, chaired by the Prime Minister, drawing on expertise from across business, science, and civil society.
Labour in government will bring together business, unions, and scientists in a new Innovation Policy strategy, with a mission-led goal to boost research and development spending, and maximise the social and economic benefits from that expenditure.
We already have brilliant entrepreneurs like Dale Vince, who started the world’s first green energy company, Ecotricity, from a caravan in Gloucestershire. Ecotricity now supplies 75,300 homes with renewable energy and in 2014 had turnover of £66 million.
We need more creativity like this.
Thousands of new businesses are being created. We want government to work with, not against, those entrepreneurs helping create wealth in society. But rather than investing for the future, Osborne has overseen a slump in government funding for vital infrastructure.
As a share of GDP, public infrastructure spending has fallen from 3.3% in the final year of the last Labour government to 1.6% today. It is scheduled to fall still further, to 1.4%. Meanwhile, our major corporations, despite record profits, are sitting on vast cash piles. At least £400bn is held in corporate bank accounts – money that should be invested.
This is part of a pattern, identified by Martin Wolf, of slumping investment, relative to cash flow, across major economies. That slide has been amongst the worst in the UK, stretching back beyond the crash to the early 2000s.
Meanwhile, dividend payments are at an all-time high. So we have a government that won’t invest and corporations that won’t invest, a damaging cycle setting up the generations ahead for failure.
The consequences of this failure are all too apparent. Underpaid and overworked staff. Insecurity. Businesses unable to compete. Basic utilities under threat. The National Grid has warned of electricity shortages.
This in Britain, in 2015 – the sixth richest economy on the planet. Clearly, some of this has got back to Osborne. In a state of panic, he has been running around China trying to drum up funding. Osborne opposes nationalisation – except when it’s the Chinese or the French state doing it. Short-termism and antipathy to the state dominates every decision.
The OECD thinks that, as a minimum, a developed country like Britain should be spending 3.5% of GDP on infrastructure. Labour in power will meet and exceed that commitment, reversing decades of underspend. This could include renewable energy, energy efficiency, major public transport improvements and ultra-highspeed broadband.
Labour understands that government’s role is to provide the opportunity for massive advances in technology, skills and organisational change. A Labour Government would prioritise provision of patient long term finance for investment in research to support the technology that will drive future innovation in our economy. And we would look to change our corporate tax system to give companies incentives to invest wisely. A higher tax on retained earnings should be investigated, alongside improved deductibility for long-term investment.
The City of London and our financial institutions can also play their part. Labour will seek a new compact with financial services, looking for guarantees on stable, long-term domestic investment, mobilising their skills and resources for the wider public benefit.
I am hoping to meet with Mark Boleat of the Corporation of London later this month to discuss ways in which the City and finance can play their part in a new contract for Britain. We will retain, of course, the right to legislate if needed. It is science, technology and innovation that are shaping our new world. Britain has an extraordinary and proud legacy of scientific research, of which this institution is a part. It is still a world-leader today in the quality of its research.
But rather than build on that heritage, we are strip-mining it. Despite promising to protect research funding this has neglected it. Current expenditure on research and development has fallen by £1bn in real terms since 2010. This is having results. For example, the UK’s cutting-edge neutron source at Harwell is only running 120 days a year due to funding shortages, and leading scientists say we are facing irreversible declines in “particle physics, astrophysics, and nuclear physics.”
Britain spends less on research as a share of GDP than France, Germany, the US and China, all of whom are increasing their commitment to science and technology. We spend less than 0.5% of GDP on science and that is set to reduce still further. The UK has no long-term plan to increase R&D spending. Modern breakthroughs in research are the result of past investment by government, built on the foundations of an immense scientific and technical heritage.
However, in science, technology, and innovation, we are beginning to live off past glories. We can, and should, do better. The Royal Society recommends a target of meeting at least the OECD average spend on research and development by 2020. A Labour Government will aim to exceed this, with total spending – from both public and private sources – of at least 3% of GDP by 2030.
We will extend Labour’s Ten-Year Framework to cover the next decade and increase innovation support, ring-fencing this spending. Osborne may be trying to close the fiscal deficit. But by failing to invest, he is opening up a massive deficit with the future.
We believe that any fiscal rule should ensure government’s current spending is brought into sensible balance, consistent with sustainable economic growth, whilst allowing vital investment to continue. Another priority will be to ensure that our provision of skills is adequate to the needs of the new economy we wish to create.
At present, employer after employer reports dire shortages. Further Education colleges, a vital lynch-pin of the education system, are threatened with swingeing cuts. If every person is to have the opportunity to share in the prosperity that the new economy can offer, every person must have the opportunity to learn, develop and fulfil their potential.
Secure foundations for the new economy mean prosperity across the whole country. The widening gap between our richest places and the rest is clearly excessive. Average weekly pay in North-East Derbyshire is £389 a week while in the City of London it’s £921. Government’s response to this regional disparity has been persistently inadequate. Planned infrastructure spending per person in the North of England is one-fifth of its level in London.
We won’t get a “Northern Powerhouse” unless government is prepared to pay for it. Improved transport, greater autonomy in taxation and spending decisions, and powers to borrow will enable our regions to meet their huge potential. And of course we cannot allow government to strip local councils to the bone. Labour will continue to oppose the devastating cuts being made to local authority funding. Local authorities can, and should, be local engines of sustainable, long-term prosperity. How we work is changing.
Shifts in technology are opening up new possibilities. The spread of information technology, in particular, with the long-term decline in the cost of computing power has created opportunities that simply did not exist before.
Airbnb, for example, simply could not have existed before the internet. It does not own or rent rooms itself. It provides a space through which others can do so. Sometimes this has been labelled the “gig economy”. Its enthusiasts talk up its possibilities for more exciting, more varied consumption, making better use of the assets we own.
But a nice phrase can hide a grim reality for those who depend on the new world of work for their livelihood. The insecurity of self-employment. The uncertainty of not knowing where, or when, the next pay-cheque will be coming from. And the pressure this places on those in more typical employment, whether it is London taxi drivers threatened by Uber or call-centre workers placed on zero-hour contracts.
Millions of workers excluded from the hard-won protections of formal employment contracts. And relentless pressure placed on those, the majority, still protected. It was the labour movement that won shorter working days. Health and safety at work. Rights in the workplace. But technological change, and the unfettered free market, are tearing up the old work contract. Labour, instead, will offer a new contract for a new workforce. Security of income against uncertainty. The same rights and protections extended to all those at work.
This is why the fight over tax credits matters so much. The tax credit system is well-adapted to new forms of employment. Small businesses, providing a useful service to the community, rely on the tax credits system to get them on their feet and smooth out their earnings. So we will defend and, where we can, improve the tax credits system. Self-employment offers few protections. So we will look to extend maternity and paternity rights to all self-employed workers.
White van man – and woman – deserve just as much protection and recognition as white-collar workers. Austerity is a political choice, not an economic necessity. Unless we change our political choices, the vast majority will be denied the opportunities that technological change presents. We can’t afford to run a deficit with the future.
Working with businesses, workers, and civil society, governments today can and must seize the chance to change how we live and work, both now and in the future. We can break the stalemate and change course. A new economy, where technology liberates rather than traps. Where the fruits of scientific advance are shared by all. And where every one of us has the opportunity to develop our talents. A prosperous society built on sustainable growth, and predicated on the values of fairness, equality and social justice. It’s socialism, but socialism with an iPad.
Below is the text of the speech made by John McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, at the London Chambers of Commerce on 2 December 2015.
I’d like to start by thanking the London Chambers of Commerce for giving me this opportunity to lay out what Labour’s new approach means for business.
Jeremy was elected, back in the summer, he promised a new politics. I’ve spoken in the past few weeks about how this relates to a new economics.
Today, I want to begin to lay out what the new economics means for businesses, and how Labour’s approach will be a break with the kind of mistakes made in the past.
That means a new relationship between business and government.
Not one of antagonism. But recognising how together we can generate and share prosperity, with proper support where it is needed.
It means identifying the challenges and opportunities the rapid technological change presents us with.
It means recognising real wealth creation, and developing long-term investment for the future.
And for London, it means building on an extraordinary economic record, but recognising the many problems the capital faces.
The backdrop to my speech here today is an economy that is finally growing again after the slowest recovery on record, but where the headline figures hid deep underlying problems.
The productivity gap between us and the G7 is at its largest since 1991, and last week’s Office for Budget Responsibility report downgraded their forecasts for productivity growth for the rest of the Parliament.
Our current account deficit has reached record highs. We’re not properly paying our way, becoming far too dependent on short-term borrowing from the rest of the world.
And with interest rates glued to the floor, the pace of household borrowing is picking up rapidly. So rapidly that the Financial Policy Committee is considering activating the countercyclical buffer, and warning about future shocks.
London is an exceptional, world-class city. It’s an extraordinary centre for creativity and entrepreneurship. A new business in London is created every 6 minutes.
But keeping London, and London’s businesses at the cutting-edge means recognising where we’re not doing enough. And that means changing what government is doing.
Short-term vs. long-term
It’s not good enough that 36% of London’s businesses report being affected by slow internet speeds in the last year.
London ranks 26th out of the 33 European capitals for broadband speed. Average connection speeds in Bucharest are nearly four times faster than here.
Meanwhile, as so-called “superfast” broadband trickles out, countries like South Korea are investing in ultra-fast broadband, with connections of 1,000 megabits per second compared to the 25 megabits speed typical today.
It’s no good patting ourselves on the back about London’s great historic legacies, and its status as a cosmopolitan world city, whilst failing to build on either.
And it’s no good the government talking up improvements in connectivity when too many businesses face a reality of delays, difficulties, and poor service.
More needs to be done to support the digital economy. We would support the London Chamber of Commerce’s calls for the creation of a London business panel focused on raising awareness of the benefits of online trading to sole traders and small businesses.
Building on London’s success means ensuring the whole country shares in the prosperity. The better our regions and nations outside the capital do, the better we all do.
We want London businesses to also share in the potential of the rest of the country. That means delivering investment here and across the UK.
We want to keep this city and country at the cutting edge, helping build the high tech, high wage economy of the future.
That also means solving London’s housing crisis. London rental prices are the highest in Europe. The biggest single constrain on London businesses right now is that the people they want to employ can’t afford to live here. That’s bad for them, bad for business, bad for all of us.
Labour is committed in government to providing at least 200,000 new homes a year, and would allow local councils additional powers to tax empty properties, bringing them properly into use. My colleague Sadiq Khan, if elected Mayor, would like to see public land held by bodies like Transport for London used for more housing.
The Spending Review
All of this together is why Labour has decisively rejected the Chancellor’s austerity policies. Not a single credible economist can be found to support his fiscal surplus rule.
By restricting day-to-day and capital spending, it places a straitjacket on vital government investment.
There is no credible economic case of austerity and there never has been. We think the tide is turning on this question as the real impacts of extraordinary spending cuts become clear.
George Osborne was pushed into a u-turn on the tax credit reductions that would have seen 3m families lose £1,300 a year. It was under pressure from Labour and others that he reversed.
However, the pain has been delayed, rather than postponed. As the Institute of Fiscal Studies analysis shows, Cuts to Universal Credits will see a similar number of families lose a similar amount, but pushed somewhat into the future.
Labour will continue to campaign for a fair deal here.
The reality of his delayed cuts to tax credits is that 2.6 million working families will be £1,600 worse off, as the independent IFS has set out. This is taking £4.1bn of spending power out of the economy.
Labour has offered George Osborne a way for him to reverse his own cuts – by targeting a lower surplus and reversing his giveaways to the wealthy, but we’ve yet to receive an answer.
Other cuts will continue, even if at a reduced pace. Local authorities face an extraordinary 79% decline in their budget, should Osborne carry out his plan.
And Osborne is continuing the extraordinary pace of asset sales, with air traffic control, the Land Registry and the Ordnance Survey all scheduled to be sold.
But Osborne has to complete the sales to meet, as the Office for Budget Responsibility say, his own debt reduction target. Without the asset sales, he misses his own, economically worthless, target.
This isn’t a long-term economic plan. It’s a series of short-term political manoeuvres.
In place of austerity, Labour will seek to balance spending on the government’s day-to-day at a pace compatible with fair and sustainable growth, whilst making sure government can still use its full powers to invest in vital infrastructure, science, and skills.
We are committed to raising the level of infrastructure spending to at least the minimum the OECD thinks applies in a developed economy, of 3.5% of GDP.
At present, despite many fine words in the Autumn Statement, government infrastructure spending is scheduled to fall to well below half that figure over the next few years.
It’s no use increasing capital spending in the Department for Transport, whilst cutting day-to-day spending a colossal 37%. We’ll be building new roads – but how will pay to repair them?
This isn’t good enough. And whilst we welcome the government’s commitment to protect day-to-day science spending in real terms, we should, like the US, China, Germany and France, be looking to increase what we spend on research and development.
That’s how we can start to make the most of the opportunities that technological change is bringing.
The government spends less than 0.5% of GDP on research and development. We will look to lift that level, aiming to deliver research and development spending, from all sources, of 3% of GDP over the course of the next two Parliaments.
And subsidies for solar energy have been slashed, tearing apart what was a British business success story. Businesses in their infancy and operating in high-potential areas need support. We’ll be losing out on what Barclays has called a $30trillion global investment blitz from fast-growing green industries.
It’s the short-term thinking that leads to the closure of the successful Business Growth Service – not announced in the Spending Review itself, but only made public nearly a week later.
The Business Growth Service had helped over 18,000 businesses meet their potential, raising £100m in funding for small businesses. It’s been sacrificed on the altar of austerity.
Short-term vs long-term
There’s a deeper failing here. We’ve had decades now where successive governments have focused on the short-term.
It’s why we don’t invest properly in infrastructure. It’s why skills budgets are cut and the training we provide not adequate.
Independent polling shows that among the main barriers to London’s global competitiveness is its lack of affordable housing and its lack of skilled workers. The future prosperity of our nation’s economy is dependent on strategic investment today.
A future which is being gambled by this Government. We know that is our access to EU labour markets, our digital connectivity and our infrastructure which are the most important factors in attracting businesses ventures to London yet too often we are failing to incentivise that investment.
We have major institutions, like the Treasury, that seem far too concerned about short-term penny-pinching at the expense of long-term investment.
I’m pleased that Lord Kerslake is now leading a review of the Treasury, launched yesterday, and looking to see how it can function in the best interests of the whole economy.
But we need a break with the past if we’re to meet the challenges of the future. This short-term way of thinking, sometimes called neoliberalism, has had its day.
Short-termism means all of us lose out. It means skills shortages. It means poor infrastructure. It means failing to invest in science and technology.
It means a seriously unbalanced economy, both domestically and in our relations with the rest of the world. Our current account deficit, and the dependency it creates on short-term financing with all the risks this entails, should be treated as a particularly concern.
Above all, it means failing to reach this country’s potential.
We need institutions and a government that stand on the side of our real wealth creators.
The business that create decent jobs, that pay their taxes, and that bring a social value to their communities.
The innovators and entrepreneurs who create new wealth.
And those who work, whether for themselves or as employees, providing the goods and services.
Fair financing
But we are all being poorly served by the institutions we have.
Our current financial system is plainly not fit for this purpose.
2008 should have been a wake-up call. Instead, we’ve allowed it to settle back into a rut. Reforms have not gone far enough.
This means businesses lose out. Less than half of small traders were approved for bank credit over this financial year.
Lending to small businesses has fallen and fallen again, year after year. Even with a recent improvement, lending is down £49bn on 2008 levels. It’s no good expecting our high-street banks to provide. Despite recovery in some parts of the economy, the Funding for Lending scheme is having to be extended in an effort to get our banks to try and lend to small business.
For small businesses, “too big to fail” shouldn’t also mean “too big to lend”.
Nothing substantive has changed. The same failed institutions we had before the crash are all set to fail again.
Labour will take a different approach.
No other major developed economy has just five high street banks providing over 80% of all loans.
A more diverse market for finance will be a more resilient financial market.
We think that regional and local banks, properly managed with a public service mandate, are part of the answer for small businesses.
We want banks that know their customers and understand the needs of their local businesses. Germany’s network of highly successful “Sparkassen”, publicly-owned local banks in tune with their communities, provide one model.
The individual branches support each other to provide security, with a combined balance sheet of over 1trillion euros. But the banking licence for each branch means it has to lend only to local and regional businesses.
The US’ Community Reinvestment Act has helped promote transparency amongst banks and lending to small businesses. We’ll look to introduce a similar Act of Parliament here.
And we’ll look for ways for government to support innovative new forms of financing in peer-to-peer lending. Placing this emerging sector on a properly regulated basis can help it grow.
I’ve been meeting with Mark Boleat of the Corporation of London to discuss how the City of London can use its resources and its talents to help deliver the patient, long-term financing businesses in the UK need.
We want a new compact with the City, spelling out its obligations. And we’ll retain the right to legislate if needed.
Fair contributions, fair taxes
But it’s not just financing. Our tax system needs to be focused on the future.
Tax reliefs have grown into an unmanageable thicket of different schemes and wheezes.
This tangle is estimated to cost the taxpayer at least £110bn a year. Labour think it’s time for a pruning.
We want to encourage healthy growth, keeping the reliefs that promote good investment, jobs and entrepreneurship.
But we’ll cut away at the wasteful and the unnecessary.
We’ll launch a proper review of the system, lead by my colleague Seema Malhotra, looking to cut away where we can but keeping the parts that help support decent businesses.
We want to do what we can to unlock the potential of our businesses, including releasing the huge cash hoards they have built up over the last decade. We think money should be invested for the long-term.
The system of reliefs needs a root-and-branch reform so we can get the best possible deal for taxpayers, businesses, and society at large.
But we have to be clear. There needs to be a different approach to business taxation all round.
This Chancellor has cut and cut again the rate of Corporation Tax. That’s cost the taxpayer £7bn over the last Parliament.
Yet business rates have risen by a total of £3bn over the last Parliament. That’s a huge increase, particularly for small businesses.
We think the tax burden should fall heaviest on the broadest shoulders. And we want to see our small businesses also able to grow and flourish.
So Labour will cut the headline business rate in their first Budget, and freeze it thereafter.
We’ve made a firm defence of tax credits, and we welcome George Osborne’s decision to reverse the cuts to tax credits.
Of course, we know there’s a job still to be done here with the cuts to earnings still coming through the Universal Credit system.
But we recognise the value of tax credits in helping provide a solid financial footing for the self-employed and those just starting their businesses.
Labour has always been the workers’ party. The clue is in the name. But we need to recognise how, and where, people work has changed.
Self-employment reached a record high last year.
New technology is enabling new ways of working. Some of this is providing opportunities for entrepreneurship and expanding the range of goods and services we have access to.
But it can also mean the exploitation and uncertainty of zero-hours contracts, or the intolerable pressures placed on those in existing forms of employment.
We have many institutions that are simply not adapted to the new world of work. Labour is proposing a new contract for a new workforce, and for new businesses.
We need to think of ways that we can offer the same protections to those in self-employment as those in more traditional employment contracts.
We can start by making sure maternity and paternity pay is properly provided for those who are self-employed.
Labour will insist on giving everyone a fair deal.
Recognising decent businesses
That fair deal applies across society.
Businesses create a huge value. And that’s not just the revenue they earn. It’s the vital social value of small traders, of independent shops, of start-ups.
It’s the taxes paid, and the good jobs supported.
It’s being a part of a community. It’s providing a service, big or small.
We think it’s dog eat dog. But real wealth creation isn’t about some desperate war of all against all.
Now I’m a socialist. But my socialism has always meant all of us pulling together. What we achieve by working together is always going to be more than what we achieve separately.
Working together means recognising contributions when they are made.
It means recognising the hard work and effort our decent businesses make.
When people are paid fairly, and taxes paid properly
We know a small number fail the rest of us. The tax dodgers, wriggling out of making the fair contribution the rest of us make.
The under-payers, ducking their responsibilities to their own employees and failing to pay a wage anyone can live on.
It’s an attitude that’s fine for some. But the decent businesses who make the effort lose out.
We’ve allowed a small minority to duck their responsibilities to society, undercutting wages and undermining the public purse.
The rest of us lose out from the actions of a few.
We think decent businesses should be recognised.
So Labour would introduce a “Good Business” kitemark scheme
Those businesses who pay their taxes transparently and properly, and who pay their employees at least the living wage, deserve proper, public recognition.
It’ll be open to any business that wants to apply. We’ll make sure that the strivers are properly and publicly recognised.
We’re for decent businesses.
We’re on the side of the real wealth creators, across the country and right here in London.
Below is the text of the speech made by John McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the Labour Party Conference held in Brighton on 28 September 2015.
John McDonnell, Hayes and Harlington, ex officio.
I warn you this is not my usual rant, they get me into trouble and I’ve promised Jeremy to behave myself.
Jeremy and I sat down at the beginning of his campaign for the Labour leadership to discuss what they call the strap line for his campaign leaflets and posters.
We came up with the strapline you see now.
Straight talking, honest politics.
It just embodied for me what Jeremy Corbyn is all about.
So in the spirit of straight talking, honest politics.
Here’s some straight talking.
At the heart of Jeremy’s campaign, upon which he received such a huge mandate, was the rejection of austerity politics.
But austerity is just a word almost meaningless to many people.
What does it actually mean?
Well, for Michael O’Sullivan austerity was more than a word.
Michael suffered from severe mental illness.
He was certified by his GP as unable to work but despite the evidence submitted by 3 doctors, he was assessed by the company given the contract for the work capability assessment as fit for work.
Michael killed himself after his benefits were removed.
The coroner concluded his death was a direct result of the decision in his case.
I don’t believe Michael’s case stands alone.
I am grateful to Michael’s family for allowing me to mention him today.
I send them, I am sure on behalf of all us here, our heartfelt sympathy and condolences.
But also I want them to know that this party, when we return to Government, will end this brutal treatment of disabled people.
Austerity is also not just a word for the 100,000 children in homeless families who tonight will be going to bed not in a home of their own but in a bed and breakfast or temporary accommodation.
On behalf of this party I give those children my solemn promise that when we return to government we will build you all a decent and secure home in which to live.
Austerity is not just a word for the women and families across the country being hit hardest by cuts to public services.
Women still face an average 19.1 per cent pay gap at work.
Labour will tackle the pay gap, oppose the cuts to our public services and end discrimination in our society.
Whenever we cite examples of what austerity really means the Conservatives always argue that no matter what the social cost of their austerity policies, they are necessary to rescue our economy.
Let’s be clear.
Austerity is not an economic necessity, it’s a political choice.
The leadership of the Conservative Party made a conscious decision six years ago that the very richest would be protected and it wouldn’t be those who caused the economic crisis, who would pay for it.
Although they said they were one nation Tories, they’ve demonstrated time and time again, they don’t represent one nation, they represent the 1 per cent.
When we challenge their austerity programme, the Conservatives accuse us of being deficit deniers.
Let me make this absolutely clear.
Of course we accept that there is a deficit but we will take no lessons from a chancellor who promised to wipe out the deficit in one Parliament but didn’t get through half.
Who promised to pay down the debt but has increased it by 50 per cent.
I tell you straight from here on in Labour will always ensure that this country lives within its means.
We will tackle the deficit but this is the dividing line between Labour and Conservative.
Unlike them, we will not tackle the deficit on the backs of middle and low earners and especially by attacking the poorest in our society.
We have always prided ourselves on being a fair and compassionate people in this country and we are.
We will tackle the deficit fairly and we can do it.
Here’s how.
We will dynamically grow our economy.
We will strategically invest in the key industries and sectors that will deliver the sustainable long term economic growth this country needs.
Economic growth that will reach all sections, all regions and all nations of our country.
And I meant it.
I was devastated by Labour’s losses in Scotland.
The SNP has now voted against the living wage, against capping rent levels and just last week voted against fair taxes in Scotland to spend on schools.
So here is my message to the people of Scotland:
Labour is now the only anti-austerity party.
Now’s the time to come home.
We will halt the Conservative tax cuts to the wealthy paid for by cuts to families income.
Three weeks ago we saw one of the starkest examples of the difference between us and the Conservatives.
The Conservatives cut tax credits to working families to pay for a multi billion pound cut in inheritance tax.
Families who had done everything asked of them.
Working hard but dependent on tax credits to make up for low pay.
They will have £1300 taken from them to pay for a tax cut to the wealthiest 4 per cent of the population.
The Conservatives argued that they’d introduced a so called living wage to make up for the tax credit cut.
But we all know that it was neither a living wage nor according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies did it make up for the amount families lost.
I tell you now, when we return to office, we will introduce a real living wage.
Labour’s plan to balance the books will be aggressive.
We will force people like Starbucks, Vodafone, Amazon and Google and all the others to pay their fair share of taxes.
Let me tell you also, there will be cuts to tackle the deficit but our cuts will not be the number of police officers on our streets or nurses in our hospitals or teachers in our classrooms.
They will be cuts to the corporate welfare system.
There will be cuts to subsidies paid to companies that take the money and fail to provide the jobs.
Cuts to the use of taxpayers’ money subsidising poverty paying bosses.
Cuts to the billion pound tax breaks given to buy to let landlords for repairing their properties, whether they undertake the repairs or not.
And cuts to the housing benefit bill when we build the homes we need and control exorbitant rents.
Where money needs to be raised it will be raised from fairer, more progressive taxation. We will be lifting the burden from middle and low-income earners paying for a crisis they did not cause.
If we inherit a deficit in 2020, fiscal policy will be used to pay down the debt and lower the deficit but at a speed that does not put into jeopardy sustainable economic growth.
We’ll use active monetary policy to stimulate demand where necessary.
We’ll also turn the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills into a powerful economic development department, in charge of public investment, infrastructure planning and setting new standards at work for all employees.
This is a radical departure not just from neoliberalism but from the way past administrations tried to run the economy.
Why?
Well we just don’t think the current model can deliver.
We don’t think that destroying industries and then subsidising a low pay economy through the tax system is a good idea.
But our radicalism, it comes with a burden.
We need to prove to the British people we can run the economy better than the rich elite that runs it now.
That’s why today I have established an Economic Advisory Committee to advise us on the development and implementation of our economic strategy.
We will draw on the unchallengeable expertise of some of the world’s leading economic thinkers including Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas Piketty, Professor Mariana Mazzucato, Simon Wren Lewis, Ann Pettifor and former member of the Bank of England Monetary Committee, David Blanchflower and many, many others drawn in for their specialist knowledge.
I give you this undertaking that every policy we propose and every economic instrument we consider for use will be rigorously tested to its extreme before we introduce it in government.
And we will demand that the Office of Budget Responsibility and the Bank of England put their resources at our disposal to test, test and test again to demonstrate our plans are workable and affordable.
These bodies are paid for by taxpayers and therefore should be accessible to all parties represented in Parliament.
In government we will establish and abide by that convention.
The foundation stones of our economic policy are prosperity and social justice.
We will create what Mariana Mazzucato describes as the entrepreneurial state.
A strategic state works in partnership with businesses, entrepreneurs and workers to stimulate growth.
Government’s role is to provide the opportunity for massive advances in technology, skills and organisational change that will drive up productivity, create new innovative products and new markets.
That requires patient long term finance for investment in research from a effectively resourced and empowered national investment bank.
A successful and fair economy cannot be created without the full involvement of its workforce.
That’s why restoring trade union rights and extending them to ensure workers are involved in determining the future of their companies is critical to securing the skills, development and innovation to compete in a globalised economy.
We will promote modern alternative public, co-operative, worker controlled and genuinely mutual forms of ownership.
At this stage let me say that I found the Conservatives rant against Jeremy’s proposal to bring rail back into public ownership ironic when George Osborne was touring China selling off to the Chinese State Bank any British asset he could lay his hands on.
It seems the state nationalising our assets is ok with the Tories as long as it’s the Chinese state or in the case of our railways the Dutch or French.
Institutional change has to reflect our policy change.
I want us to stand back and review the major institutions that are charged with managing our economy to check that they are fit for purpose and how they can be made more effective.
As a start I have invited Lord Bob Kerslake, former head of the civil service, to bring together a team to review the operation of the Treasury itself.
I will also be setting up a review of the Bank of England.
Let me be clear that we will guarantee the independence of the Bank of England.
It is time though to open a debate on the Bank’s mandate that was set by Parliament 18 years ago.
The mandate focuses on inflation, and even there the Bank regularly fails to meet its target.
We will launch a debate on expanding that mandate to include new objectives for its Monetary Policy Committee including growth, employment and earnings.
We will review the operation and resourcing of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to ensure that HMRC is capable of addressing tax evasion and avoidance and modernising our tax collection system.
This is how we will prepare for the future and the day we return to government.
Let me now return to today’s economy because to be frank, I am fearful for the present.
George Osborne fought the last election on the myth that the slowest economic recovery from recession in a century has been some sort of economic success.
In reality the Tories presided over the longest fall in workers’ pay since Queen Victoria sat on the throne.
A recovery based upon rising house prices, growing consumer credit, and inadequate reform of the financial sector.
An imbalanced economy overwhelmingly reliant on insecure jobs in the service sector.
Our balance of payments deficit, which is the gap between what we earn from the rest of the world and what we pay to the rest of the world, is at the highest levels it’s been since modern records began.
I worry that the same pre-crash warning signs are reappearing.
The UK economy is in recovery despite the Chancellor’s policies and not because of them.
You know the narrative George Osborne wanted to present of us this week.
Deficit deniers risking the security of the nation etc.
It was so obvious you could write it yourself blindfolded.
He has brought forward his grandiose fiscal charter not as serious policy making but as a political stunt.
A trap for us to fall into.
We are not playing those games any more.
Let me explain the significance of what we are doing today.
We are embarking on the immense task of changing the economic discourse in this country.
Step by step:
First we are throwing off that ridiculous charge that we are deficit deniers.
Second we are saying tackling the deficit is important but we are rejecting austerity as the means to do it.
Third we are setting out an alternative based upon dynamically growing our economy, ending the tax cuts for the rich and addressing the scourge of tax evasion and avoidance.
Fourth having cleared that debris from our path we are opening up a national discussion on the reality of the roles of deficits, surpluses, long-term investment, debt and monetary policy.
Fifth we will develop a coherent, concrete alternative that grows a green, sustainable, prosperous economy for all.
We are moving on the economic debate in this country from puerile knockabout to an adult conversation.
I believe the British people are fed up of being patronised and talked down to by politicians with little more than silly slogans and misleading analogies.
This is an immense task.
That’s why we need to draw upon all the talents outside and inside the party.
I admit that I was disappointed that after Jeremy’s election some refused to serve.
In the spirit of solidarity upon which our movement was founded I say come back and help us succeed.
We are in an era of new politics.
People will be encouraged to express their views in constructive debate.
Don’t mistake debate for division.
Don’t mistake democracy for disunity.
This is the new politics.
Many still don’t understand its potential.
As socialists we will display our competence with our compassion.
Idealists yes but ours is a pragmatic idealism to get things done, to transform our society.
We remain inspired by the belief and hope that another world is possible.
Below is the text of the speech made by Theresa May, the then Shadow Education Secretary, to the Conservative Spring Forum held on 4 March 2001.
It is clear from everything that has been said in this session, and from what I see in the schools I visit across the country that what we need now in education is a ‘radical approach – one that focuses on the best interests of children, that understands the purpose of education, that recognises the importance of diversity and choice, and that liberates schools from constant interference by the state.’
Not my words, but those of the former Chief Inspector of Schools Chris Woodhead.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the next Conservative Government will provide that radical approach.
Anyone who visits schools, who sees teachers inundated with paperwork, disruptive children in classes damaging the education of others, schools on a four day week and children being taught by unqualified staff will know that on education this Labour Government is all spin and no delivery.
When Tony Blair promised education, education, education no-one knew he meant the number of days a week children would be in school.
It’s no wonder parents are saying – We’ve paid the taxes so where are the teachers?
But Labour are not just failing to deliver, they are incapable of delivering because they are more interested in spinning to get headlines than they are in the needs of children.
They promised to spend a greater proportion of the national income on education than the last Conservative Government. They have spent less.
They promised smaller class sizes. Secondary class sizes have gone up and the pupil teacher ratio in primary schools has gone up.
They promised to cut bureaucracy. Instead they have deluged schools with endless Whitehall directives and initiatives – from the beginning of last year teachers received a directive a day from the Government.
Instead of giving more say to parents they have handed more power to local politicians and bureaucrats by scrapping our hugely successful grant maintained schools system.
They promised to raise teacher morale. Instead teachers are leaving in droves because they are utterly fed up with Blunkett’s bureaucratic burdens and constant interference from the centre.
And instead of leaving dogma behind they have vigorously pursued their vendetta against grammar schools.
These are the realities of what Labour has done to education in this country.
What can we expect from Labour if they get back in.
More spin, more Whitehall schemes, more paperwork, more disruptive pupils in class, more political correctness,
But fewer special schools, fewer grammar schools, fewer school sixth forms, fewer teachers,
Lower standards, larger classes and an education system aimed at turning out politically correct citizens with no idea of the history and culture of their own country.
Four years on we know the black hole between the rhetoric and reality of Labour.
When Tony Blair says he wants more private sector involvement in education, we know more power will be given to local politicians and bureaucrats.
When Tony Blair says he wants a better deal for teachers, we know the Government will continue to stifle the creativity and flair of teachers with a never-ending stream of directives from Whitehall.
When Tony Blair says he wants more diversity we know he will destroy the grammar schools through Labour’s vindictive ballots.
And when Tony Blair’s spokesman says it is the end of the bog-standard comprehensive we know the monolithic comprehensive system with no choice for parents is safe under Labour.
In contrast, Conservatives are ready to deliver a better education for our children, to deliver common sense not dogma.
We are ready to trust heads and teachers to get on with the job. We are ready to give parents real choice.
Because we will set schools free and let teachers teach.
If you had been with me when I visited a school in Lambeth last week I could have shown you exactly what we mean when we say we will set schools free.
The school was in one of the poorer areas of London. Violent crime there is three times the national average. In 1995 only 1 per cent of pupils came out of that school with 5 good GCSEs.
But after gaining its freedom under the last Conservative Government through grant maintained status the school improved beyond all recognition.
A report by Ofsted two years ago said it had made excellent improvement.
Almost a quarter of the pupils there now leave with 5 GCSEs at A to C and its continuing to improve and they’ve had their first Oxbridge entrant – tell that to Gordon Brown.
So what happened to turn this school around?
I’ll tell you.
We got rid of interference by local politicians and bureaucrats and replaced them with strong leadership from the head.
We made sure that teachers had the freedom to use their creativity and excellence to inspire the children.
The school has now developed its own distinct set of values. It has a strict code of discipline, it has its own uniform – a symbol of pride in the school – and it is now extremely proud of its sporting achievements.
Above all there is a real sense of team spirit among the staff, the pupils and their parents.
It is these things that make schools a success.
But Labour has already scrapped the school’s grant maintained status – putting it back under the LEA. And we can be sure that a second Labour term would mean further attacks on all that this and other schools like it have achieved.
Conservatives on the other hand want to make sure that all schools can benefit from freedom from political interference.
That’s what we mean when we say we will set all schools free.
Free Schools will be able to control their own destiny and as with grant maintained schools the quality of life for all in the school will improve. In Free Schools we will see heads, teachers, other staff and governors blossoming as they are able to use their expertise and judgement directly to innovate, to raise standards, to inspire pupils and to make a real difference to the education of children.
Free Schools mean that, once again, heads will be allowed to enforce discipline in their schools. They will be allowed to exclude pupils who are disrupting the education of the majority of pupils.
This Government is stifling the creativity and excellence of our teachers. Today they are form-fillers. Teachers will be teachers under the Conservatives.
Free Schools will mean not only that teachers are allowed to teach, but also that money that is currently wasted on bureaucracy will go directly to schools. Getting money out of central and local government direct to schools will mean on average £540 extra per pupil per year.
Labour are all spin and no delivery.
They promised much before the last general election. They have delivered rising class sizes, a national crisis of teacher shortages and schools on a four day week.
We have listened to parents, teachers and pupils all over the country.
They’re fed up with Labour and they know its time for common sense policies.
Education needs a government that trusts teachers and parents, that understands that children are different and their education should reflect their needs, that recognises that education is valuable in its own right and wants all to have the opportunity to develop their full potential.
Above all we need a government that will set schools free, let teachers teach and give our children the education they need and deserve.
Below is the text of the speech made by Francis Maude to the Conservative Spring Forum held on 4 March 2001.
Thank you, Edward, for your introduction. As you say, we at Westminster and the MEPs have never worked so closely together. We’re part of one team. Working together for our high common purpose, under William’s leadership.
We must never again allow our party to disable itself by infighting and division. You, our party in the country, would never forgive us if we did. And I pay tribute to Edward’s leadership in Brussels. Never-resting, ever-working; you and your team of MEPs just don’t let up. Probing, questioning, amending; spearheading Conservative plans for real Brussels reform. And you’re a daily reminder to us all.
Back in 1999, before the European elections no one gave us a prayer. The pollsters and the pundits: they were all the same. But we never gave up. Calmly and relentlessly we carried our message out to the public. And we won a terrific victory. We confounded the pollsters then. We showed – all of us working together – that we can do it – and, yes, we can do it again.
By God we need to. Because this wretched Government has let the country down so badly. Remember Labour’s promises back in 1997? Robin Cook and his so-called ethical foreign policy. How Labour were going to stand up for Britain in Europe. Tony Blair’s love for the pound. His promise to slay the dragon of the European superstate. They failed to deliver.
Well, it didn’t last long, did it? It was – yes, it really was – all spin and no delivery. Ethical foreign policy. Take Robin Cook’s famous ethical foreign policy. I spent last weekend, in Zimbabwe. I met some of the bravest people it has ever been my privilege to meet. I met residents in Harare’s high density areas who see their freedoms and jobs disappearing. I met farmers who have been thrown casually thrown off their farms. I met their workers who have been dispossessed of their homes and livelihoods. I met lawyers, and let’s face it, Zimbabwe’s judges are the last redoubt of the rule of law. I met Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Opposition Movement for Democratic Change, whose offices have been bombed, whose activists are beaten up and murdered, who himself lives in daily threat of his life.
I saw a desperate Zimbabwe. Yet all we hear from this Labour Government is the sound of silence. Their silence is Britain’s shame. Ethical foreign policy? Labour have squandered Britain’s moral authority.
I tell you this: I think Britain should stand for something in the world. I think Britain should stand up for the rule of law, stand up for free speech, stand up against tyranny.
So we will speak out. We will lead international opinion, work with Zimbabwe’s neighbours. We will target those people who keep Mugabe in power. We will push for a travel ban on Mugabe’s associates and a freeze on their overseas assets. We will instigate international investigations into their history of murderous wrongdoing. The message will once again ring out across the world: Britain does not appease dictators.
No one who heard James Mawdsley earlier could have any doubt: the love of freedom and hatred of tyranny burns as strongly in British hearts as it ever has.
And we will revive that great global network of shared history and common values, the Commonwealth. Conservatives are proud of the Commonwealth. It covers a third of the globe; it unites people of different races, creeds and continents. Our Commonwealth Commission is examining ways in which it can be transformed into a modern and dynamic network organisation, promoting the values of the rule of law, the open economy and democracy.
We’ll support our American allies in developing a missile Defence system that will give us protection against the Saddam Husseins of this world. And we will ensure that Britain’s armed forces, among the best in the world, are not hamstrung by the faddish imposition of political correctness. Somehow, I just feel that anyone who suggests that to Iain Duncan Smith will get a pretty brisk response.
Labour: all spin, and no delivery. Tony Blair’s love for the pound? It was a love that didn’t even survive election day morning. Standing up for Britain? So far, at Amsterdam and more recently at Nice, Labour have scrapped Britain`s veto in no fewer than 54 areas. In a rare moment of honesty, Tony Blair admitted that the Working Time Directive was `over the top`. Now, thanks to him, there’s nothing we can do about it. Because Britain no longer has a veto. Because when it comes to it, Tony Blair and his colleagues simply don’t believe in Britain. They don’t understand how Britain can survive and thrive as an independent self-governing country. So they went along with a European Army entirely separate from NATO. Nothing wrong with greater European defence co-operation. We strongly favour it. But it should be within NATO, not outside it. As the Americans now realise, what is being constructed here threatens the future of NATO. We will never allow that.
And Labour say none of it matters. The European Army is not an army. No? With 60,000 soldiers on standby? Expected to operate as far away as Central Asia? It’s anchored in NATO, they claim. Absolutely untrue, as anyone who examines the documents will confirm. They’ve created an EU Military Committee, an EU Military Staff. Nothing to do with NATO. Indeed, the agreement makes crystal clear that Euro Army operations must remain under EU control at all times. Romano Prodi, as so often, let the cat out of the bag. The European Army, he said, is ‘a milestone in the creation of a united political Europe’.
And Labour have agreed a Charter of Fundamental Rights, binding in law, which will enable the Luxembourg Court to impose changes in British law without our consent. The Charter of Rights is no more important than the Beano, says the egregious Mr Vaz. Yes, Mr Vaz, we’re really going to take your word for it. Happily the European Commission have been a bit more honest. They say, and they’re right, that it will be mandatory.
So don`t believe a word Labour says. It’s all spin. They don’t deliver. And they’ll never deliver. Because they simply don`t believe in Britain.
And no-one should have any illusions about what Labour would do if they won a second term. First, they’ll scrap the pound as soon as they think they can get away with it. And let no-one be taken in with the promise of a referendum. There is as much chance of this being a even-handed referendum as there is of Robin Cook winning an award for humility. With the rules rigged to ensure that the campaign to scrap the pound is allowed to spend millions more than the campaign to keep the pound; with the watchdog Commission being prevented from insisting that the question is fair? Forget it.
There’s only one way to be sure of keeping the pound. It’s by voting Conservative.
And that’s not all. Another Labour Government, eagerly backed up by their LibDem lapdogs, would take Britain ever further down the one way street towards the European superstate.
Here’s an early indication of what’s in store. On 8 May, the Party of European Socialists, of which the Labour Party forms part, will launch a new group. Its name? The New Federalists. Its aim? The Political Union of Europe, and a federation of its states and peoples. Lucky we spotted that one, because something tells me that we wouldn’t have heard about it from Robin Cook or Tony Blair.
So it’s clear what Labour would do. And it’s not what the British public want. The mainstream majority agree with us. The mainstream majority believe in Britain. They want to be in Europe, not run by Europe. But they think we’re already run by Europe more than they like. There are people who think it’s somehow inevitable that Britain will lose more and more of her powers. That we can only go further and faster down the road to the European superstate. It doesn’t have to be like that. It is only inevitable if Britain lets it happen.
A Conservative Government will stop the slide to the superstate. And we’ll make sure that in future Britain is run by Europe less than we are today. After all, what other organisation in today’s world is centralising more and more? What business, what international organisation today thinks that the answer is to force more and more decision through the same central meatgrinder?
We have to move away from the old outdated one size fits all dogma. That belongs to the era of the Cold War, the bloc era. This is the age of the network. We have to reform the EU to make it a modern network organisation. We need a modern multi-system European Union, with different countries working together in different combinations for different purposes.
So at the first European summit after the election, William and I are going to have a pretty full agenda. Working to bring the European army back within NATO. We will not undermine the military alliance that has kept our world safe and free for fifty years. We make you this pledge. The next Conservative Government will only allow British troops to serve in a European Rapid Reaction Force if it operates within NATO’s command structure.
Then starting to renegotiate the Common Agricultural Policy. It is absurd that everything still gets decided at EU level. There is growing support in Europe for our policy that much more should be decided at national level. The same with the Common Fisheries Policy. This outdated failure of a policy has got to change. Why should the management of the North Sea fisheries be decided by Greece and Italy, when the Mediterranean isn’t even part of the CFP?
And, yes, we’ll renegotiate the Nice Treaty. We will not ratify a treaty that gives away Britain’s veto. We want enlargement of the EU, and we want it more quickly. The first wave should be admitted by 2004. It’s a scandal that more than 11 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall it hasn’t even started.
And we’ll insist on a common sense Flexibility Clause that will make the EU function better. That’ll speed up enlargement, too. It is absurd to require every member state in an EU of nearly thirty countries to sign up to every dot and comma of every EU law there is. Outside the single market and other core areas, countries should be able to decide for themselves whether EU laws make sense for them.
And there’ll be an end to the continual intrusion of the EU into areas beyond what Parliament agreed. In the first Parliamentary Session after the election, we will enact a Reserved Powers Bill that will guarantee that beyond the powers we intended to transfer, EU law will not override the will of Parliament.
We don’t have to go ever further down the one-way street towards the superstate. Britain can choose. We can choose to keep the pound. We can choose that Britain will be in Europe. And really will be run by Europe less than we are today.
This has been a tremendous gathering. A great party has met, knowing that on its shoulders rests the destiny of a great nation. A great nation, and a great people. A people sickened by a government that has abused their trust. A people who are crying out for leaders who deal fairly, who speak the truth. A great English poet once wrote ‘Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget. For we are the people of England, and we have not spoken yet.’
Before long the people of Britain will speak. We will be their champions. We will be their voice. With William as our leader, we will be a government of which Britain can again be proud.
Below is the text of the speech made by Michael Portillo, the then Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, to the Conservative Spring Forum held on 3 March 2001.
I joined the Conservative Party just after Margaret Thatcher had become leader. I had a burning sense that we had to change Britain. We were overtaxed. The state was taking over people’s lives, making them dependent on government for handouts. But we let them keep more of what they earned, to take on more personal responsibility and have more choices in life.
After four years of Labour government, we’re headed back to square one. We have a meddling, nannying government, and Labour’s stealth taxes have reduced people’s independence.
Gordon Brown’s taxes have fallen not on the rich, but on the people who have least. Families and pensioners are dismayed by the cost of petrol and the many sneaky ways he’s raised their income tax. He insulted pensioners with a miserly pension increase of just 75 pence. Having made them poorer with his taxes, he now forces more and more of them to rely on means-tested benefits.
In Gordon Brown’s Britain well over half our pensioners will face the indignity of revealing all their personal details to the state, in the hope of being granted an income sufficient to pay the Chancellor’s taxes. The form they must fill in even asks if they are pregnant.
There’s one party that doesn’t forget what we owe to the older generation. One party respects them for their experience and for the sacrifices they made. That party is the Conservative Party.
We think it crazy to tax people more than they can afford and then make them bow the knee to the state for their basic needs. There’s a better way. We’ll allow people to keep more of their own money.
Gordon Brown boasts of his surplus. It isn’t his. He’s got it because he’s taxed people so much that he’s outstripped even his own ability to spend our money. Even the government that brought us the Dome can’t waste money as fast as Gordon Brown taxes it. It isn’t Gordon’s surplus, it’s the people’s surplus. Government money is people’s money. And the Conservatives will render unto the people that which is the people’s.
Everywhere people are disappointed that Labour’s broken its promises. But having failed to deliver, Labour promise more and more and further and further into the future. They promise a spending splurge. As prudent countries around the world wisely cut taxes Gordon’s cut loose on his programme of tax and spend.
Would it mean still higher taxes? Would there be more stealth taxes, more raids on your pension fund and lower living standards for those on low incomes? You bet your life there would.
We’ve set out a different way. Each year on average our economy grows. The national cake gets bigger. So each year we can spend more on vital public services, but also allow people to keep more of their own money. But to do that we must plan increases in government spending that the nation can afford. Plans that don’t depend on never-ending growth, as Gordon Brown’s promises do. Plans that are robust and prudent.
William and I have established five disciplines that will govern the economic policy of a Hague Government. A Hague Government – I like the sound of that.
First, we’ll ensure that Britain keeps its own currency and that interest rates are set in Britain.
Second, we’ll increase the independence of the Bank of England.
Third, we’ll set up an independent Committee of Economic Advisers to give open and public advice on our policies.
Fourth, we’ll appoint a National Accounts Commission to lay down rules about the government’s accounts, bringing to an end Labour’s era of fiddling the books.
Fifth, we’ll increase government spending only in line with what the country can afford.
We can plan to spend as much as Labour on health and education. We don’t need to propose changes to spending on the police or defence. But we will make other changes, changes that improve the performance of government and of the economy and bring about social reform. We’ve set out the most detailed proposals on government spending ever drawn up by a party in opposition.
We’ll tackle the reform of the welfare state that Labour has ducked. We’ll require single parents with children over eleven to seek work, because studies show that children brought up by a parent who works are much more likely later in life themselves to get jobs.
We’ll cut programmes in the Department of Trade and Industry because what business needs isn’t more fiddly schemes but lower taxes and less regulation. We’ll transfer public housing to the private sector. We’ll revolutionise the system of student finance. We’ll implement the tough proposals to fight benefit fraud that this government rejected out of hand. And we’ll cut the cost of government.
We have set out our proposals in minute detail. After two years we’ll be able to save £8 billion compared with Labour’s plans. After two years we can make £8 billion of tax cuts.
Now, in the next few days you’ll hear the Chancellor talk of tax cuts too. Strange that. He’s spent four years relentlessly putting taxes up, but now suddenly he talks of tax cuts. Could it be there’s an election coming? Could it be he’s afraid we’re winning the argument? Could it be that once again the political agenda is being set by the Conservatives?
The Chancellor can make tax cuts now simply because he’s over-taxed us. Whatever he gives us back will be small by comparison with what he’s already taken. Because the stealth taxes he’s imposed so far, if they’d been raised honestly and openly, would have raised income tax by 10 pence in the pound. Suppose next week he knocks 2 pence off income tax. He’d still be the 10 pence on, 2 pence off Chancellor.
If we gave him the chance, once he’d won the election, he’d take back even that. So we’re not going to give him the chance.
The tax cuts that we offer don’t depend just on today’s surplus. Our tax cuts would be durable and they’d be on top of anything Labour offers us now. We’ll make the tax cuts that Labour can’t because we’ll make the spending changes that Labour won’t.
It’ll take us the first two years to turn government spending away from Labour’s unsustainable course. But once we’ve done that, we can look forward to more room for manoeuvre – more room for tax cuts.
We Conservatives haven’t merely set out how we’d cut taxes. We’ve mapped out a way to change Labour’s culture, to create a society that’s fairer and more responsible. We’ve laid out a different vision for our country.
We’ll abolish taxes on savings and shares. Most of the 17 million families that save will benefit and millions more will be encouraged to save for the first time.
We’ll raise sharply the amount people over the age of 65 can earn before they pay income tax. Their allowance will rise by £2000 per year. A million pensioners will be taken out of income tax altogether. Most of the remaining 2.7 million will pay £8.50 per week less in income tax.
Under our plans pensioners will be able to look back on a lifetime of saving and know they did the right thing and were rewarded for doing it.
We want families with children also to keep more of their money. We’ll reform the new children’s tax credit scheme which is hopelessly bureaucratic. And we’ll make it more generous. We believe that families face the greatest strains when their children are very young. So we’ll allow families with children under five to keep an extra £200 a year of their own money.
We’ll bring help to widows. We’ll sweep away most income tax on the allowances paid to a widowed parent, leaving her or him about £1000 a year better off.
I know many parents who aren’t married who make great parents. I’m also aware that statistically children whose parents are married do better in life on average, and their parents are less likely to split up.
Gordon Brown swept away support for marriage from the income tax system. But marriage is a civic institution: a contract with clear responsibilities. We believe the tax system should recognise it.
We’ll give people who are married and have youngish children or disabled relatives an allowance worth £1000 a year. Parents will be relieved of some of the pressure to go out to work.
Our plans help many different types of family. The Conservative Party believes in choice. We want parents – in particular we want women – to have more choice.
The way we’ve targeted these tax cuts says a lot about this party, our sense of priorities and our aspirations for the British people.
We’ll encourage personal responsibility. Because people who take responsibility for themselves are more likely to accept it for their families and to recognise their obligations to society. We’ll replace Gordon Brown’s means-tested dependency Britain with William Hague’s responsible society. Britain will be different under the Conservatives.
One thing won’t change. Under the Conservatives Britain will keep the pound. Britain will remain amongst the huge majority of nations in the world who believe that in a highly competitive world they’ll do best if they have their own currency and set their own interest rates.
By contrast, across Europe they’re trying to apply just one rate of interest to a wide variety of economies. The strains are beginning to show. Inflation in Ireland and Spain. Unemployment in Germany. Britain remembers only too well how we suffered under the ERM from an interest rate suited to Germany but not to Britain.
We’re on the side of the moderate majority of the British people. During our Keep the Pound campaigns across the country, people have flocked to register their support. In particular they turned out to cheer a politician who took the campaign to high streets and market squares across Britain. One politician had the energy and guts to do it. His name is William Hague.
Our job is not so much to convince people to keep the pound. The moderate majority agrees. Rather it’s to convince them that this election may be their last chance to vote to keep the pound.
The prime minister has rigged the referendum rules. If Labour won the general election, then come the referendum the parties wanting to kill off the pound would be allowed to spend twice as much as we Conservatives would be allowed to spend defending it. The government would soften up public opinion by spraying around taxpayers’ money. And does anyone think that Mr Blair would allow the British public to be asked a straightforward question on the euro? You have more reason to believe in Santa Claus.
The question would be Do you authorise the government to negotiate the best terms for entry into monetary union when it judges the time and terms to be right? That’d be the question if we were lucky.
People know there’s more at stake than economics. I referred before to that moment in the New Testament, when Christ held up a coin and asked “Whose head and insignia are on this coin?” The answer was Caesar’s, so render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s. My point is that right back to Biblical times people have known that there’s a very close connection between the currency and political power. The Queen’s head appears on Britain’s coins. There’s a reason for that. Her head wouldn’t appear on the euro. There’s a reason for that too. Just think about it.
If the pound matters to you, if you believe in keeping it, if you haven’t given up on Britain, the only way to be sure is to elect a Conservative government under William Hague.
I think back to those early days of Margaret Thatcher. I remember our preparations for government then and I’m part of those preparations today. I believe that under William Hague we’re radical today, just as we were radical then.
We’re willing to show how we’d change the role and scope of the state in order to have lower taxes, to make Britain competitive and allow people more personal choice.
First, we’ll set our universities free from state control. We’ll use future windfalls to the government to endow our great universities. They’ll no longer need to rely on a drip feed from the state. They’ll be free to attract Nobel Prize winners, to direct their research towards innovation and like a Stanford or a Harvard in the United States, provide the British economy with a huge dynamic stimulus.
Second, we want young people to have bigger pensions than pensioners have today. At present we all contribute to the national insurance fund throughout our working lives and we get a pension of £67 at the end of it. With the single exception of Robert Maxwell, this must be the greatest pension rip-off of all time. The national insurance fund isn’t a fund at all. The money paid in this year goes straight out to pay this year’s pensions. It’s never invested and never grows.
We should do better. If we allowed our young people the option of putting their contributions into a properly-funded pension, they could carry through their lives something of real and growing value. It would be the modern day equivalent of buying their council house. And that would gradually relieve the enormous liability that will fall on future generations of taxpayers.
Third, we’re committed to increase spending sharply on the National Health Service. But we don’t pretend that’s going to get Britain up to the standards of health care that people rightly demand. Now what I’m about to say may come as a surprise from me; but in this area we need to become more like the rest of Europe. Yes, you heard it here first.
Our European partners don’t try to meet all their health needs from taxation alone. They know it can’t be done. They recruit their trades unions and employers to help get their members and employees insured. That way more money pours into health care. We need to do the same, to create a better partnership between public and private sectors, allowing us to have more hospitals and train more doctors and nurses. It’s the only way Britain will have the health care it deserves.
This party doesn’t rest easy with things as they are. We don’t shy away from far-reaching change. The Conservative Party of today has the courage to look ahead and be radical.
Labour believes after all these years that society can be made better by government, passing laws, centralising power, issuing directives and raising taxes. Conservatives don’t look to governments to make society better, we look to people.
We look forward to winning people’s trust and to being in office. We’ll give responsibility back to people: we’ll put trust in our police officers, in our head teachers and our doctors and nurses; and return responsibility to people who save, to pensioners and to parents.
We’ve set out our policies. They’re Conservative through and through, but they’re Conservatism for our times. They reinforce our long held values, but they’re directed to this new century.
Our policies will give people choices, leave them with more of their own money and reward them for their efforts. Our policies point the way to a better Britain.
Below is the text of the speech made by Ann Widdecombe, the then Shadow Home Secretary, to the Conservative Spring Forum held on 3 March 2001.
Four years on, they have failed to deliver. Instead, they’ve been tough on the crimefighters. There are 2,500 fewer police since 1997. 6,000 fewer special constables. The Chairman of the Police Federation says that morale is the worst he has ever seen it.
They’ve been tough on the victims of crime. Remember what their manifesto pledged? That they would ‘ensure that victims are kept fully informed of the progress of their case’. But just this week, Labour’s so-called 10 Year Crime Plan said, ‘Victims and witnesses want to be kept informed. Current performance is not good enough.’
What a damning indictment of their own record. An admission that they have failed to deliver on their promises.
This week Labour made a new set of promises in their so-called Crime Plan. They’ve failed to deliver on the promises they made last time – their solution is to make yet another set of promises.
But let’s take their record into consideration. Broken promise after broken promise. In 1995, Tony Blair said Labour would put ‘thousands more police officers on the beat’. Instead there are 2,500 fewer officers. In 1997, Tony Blair said his child curfew orders would prevent ‘young children wandering the streets at night, getting into trouble, growing into a life of criminality’. Result? Not one child curfew has ever been made. Not a single child has been turned away from a life of criminality. Their manifesto pledged to support the police – but 250 criminals who have assaulted police officers have served less than one third of their prison terms on Labour’s special early release scheme.
This week, Labour talked about tougher sentences. Don’t you believe it. They’ve already let more than 31,000 criminals out of jail up to 2 months earlier than normal on their special early release scheme. Under Labour, if you get six months, you’ll be out in six weeks. Even John Prescott gets through more of his sentences than that.
And 1,000 extra crimes have been committed by those criminals, released early by Labour, when they should have been in prison. That’s Labour’s real approach – to let more and more prisoners out of jail earlier and earlier.
The next Labour Government will give the ‘get out of jail free’ card to even more criminals. Last week, Jack Straw’s special adviser admitted in a leaked memo that their new sentencing plans involve 11,500 more criminals spending less time in prison each year – something he described as ‘a significant softening of sentencing arrangements’.
Before the last election, Labour promised they’d be ‘tough on crime’. Now Jack Straw says that it depends on the criminals whether crime falls or not. An admission of failure.
The next Conservative Government will go to war on the criminal as never before.
Right now, the police force stands depleted and demoralised, burdened with bureaucracy and performance indicators. That has got to change, and fast. So the next Conservative Government will reverse Labour’s cuts in police numbers. We will ensure that they spend their time doing just what they joined up to do, and just what the people of this country want them to do – fighting crime.
Our ‘cops in shops’ proposals will mean that more communities see their local police officers out and about. It’s a simple, common sense initiative. The officer doesn’t go back to the station to write up his reports, he writes them up in shops and other public places. This has a threefold advantage. First of all, he’s visible. Secondly, he can interact with the community. And thirdly, he is a deterrent.
And we’re going to have a national police cadet force to make sure that more young people choose a career in the police, and to ensure that their first contact with the police is a positive, confidence-building experience. That’s Common Sense.
Labour have admitted that they’ve broken their promises to victims and given them a raw deal. The next Conservative Government will change that. We’ll overhaul the law so that it’s on the side of the victim, not the criminal. And victims will be given new statutory rights. The right to a named police officer and lawyer as a point of contact. The right to be kept informed of progress in their cases. The right of access to files if they want to mount a private prosecution. We’ll put Victims First.
Conservatives will put in place new laws to tackle drug dealers. Those who repeatedly deal to children will in future be given tough mandatory prison sentences. And why should we have laws which give the police powers to combat opium dens, but not crack houses?
We’ll end Labour’s special early release scheme, under which thousands of robbers, burglars and drug dealers have served less time in prison. Honesty in sentencing will ensure that the sentence handed down in court is the sentence that is served. And when they’re in prison, rather than lying around in idleness, prisoners will do meaningful work, work from which money can be paid to support their families on the outside and as reparation to their victims. Young menaces will be taken off the streets, put into Secure Training Centres, and given a real chance to change.
Labour will always spin and never deliver. They’ve broken the promises they made at the last election and now they’re making new promises to break after the next one.
Let’s leave the final word to Jack Straw’s own political adviser, who says that Labour’s policy “doesn’t look very impressive”.
There can only be one verdict on Jack Straw and Tony Blair: guilty as charged.
There can only be one sentence passed on Labour: to be thrown out of office for a term of at least five years.
The next Conservative Government will deliver. And with your help, we’ll win the next election and send the whole Labour Party down.
