Tag: Speeches

Below is the text of the speech made by the Leader of the Opposition, Ed Miliband, to the People’s Policy Forum in Birmingham on 23rd March 2013.

I am delighted to be here today.

This is a very special event.

What today is about is doing politics in a different way.

And doesn’t politics need it?

Because I think we have to do politics in a different way.

You can watch politicians trading blows in the House of Commons each week.

Sometimes I enjoy it and sometimes I don’t.

But it’s not necessarily very enlightening.

We’ve got to take politics back to where it belongs: to you.

So that’s why we’ve said: you set the agenda.

You can ask anything you want.

And we will have a conversation.

But first let me say a few things about where the country is and where the country needs to go.

Since I became Labour leader, I have tried to understand what we got wrong on issues like banking regulation, immigration and Iraq, I have sought to understand why people left Labour.

But as I go around Britain I also sense an increasing disappointment and disillusionment with this Government.

They don’t believe David Cameron can turn Britain around.

But let me be clear with you.

I know that however discredited, divided and damaging this Government becomes, it doesn’t necessarily translate into support for us.

We have to earn your trust.

Indeed, many people will believe that the failure of this Government means they should give up on politics altogether.

That nobody can turn round the problems of the country and nobody deserves their vote. That is a terrible thing for our democracy.

I understand that some people think the problems are so great that no no one can fix them.

But I passionately believe that Labour can. That we can turn round the problems of the country.

Let’s start with the economy.

Three days after George Osborne’s Budget, the fog is clearing.

It’s five years since the financial crisis of 2008.

But what’s happening now?

We are in the slowest recovery for 100 years.

Wages are flat.

Prices are rising.

Living standards falling.

Yet here’s the really depressing thing. What the Government offered this week was no change, just more of the same.

A penny off a pint – buy 320 pints of beer and you get one free. I don’t know about you but I don’t think that’s going to turn around the living standards crisis and it’s not going to convince anyone.

All they offer is more of the same and that’s not enough.

Can you imagine another five years of this?

Low growth.

Living standards squeezed further.

You paying the price.

They are resigned to a lost decade.

A lost decade Britain cannot afford.

A lost decade of national decline.

Not a decade where we make sacrifices now to build a better future, but where things get worse not better.

But I know what some of you are thinking.

“It’s true things look grim. But there’s nothing we can do.”

Well, I don’t believe it is inevitable.

And it is One Nation Labour’s task to show you we can stop this slide into a lost decade.

To show people it doesn’t have to be this way.

Not promising overnight answers.

Not promising that things will be easy

But showing there is a different direction for the country.

And that is what I want to do today.

I start from a simple idea:

We succeed as a country not by leaving things to a few people at the top.

We need an economic recovery made by the many.

Our economy is always more successful when it works for all working people.

When everyone can play their part.

We can learn from Birmingham’s history.

Over 150 years ago, a man called George Cadbury opened a factory just down the road from here.

He had a simple idea: his business would be more successful if his workforce was well-motivated and lived in decent homes with decent conditions.

That is the idea that should guide us to the change we need today.

But it hasn’t been the way our economy has been run for a long time.

And it certainly isn’t the direction offered by this Government.

They think wealth comes from a few at the top.

I know wealth comes from the forgotten wealth creators.

The people that work in the supermarkets, the factories, in small businesses on your high street, doing the shifts, putting in the hours.

It’s them who have got to be rewarded and supported in this country.

So what should we be doing differently?

Let’s start with our young people.

Long-term youth unemployment here in Birmingham went up 46 per cent last year.

On Wednesday, we learnt that 50,000 more young people across the country were looking for work.

After all the rhetoric we’ve heard from the Government, that is the reality.

On the same day, we learnt that Barclays were paying out £39 million in bonuses to just 9 people who work there.

And that’s two weeks before they get the millionaires’ tax cut from this Government.

This is not an economy being run for the many.

But for the few.

So five years on from the financial crisis, the banks carry on with business as usual and our young people find themselves without work.

We can’t afford another five years of this.

A lost decade for our young people.

So as a start, I say tax the bankers’ bonuses and use the money to put our young people back to work.

Guarantee every young person out of work for more than a year a job.

And as Prime Minister I would get every business and charity behind this idea.

And let’s get our young people working again with a proper career and future.

All of them.

Particularly the 50 per cent of young people who don’t go to university.

We’ve got to have a revolution in the way we do things for them.

So the focus of the next Labour government would be on getting those young people proper qualifications and apprenticeships.

And because we want businesses to get the young people they need, we will give them more control over the money spent on training.

But in return if firms want a major government contract they would have to provide apprenticeships for the next generation.

That would mean 32,000 apprenticeships for High Speed 2.

Not just a route of travel from Birmingham to London, but a route to a proper career.

Ensuring rights and responsibilities for young people and businesses.

So young people is where I would start in building a recovery made by the many.

But that recovery also needs to include the millions of businesses in this country that are the backbone of our economy.

You know that better than anyone here in the West Midlands.

For so many businesses, this looks more and more like a lost decade.

And nowhere is that more true than when it comes to our banks.

Change has been promised time and again but change never comes.

I am not just talking about bonuses.

But about lending to Britain’s businesses.

That is falling at the moment.

Can we turn this round?

Yes.

Instead of businesses serving our banks, we need banks serving our businesses.

As part of a new British Investment Bank, let’s have a regional banking system, serving each and every region including here in the West Midlands.

The world’s first building society was founded in Birmingham.

And we should build a system with the same ethic today.

The purpose of regional banks should be to support businesses in their region, not to gamble the money in the City of London.

Giving small businesses, the life blood of our economy, the priority they deserve.

The lost decade also threatens the infrastructure of the country.

Schools, transport, housing.

It wastes talent today and stores up problems for the future.

Across the West Midlands you’ve seen 18,000 construction workers’ jobs have been lost since 2010.

And housing starts are at the lowest levels since the 1920s.

Yet the Government are borrowing £245 billion more than they planned to pay their own failure. It just doesn’t make any sense.

And we’ve now got schemes which seem about making it easier for people to buy second homes.

But they are not willing to invest that same money in the actual bricks and mortar.

We all know that we can’t solve the housing crisis without investing in the homes people need to live in.

A Labour budget would invest in our infrastructure.

It’s right for our economy and it’s right for people who can’t afford to buy or rent their home.

These are just three ways in which we can start to turn round the direction of the country.

For young people, for small businesses and for our infrastructure.

But we can’t create a recovery made by the many if family budgets are being squeezed year after year after year.

And the reality for so many families in Britain is a living standards crisis.

Which leaves people without confidence in the future.

Now, you know better than anyone that no politician can transform people’s living standards overnight.

But we can make the right choices.

That’s why if there had been a Labour Budget a few days ago, we would have reversed the millionaires’ tax cut.

And protected the tax credits that help work pay for millions.

Reintroduced a 10p tax rate paid for by a new tax on houses worth over £2 million.

And we would have had a temporary cut in VAT.

And that’s not all.

We would tackle rip-off prices.

Starting by reforming the energy markets to get a better deal for consumers.

And do everything we could to encourage a living wage, as Labour is doing here in Birmingham.

All these policies would make a difference. And that’s how you start a recovery made by the many.

These are just some of the changes we would make in government to avoid a lost decade.

Despite all our problems our country faces, I am an optimist about Britain not a pessimist.

The Government somehow wants you to believe that we have bad people who are letting down a good government.

Actually we have good people who are being let down by a bad government.

A bad government that stands up for the wrong things.

A government that cut taxes for millionaires.

And disgracefully throws people out of their homes with the bedroom tax.

This country can achieve anything when it puts its mind to it and when we have the right spirit.

And that means we need to unite as a country.

I am reminded of the stories my dad told me when I was a boy.

He came to this country in the Second World War.

As a refugee from the Nazis.

He joined the Royal Navy.

The Navy brought people of all backgrounds, all classes, all talents coming together for Britain.

Because they knew that Britain could only win the war if everyone made their contribution.

That’s what I mean by “One Nation”.

It’s not a Labour idea.

Or a Conservative idea.

But a British idea about how much we can achieve as a country if we come together.

We saw the same spirit when it came to the Olympic games.

Pulling together.

Coming together.

Working together.

For the good of ourselves.

And the good of our country.

That’s what makes anything possible.

That’s how we avoid the lost decade.

That’s how we can get our country moving again.

And that’s how we can meet our challenge to change Britain.

I look forward to working together.

Below is the text of a speech made by the Leader of the Opposition, Ed Miliband, to the British Chambers of Commerce annual conference in London on 14th March 2013.

It is excellent to be with you here today.

Let me start by saying how much I admire the work of the British Chambers of Commerce.

Because of the 100,000 businesses, rooted in every community in the country.

Knowing what is happening at the sharp end.

And you are always willing to speak truth to power.

And I want to pay particular tribute to John Longworth for the work he does as your Director-General for the voice he provides for the BCC.

I was very struck by something John Longworth said the other day.

He said: “Firms across Britain know they can drive growth…but they also know that they can’t do it alone…”

John is so right about this.

You create the wealth, make the profits, employ the people.

But you need a country that gets behind you.

To get the recovery we need it must be made by the many, the small and medium sized firms like yours that are the backbone of the British economy.

Now there is a Budget in six days time.

And as the BCC has said, urgent action is needed to help your businesses to succeed.

To help our economy grow.

And to help reduce the deficit on a sustainable basis.

That starts with the confidence and security of your customers.

That’s why we’ve called, for example, for a temporary cut in VAT.

And for the reintroduction of a 10p tax rate.

And any government preparing for a Budget in the current climate should be looking at the burden of business rates, especially as they fall on small businesses on this country.

Measures like these will help us take the first steps towards a recovery made by the many.

But they are not enough.

Because the Budget also needs to raise our sights to the big challenges that our country faces.

And we need to confront them, head on, right now.

Because the old ways just won’t do any more.

We need to build new institutions out of the rubble of the old.

And I want to propose today radical new approaches to banking, skills, the British firm and infrastructure, all underpinned by confidence and clarity about our place in the world.

That’s the way we truly get a recovery that is built to last.

A recovery made by the many.

Our approach for the future of the British economy has to start with our banks.

I start from a simple proposition: we need banks that serve our businesses, not businesses that serve our banks.

I hear it so often from businesses like yours that you just can’t get the finance that you need.

Turned down by banks that don’t know your businesses or who don’t seem to care.

And the government’s measures are just failing.

Net lending fell by £4.5 billion last quarter.

While too many of the big banks appear to carry on with a bonus as usual culture.

It is time to recognise that tinkering will not sort this out.

Britain needs a wholly new banking system.

And to understand how to build one, we need to understand the root of the problem.

Because these problems are decades old.

In the ten years before the financial crash, 84% of the money lent by British banks went into property and financial services.

As an example, just think about the transformation of Northern Rock.

Founded as a proud mutual, with a clear mission to serve the people and businesses of the North East of England.

A century of success.

Ending in an ignominious collapse.

Caused by its gambling in the City and in the property markets, rather than its old commitment in the real economy.

We have to learn the lessons.

It’s why we need tough regulation of our banking system.

That’s why we want new challenger banks to create real competition on the high street.

And why we are working with the BCC to design a proper British Investment Bank.

Such a Bank would provide long-term and patient capital for British businesses, especially those just starting up.

But today I want to say that we need to go further.

Because we need to make sure that the British Investment Bank serves the whole country.

So as part of that idea, I believe we need a regional banking system, reaching out to each and every region of the country.

Regional banks, with a mission to serve that region and that region alone.

Not banks that like to say “no”.

But banks that know your region and your business.

Not banks that you mistrust.

But banks you can come to trust.

Today we are publishing the report of our independent Small Business Taskforce I commissioned, chaired by Bill Thomas.

It calls for Britain to have its own version of the German “Sparkassen”: local banks that are run to support the local economy.

I am committed to turning the idea of regional banks into reality during the next government.

Because I am determined that One Nation Labour becomes the party of the small business and the entrepreneur as together we create a recovery made by the many.

And just like we need a new banking system to provide you with the finance you need, so we need a new skills system to provide you with the workforce you need.

Again I start from a simple proposition: every young person should have a pathway to good qualifications, a job and a career.

For so many young people that doesn’t happen.

And at the same time, you have been telling us for so long that you don’t get the young people with the skills and training they need.

That sometimes you have the vacancies but just can’t find skilled young people to fill them.

We need a transformation of education, opportunities and our culture for the forgotten 50% of young people who don’t go to University.

I think about a fourteen year old at school today.

If it is university that excites them, then they know the path forward, even as that path has got so much harder recently.

Work hard at GCSEs, then at A-levels and then move on to a degree and out to the world of work.

But what about those young people who want a different route?

Those who want to learn a skill or a craft.

Or want an apprenticeship.

Britain offers those young people very little at the moment.

This is another decades-long problem and we need to turn it around.

There is an alphabet soup of vocational qualifications on offer to young people.

We need to give young people a clear sense in each area of what qualification they should be aiming at.

That’s why the next Labour government proposes to accredit a new gold-standard technical baccalaureate so that our young people know where they are heading.

But it’s not just about a clear set of qualifications, it is about qualifications that are relevant to you as businesses.

Far too often, you tell us money spent on training is not well spent.

So we propose for the first time to put the public money spent on training and apprenticeships directly in the hands of employers.

And as well as changing qualifications, and making them relevant, we also need to inspire our young people.

Building up real work experience in school, not taking it away.

Creating new elite technical colleges for young people to which they can aspire, like they aspire to Oxford and Cambridge.

And we need to challenge the culture that says university is always best and vocational training is second-best.

Other countries don’t have this culture and Britain can’t afford it either.

Part of that change of culture we need is to celebrate and nurture the British firm.

We shouldn’t be ashamed to be patriotic about supporting our businesses.

Other countries do it, so should we.

You have been telling us for a long time how particularly difficult it is in Britain for a small firm to become a medium sized firm and a medium sized firm to become a world-beating corporation.

The way we change that is by addressing the short-term culture imposed on British business.

Sir George Cox, former Head of the Institute of Directors, recently reported to us on how to make this happen.

For that to happen we need to make changes.

Like abolishing quarterly reporting rules that lead listed firms constantly to think next month’s returns are more important than planning for the next five or ten years.

Like changing takeover rules, so great British firms aren’t at the mercy of the hedge funds and speculators who can swoop in after a takeover has been launched in the hunt for a quick buck.

And like changing rules on executive pay so that Britain’s best talent is incentivized to take the longer view.

Just some changes we need to enable British firms to take the long view.

And for smaller firms we should make changes too.

I hope you will engage with our Small Business Taskforce.

It has a whole set of ideas about how to help small businesses.

One of those calls on us to create new hubs of enterprise across the country.

Places where firms can share the costs of premises, back office services and other business advice.

This is something which government should be doing more to enable.

We’re determined to help small firms: invent, invest, train and prosper.

Because we know that so many jobs in the future are not going to come from a small number of large firms but a large number of small firms.

But the culture of the short-term isn’t just bad for business.

You know better than anybody that it holds back our government too.

If we are going to have a recovery made by the many, our country needs infrastructure as good as anywhere in the world.

That’s true of transport, energy and communications.

You’ve been telling us for so long that the way we resource and plan our infrastructure in Britain is not good enough.

And I agree.

That’s why at a time when our construction sector is still flat on its back, in this Budget One Nation Labour would be advancing investment in infrastructure.

But you know also it isn’t just about the resources, it is about the way decisions are made.

Sometimes we get it right.

As we did with the Olympic Games.

But so often we don’t.

That’s why Labour has asked Sir John Armitt, former chair of the Olympic Delivery Authority, to see how we can do better.

He will be looking for answers on how we invest in our infrastructure, how we get the planning rules right and how we can create consensus across the political spectrum on some of the most difficult decisions.

These are vital questions.

So that rebuilding our country will not only begin now but continue for decades to come.

Giving business the security and confidence they need.

I know you will all offer Sir John your support in that work.

Finally, all of these institutional changes need to be underpinned by a confidence about our place in the world.

So many of you are exporters, looking at new markets, and exploiting those markets you are already involved with.

The BCC is rightly making the case for greater co-ordination of the work that is done abroad to help you compete and succeed.

I agree and these are part of the recommendations of our Small Business Taskforce.

But I believe that if we are to succeed we also need an unambiguous sense of our national future.

I understand the frustrations you have with the way the European Union often works, including many businesses over regulation.

And I want a Europe of jobs and growth not the austerity and unemployment we have.

But for me, I want to be clear: our future lies in the European Union not outside it.

Because of the 500 million consumers in the single market.

But also if we are to reach out to the BRIC countries, our place lies in the EU not outside it.

Because we have more chance of getting our way in breaking down trade barriers with the rest of the world as part of that bloc than on our own.

Not finding that negotiations about trade happen without Britain in the room.

So a reformed banking system, a new skills system, a patriotic championing of the British firm, a new approach to infrastructure and a secure sense of our place in the world.

But there is something else about the way that we will succeed.

In these times, I think back to the stories my dad told me.

He came to Britain as a Jewish refugee during the Second World War, fleeing from the Nazis.

He joined the Royal Navy.

It was a time when people of all backgrounds, of all beliefs, of all talents came together for a common purpose.

They shared a vision for the country.

They knew, like John Longworth said, that we can’t do it alone.

That is what I mean by One Nation.

You know, there are many pessimists around today.

I am not one of them.

I am one of the optimists.

Just think what the Olympic Games showed us.

When we pull together, when we work together, we can achieve anything.

For the good of ourselves.

And the good of our country.

That is what we have shown throughout our history.

That is what we have shown in our darkest times.

That is what you show in the work you do every day.

That’s what we can show again as a country.

And I look forward to working together.

Below is the text of the speech made by Ed Miliband, the Leader of the Opposition, to the Fabian Society on 12th January 2013.

It is great to be here at the Fabians.

Today I want to talk to you about the idea of One Nation.

The idea of a country which we rebuild together, where everyone plays their part.

It is not an idea rooted in Fabian pamphlets.

Though I bow to nobody in being an avid reader of them.

It is not an idea either rooted in academic studies of Sweden or any other country.

Though as some of you know, again I can talk at length about these subjects too.

It is an idea rooted deep in British history.

Because it is rooted deep in the soul of the British people.

Deep in the daily way we go about our lives.

Our relationships with our family, our friends, our neighbours.

We know this idea is a deep part of our national story because we have so many different ways of describing it.

“All hands to the pump.”

“Mucking in.”

“Pulling your weight.”

“Doing your bit.”

And every day we see it at work in our country.

On Christmas Day, I helped out somebody down the street from me who makes Christmas lunches for elderly people in the area living on their own, it’s that spirit.

The same spirit we saw last year in the Olympic Games.

Now because this idea is so much part of who we are as a nation, of how we think of ourselves, all politicians try to embrace it.

But its real potential, and what I want to talk about today, comes when we understand the deeper lesson for the way we run our country.

Turning this spirit of collective endeavour, of looking out for each other, from something we do in our daily lives, to the way our nation is run.

That is what One Nation Labour is about.

Taking the common decency and values of the British people and saying we must make it the way we run the country as well.

And why does this idea – the idea of One Nation – speak so directly to the state of Britain today?

Because we are so far from being One Nation.

While a very few people at the top are doing well, so many people feel their prospects diminishing, their insecurity rising.

They feel on their own.

Not part of a common endeavour.

You know, a young woman came up to me recently and told me she had decided to go to University in Holland because she said she couldn’t afford to do so in Britain.

Believe it or not, to a government minister her departure will seem a success because if more people leave the country it will help them meet their net migration target.

But it doesn’t feel like a success to me to have talented young people fleeing abroad.

In Britain that young woman doesn’t feel part of a country where she can play her part, she feels on her own.

And it’s not just our young people who are finding it so hard to do their bit.

There are so many people across Britain who want to play their part but don’t feel they can.

Those running small businesses are struggling just to keep their business afloat in the face of rising energy bills and banks that won’t help.

They don’t feel part of a Britain we rebuild together, they feel on their own.

And then take all the people struggling to make ends meet, to pay the bills, doing two or three jobs, they feel on their own with nobody on their side.

So what do so many people in Britain have in common today?

They believe the system is rigged against them.

They believe that the country isn’t working for them.

And you know, it’s not that any of them thinks Britain owes them a living or an easy life.

All they want is a sense of hope, they want to believe there is a vision for a future we can build together.

And that is why One Nation is such a powerful idea right now: because it is about our country and what it faces.

Can David Cameron answer this call for One Nation?

This week shows yet again why he can’t.

What did they call it on Monday?

The Ronseal re-launch.

But what did we discover?

The tin was empty.

And they have no vision for the country.

And what have we also seen this week?

The appalling attempt to denigrate all those who are looking for work.

To pretend that a Bill that hits 7 million working people is somehow promoting responsibility.

And all the time an attempt to divide the country between so-called scroungers and strivers.

To point the finger of blame at others, so people don’t point the finger of blame at this government.

Nasty, divisive politics which we should never accept.

It should be the first duty of any Prime Minister to be able to walk in the shoes of others.

This week he has shown he just can’t do it.

No empathy.

And no vision either.

So my overwhelming feeling in looking at this government is simple:

Britain can do better than this.

I have said what it means to be a One Nation Prime Minister.

To strive always to walk in the shoes of others.

But One Nation tells us more than that.

It tells us that we need to bring the country together so everyone can play their part.

And let me explain what One Nation is about in our economy, our society and our politics.

Let me start with the economy.

One Nation Labour is about reshaping our economy from its foundations, so that all do have the opportunity to play their part, not just a few.

And to understand what a One Nation economy means, we need to recognise how it differs from what New Labour did and also how it differs from the current government.

New Labour rightly broke from Old Labour and celebrated the power of private enterprise to energise our country.

It helped get people back into work, and introduced the minimum wage and tax credits to help make work pay.

And it used tax revenues to overcome decades of neglect and invest in hospitals, schools and the places where people live.

There are millions of people who have better lives because of those decisions.

It is a far cry from what we see today.

We’re back to the old trickle-down philosophy.

Cut taxes for the richest.

For everyone else, increase insecurity at work to make them work harder.

In other words, for the 99 per cent: you’re on your own.

Sink or swim.

For the top 1 per cent: we’ll cut your taxes.

We don’t need a crystal ball to know what this will mean, because the last two and a half years have shown us.

Business as usual at the banks, squeezed living standards, a stagnating economy.

No plan for rebuilding the British economy.

But the One Nation Labour solution is not to say that we need to go back to the past, to carry on as we did in government.

One Nation Labour learns the lessons of the financial crisis.

It begins from the truth that New Labour did not do enough to take on the vested interests and bring about structural change in our economy.

To make it an economy that works for the many not just the few.

From the banks on our high streets to the City of London to the big energy companies.

Now, New Labour did challenge the old trickle-down economics by redistributing from the top.

But again it didn’t do enough to change our economy so that it grew from the middle out, not from the top down.

One Nation Labour is explicitly about reshaping our economy so that it can help what I call the forgotten wealth creators of Britain.

The millions of men and women who work the shifts, put in the hours.

Who are out to work while George Osborne’s curtains are still closed.

And are still out at work when he has gone to bed.

Those who have gone to university and those who haven’t.

The people who don’t take home millions or hundreds of thousands, but make a hard, honest and difficult living.

These are the people on whom our future national prosperity truly depends.

So what do we need to do today?

We need to reform our economy.

To take on the vested interests that block the opportunities for our small businesses and for all the other forgotten wealth-creators.

We need a new deal for our small businesses who have been let down by the banks.

We have to tackle short-termism in the City to enable companies to play their part to contribute to long-term wealth creation.

We have to work with business radically to reform our apprenticeships and vocational education, so we use the talents of all young people, including the 50 per cent who don’t go to University.

And we have to promote a living wage to make work pay.

That is the way that we rebuild our economy.

From the middle out.

Not from the top down.

That’s what One Nation Labour is about in the economy.

So we learn the lesson of New Labour’s successes, embracing wealth creation.

We learn the lessons of what it didn’t do well enough, reshaping our economy and creating shared prosperity.

And we recognise there will be less money around because of the deficit we inherit.

That’s why Ed Balls rightly came to this conference last year, to say if we were in government today we would have to put jobs in the public sector ahead of pay increases.

And in a way that we did not have to be under New Labour, we will have to be ruthless in the priorities we have. And clear that we will have to deliver more with less.

So One Nation Labour adapts to new times, in particular straitened economic circumstances.

And the power of the idea of One Nation also shapes the kind of society I believe in.

One Nation Labour is based on a Britain we rebuild together.

That means sharing the vision of a common life, not a country divided by class, race, gender, income and wealth.

And that’s so far from where we are in Britain today.

We can only build that kind of society, where we share a common life, if people right across it, from top to bottom, feel a sense of responsibility to each other.

Now, New Labour, unlike Old Labour, pioneered the idea of rights and responsibilities.

From crime to welfare to anti-social behaviour, it was clear that we owe duties to each other as citizens.

It knew we do not live as individuals on our own.

And it knew that strong confident communities are the way that you build a strong confident nation.

All of this is so far again from what we have seen from this government.

This government preaches responsibility.

But do nothing to make it possible for people to play their part.

They demand people work, but won’t take the basic action to ensure that the work is available.

They talk about a “big society”.

But then it makes life harder for our charities, our community groups.

But here again the answer is not simply to carry on where we left off in government.

New Labour was right to talk about rights and responsibilities but was too timid in enforcing them, especially at the top of society.

And it was too sanguine about the consequences of rampant free markets which we know can threaten our common way of life.

Learning from our history, One Nation Labour is clear that we need to do more to create a society where everyone genuinely plays their part.

A One Nation country cannot be one:

Where Chief Executive pay goes up and up and up and everybody else’s is stagnant.

Where major corporations are located in Britain, sell in Britain, make profits in Britain but do not pay taxes in Britain.

And where at the top of elite institutions, from newspapers to politics, some people just seem to believe that the rules do not apply to them.

To turn things round in Britain, we all have to play our part.

Especially in hard times.

We are right to say that responsibility should apply to those on social security.

But we need to say that responsibility matters at the top too.

That’s the essence of One Nation Labour.

It shares New Labour’s insight about our obligations to each other.

And it learns the lessons of what New Labour didn’t do well enough, ensuring responsibilities go all the way through society from top to bottom.

And what does One Nation Labour mean for the way we do our politics?

It starts from the idea that people should have more power and control over their lives, so that everyone feels able to play their part, not left on their own.

New Labour began with a bold agenda for the distribution of power in Britain.

And it stood for a Labour party not dominated by one sectional interest, but reaching out into parts of Britain that Old Labour had never spoken to.

Inviting people from all walks of life to join the party and to play their part.

It wanted too, to open up our system of government and oversaw the biggest Constitutional changes for generations, including devolution to Scotland and Wales.

The contrast with this government is clear.

The way they operate, the high-handed arrogance of their way of doing things.

They cannot claim to be opening up politics.

And they certainly cannot claim to be rooted in the lives of the British people.

But once again we have to move on from New Labour, as well as from this government.

Because although New Labour often started with the right intentions, over time it did not do enough to change the balance of power in this country.

That was true of the Labour Party itself.

Of our democracy.

And of our public services.

By the time we left office, too many people in Britain didn’t feel as if the Labour party was open to their influence, or listening to them.

Take immigration.

I am proud to celebrate the multi-ethnic, diverse nature of Britain.

But high levels of migration were having huge effects on the lives of people in our country.

And too often those in power seemed not to accept this.

The fact that they didn’t explains partly why people turned against us in the last general election.

So we must work to ensure that it never happens again.

And what is the lesson for One Nation Labour?

It is to change the way that power and politics works in our own Party right away.

That is what you will be seeing from One Nation Labour in 2013.

Opening up in new ways.

Recruiting MPs from every part of British life: from business to the military to working people from across every community.

Seeking support in every part of the United Kingdom, across the South of the country as well as the North.

Building a party that is dedicated to working with people to help them improve their own lives—even before government.

So for example, Labour Party members going to door to door offering people practical to help switch energy suppliers and cut their bills.

Creating a policy-making process that enables people directly to shape our policies so that they reflect their own concerns.

Jonathan Primett from Chatham wrote to us recently, complaining about rogue landlords at a time when the private rented sector is growing fast in our country.

Today I want to respond to him.

Britain is in danger of having two nations divided between those who own their one homes and those who rent.

If we are going to build One Nation, people who rent their homes should have rights and protections as well.

That’s about rooting out the rogue landlords.

Stopping families being ripped off by letting agents.

And giving new security to families who rent.

So we will introduce a national register of landlords, to give greater powers for local authorities to root out and strike off rogue landlords.

We will end the confusing, inconsistent fees and charges in the private rented sector.

And we will seek to give greater security to families who rent and remove the barriers that stand in the way of longer term tenancies.

That is a real example of how a One Nation Labour Party, by opening up our politics, is responding to the new challenges that the British people care about today.

One Nation Labour is also practising a new approach to campaigning—through community organising—which doesn’t just seek to win votes but build new relationships in every part of Britain.

For example, taking up local issues from high streets dominated by betting shops to taking on payday loan companies.

And, of course, a One Nation Labour government should open up too.

If devolution to Scotland and Wales is right, so it must be right that the next Labour government devolves power to local government in England.

And reforms our public services so that the people who use them and the people that work in them, feel as if they have a real chance of shaping the way they operate.

That’s the way to ensure we can all work together, to rebuild our country, with everyone playing their part.

That’s what One Nation Labour is about.

It learns the lesson of New Labour’s successes, seeking to reach out to parts of Britain that Old Labour ignored.

It learns the lessons of what it didn’t do well enough, of where New Labour left people behind.

And it recognises that in 2013, as the world has changed, politics has to change with it.

I talked about it in my Labour Party conference speech a few months ago about why I came into politics.

It was because of my personal faith.

A faith that we are better, stronger together than when we are on our own.

A faith that when good people come together they can overcome any odds.

For me, that’s what One Nation Labour is all about.

This faith isn’t unique to me.

It is deeply rooted in our country.

One Nation Labour is different from the current government.

And from New Labour and Old Labour too.

It will take on the vested interests in order to reshape our economy in the interests of all.

It will insist on responsibility throughout society, including at the top so we can build a united, not divided, Britain.

It will strive to spread power as well as working for prosperity.

We must build One Nation.

It is what the British people demand of us.

And, together, it is what we can achieve.

Below is the speech made by the Leader of the Opposition, Ed Miliband, to the CBI Annual Conference on 19th November 2012.

I am delighted to be here with you today.

And I want to thank you, the representatives of British business, for the extraordinary work you do, especially in the difficult times we face.

In the last two years since I spoke to the CBI conference I have been impressed by the work you do, creating wealth, and giving young people an opportunity to succeed.

A few weeks ago, I talked about the challenges facing Britain and the idea of One Nation.

One Nation is an idea about how we share prosperity fairly.

But it is also about how we create the wealth.

It also offers a country going through tough times a shared long-term vision about how we will pay our way in the world and succeed as a nation.

With business, government and the British people working together.

There are so many issues that we could talk about today.

How we transform vocational education in this country.

So that you can be in the driving seat to ensure that Britain has the qualified young people we need.

How we can change our banking system.

So that small business can be the engine of job creation in this country.

How we reform corporate governance, so we can relieve the pressures on you of short-termism.

So that you can take the long-term view and create the sustainable wealth that Britain needs.

And how, even in the next Parliament, we can take the difficult decisions over the deficit.

So there is a huge range of issues that I want to have a dialogue with you on over the coming months.

But I want to talk to you today about one big issue facing us:

I am talking about our relationship with the European Union.

For around three decades, our membership of the European Union has seemed to be a settled question.

But you will have noticed, it is not any more.

Public scepticism about European Union has been on the rise for some time.

Some Cabinet Ministers in this government now openly say that we would be better off outside the EU.

And many of our traditional allies in Europe, frankly, are deeply concerned, because they think Britain is heading to the departure lounge.

Those of us, like me, who passionately believe that Britain is stronger in the European Union cannot be silent in a situation like this.

I will not let Britain sleepwalk toward exit from the European Union.

Because it would threaten our national prosperity.

Because it would make it far harder to build the One Nation economy that I believe in.

But above all it would be a betrayal of our national interest.

That’s why I am devoting my speech today to the case for Britain remaining in the European Union.

But I also want to make that case in a new way.

A way that responds to the new challenges Britain and Europe faces today.

From European Ideal to Euroscepticism

Let me start by talking about the causes of Euroscepticism, because it’s very important that we understand them.

The EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

To many in Britain today, it seemed almost absurd.

But to my parents’ generation, it would have seemed well-deserved.

My mum and dad came to this country because of the terrors of the Nazis.

For them, Europe was a murderous continent.

A continent that that had gone to war four times in only 130 years.

For many in their generation, the European Union was a noble ideal.

The countries of Europe seeking to put peace and prosperity in place of war and destruction through economic and political co-operation.

But time has passed.

The prospect for a new war between Europe’s major powers has thankfully faded.

And that means the power of the founding ideal has faded with it.

But that is only part of the explanation as to why people’s faith has waned.

My argument is that it’s not just the fading of that ideal which has led to British Euroscepticism.

Nor can we put Euroscepticism down to bendy bananas and bans on British chocolate.

There are real failures.

And I think that’s what the pro-European side often needs to come to terms with.

There are twenty five million people without jobs across Europe today.

Five million young people across Europe looking for work.

The failures of the Euro shakes people’s confidence in the whole European Union.

So do failings in the EU Budget, that often seems to match the priorities of the 1950s, not the 21st century.

And while enlarging the EU was good for Britain’s strategic interest, frankly, the way that we handled immigration without transitional controls increased scepticism here in Britain.

Given all this, I don’t think it is surprising that some people feel unhappy, even angry with the European Union.

And what has been happening in response from people who believe in the EU?

Too many have turned a blind eye to these failings.

Believing their understandable real passion for the case for Britain being in Europe should mean a passionate defence of the institutions of the European Union.

That can’t be right.

The answer is not just to make the same old case for the European Union more loudly.

We need to argue the case in a new way, not simply assume it as an article of faith.

The New Case for Staying In

That case starts with our economy.

Let’s not treat this as an argument of faith: let’s argue the cause.

You know better than anyone about the importance of the single market.

A market of 500 million people.

Producing and selling one third of the world’s goods and services.

And you take advantage of those opportunities every day.

It’s where British businesses do at least 50 per cent of their trade.

And then think about all of our aspirations for the British economy.

High-skills.

High-wages.

High-productivity.

All essential to a One Nation economy.

I think it’s easier not harder to achieve that within the European Union than outside it.

Take our car industry.

Nissan, Tata, Toyota didn’t come to Britain for a low-wage, low-skill economy.

They come to Britain because we offer a gateway to high-income consumers who want high-value goods.

And to make those high-value goods they invest in high-skilled jobs.

Take our high-technology clusters, like Tech-City in London and the Cambridge Cluster.

We have people from all over Europe coming here to be part of those Technology Clusters.

And they’re attracting the best entrepreneurs, the most technically-gifted experts from across the world.

Because of the single market.

So I believe the economic case is strong.

But there is a wider case too.

There are problems in the world today that are simply too large, too complex, too international in scope for any nation state standing alone to deal with.

And to believe otherwise is just to hark back to a bygone age that is not coming back.

Just think about terrorism and organised crime.

They don’t respect borders.

But the European Union helps us cooperate to tackle it.

And it works.

The European arrest warrant helped bring to justice those who tried to bomb London on the 21st July 2005.

Take climate change and energy – something the CBI has been passionate about.

I know from my time in government, that as Britain we represent 2 per cent of global emissions, as Europe around 13 per cent.

Negotiating as part of the European Union is easier not harder than negotiating alone.

And that applies to a whole range of foreign policy problems.

Ranging from sanctions on Iran to playing a role in the growing crisis in the Middle East.

And there is another strategic interest.

While the old idea – that my parents would have understood – of avoiding war between the great powers has passed, we do have an interest in an enlarged European Union.

Where countries seeking the benefit of economic cooperation are required to advance the cause of political freedom, free and fair elections and the rule of law.

And we’re seeing it with some Balkan states as well.

The European Reform Agenda

So there is an economic, a political and a strategic case for Britain remaining in the EU, and we need to make it.

But there is an urgent imperative for us to reform the European Union so that it can help us compete and pay our way in the world.

Collective austerity is not working for working people across Europe.

And it is harmful for our ability to export and prosper.

A Labour government would seek to build alliances for a different approach.

A more pro-growth, pro-jobs approach.

And that applies to the European Budget too.

Agriculture makes up just 1.5 per cent of the production of the European Union.

So it cannot be right that almost 40 per cent of the EU Budget is still spent on the CAP.

I say that we need to build alliances for a comprehensive reform of the Budget.

Let’s ensure more of the money is spent on public goods that help your business, like infrastructure, energy and innovation.

Some of the European Budget is spent on that but not nearly enough.

Think of what it could do for your businesses.

And while we’re on the subject of the European Budget, let me say:

It cannot be part of a Pro-European position to support an automatically rising European Budget.

We also need to complete the single market.

Especially in areas which could benefit Britain, from digital technologies to energy.

And I know from my experience in government that the EU attitude to industrial policy feels woefully out of date.

In government, if the first question is how can government make it easier for business to compete and succeed, too often the second question is: will EU state aid rules allow this to happen?

All this needs to change.

That’s an essential part of working together to build a One Nation economy at home.

The Alternatives

So that’s the case for remaining within the European Union.

And reforming it.

But what about the case for leaving?

I think we need to take that case seriously.

Some will say Britain can stand alone in the world.

Like Norway or Switzerland.

Of course we could do that.

But we would be weaker, not stronger, as a result.

Those in favour of leaving the EU say we could still be part of the single market.

They may be right.

But who would set the rules?

Not us.

It would be those within the European Union.

We would live by rules that we have no say in making ourselves.

Still contributing to the EU Budget, as Norway does, but voiceless and powerless.

Unable to change the terms of trade.

And in or out of the European Union, we will be affected by whether the European economy is growing or not.

The best place for Britain is to be at the table, seeking to shape the economic direction of Europe.

Do we want to be inside the room?

Or do we want to guarantee ourselves a place outside the room?

And then think about the world trade talks.

If we left the EU, be under no illusions, it would be the United States, China, the European Union in the negotiating room.

Literally eating our lunch.

And Britain in the overflow room.

And we need to be absolutely clear about the dangers of that.

Of course, we should reach out to the BRIC countries.

But we have far more ability to do so as a member of a market of 500 million rather than just 60.

And how would Britain compete with the rest of the world it we were outside the European Union?

What would our equivalent be of Norwegian oil and gas or Swiss tax advantages?

Listening to some of those who advocate exit, I fear it would be that we would end up competing on low-wages and low-skills.

An off-shore low-value economy.

A race to the bottom.

That’s not a future for Britain that we should contemplate.

Europe’s Changes

Of course the European Union is changing.

Countries in the Eurozone are driving towards greater political and economic union.

They are on a different path from countries like Britain.

Britain is outside the Euro.

And will, in my view rightly, remain so.

But is that an excuse for leaving?

No.

I believe we must work to ensure that this more flexible European Union, where some countries pursue deeper integration and others don’t, still benefits all.

We need to build alliances to ensure mutual respect between those inside the Euro and those on the outside.

And we know what that means:

Protect our voting influence.

Ensuring that we are part of the decision-making process that affects us.

And above all, ensuring a successful European economy.

Referendum

Now of course, we do not know exactly what the EU will look like after all these changes happen.

But the question for now is should we have a referendum now?

My answer to that is no.

As your businesses strive to come out of the worst economic crisis of our lifetime?

To spend our time now debating whether to exit the European Union would threaten recovery.

At this moment – when you are facing some of the most difficult economic circumstances of our lifetime – this is not the time for it.

Think about a business considering coming to Britain.

What would they think if there was a referendum now?

They would put investment in Britain on hold as they waited to see.

There would be instability in our economy.

And neither does it reflect the priorities of the British people.

Their jobs, living standards and prosperity.

Keeping Britain In

I am pleased to say that my party is united in the view that Britain is stronger in the EU than it would be outside.

And I give Nick Clegg and David Cameron credit for this – I think they do too.

But to do that, we must be clear about the right strategy for Britain.

To ensure that we do not drift toward the exit door.

The Conservative part of the current government tells us that what matters most is the repatriation of powers.

Of course, I will look at what they propose.

But here is my view on this:

Britain needs to keep its eyes on the prize:

Fighting for economic change and for influence in a changing Europe.

We cannot afford to use up our energies and alliances on negotiations that will not deliver.

Like seeking to opt out on Justice and Home Affairs to keep the sceptics happy.

And then opting back in to the European arrest warrant.

Just as with the veto that wasn’t last December.

Increasing frustration and the drive to the exit of those at home, as people claim betrayal of what was promised.

And undermining our status abroad as they write off Britain as a serious player.

Taking us closer to the departure lounge.

It is the wrong strategy for Britain.

Conclusion

I know many of you, look upon the debate in Britain with deep and real concern.

Many of your businesses rely on our being in the European Union.

And I understand that many of you have concern about the drift of the debate over the last couple of years, and I share that concern.

I will fight your corner.

I will fight your corner for Britain to remain in the EU

And I will fight your corner to reform it.

And there is one more reason for resisting the call to exit.

About the character of our country.

Exit would not honour the traditions that have made Britain the great country it is.

It would undermine them.

Britain has always given so much to the world.

We have traded with others.

Not turned inwards.

We have opened up our country to new influences.

Not shrunk from them.

We have engaged with others.

Not stood aside from them.

An ambitious Britain has always been an outward looking Britain.

An inward-looking Britain, can never be an ambitious Britain.

Yes, reforming the European Union will be difficult, will require building alliances, will have its frustrations.

But I am certain it is better than leaving.

I believe our future lies within European Union,

I believe our future demands we reform the European Union.

Because I believe doing so will enable us to build One Nation here in Britain.

And that is why I commit to it today.

Below is the text of the speech made by Ed Miliband, the Leader of the Opposition, to Labour’s Youth Conference on 16th March 2012.

It’s great to be here at this Labour Youth Conference.

You know you can judge a party and its prospects for the future by how it’s performing amongst the young.

We need your energy.

We need your spirit.

We need your idealism.

Idealism demonstrated at campuses all around this country where it is Labour students who are campaigning for justice and fairness at work.

By campaigning for their universities to adopt a Living Wage.

Let us applaud their energy, their spirit, their idealism today.

Idealism demonstrated by our young councilors, some of them just 18.

I spoke to one of them, Jake Morrison, one of the youngest Labour councillors in Britain, elected at last May’s elections.

He is serving the Wavertree ward in Liverpool, campaigning for safer streets and against this government’s NHS Bill.

Let us recognize the efforts of Jake and all our young councilors, let us applaud them.

And let us applaud our party members too.

We’ve had tens of thousands of people join us since the General Election.

And I can tell you that the number of people under 27 in our party has doubled in the last three years alone.

Coming to Labour to change our country.

Let us applaud the energy, spirit, and idealism of all those who have joined our party.

And we need that energy, spirit, and idealism because of the challenges facing Britain, and our young people.

Under this government, more than one million young people out of work.

Like the young woman I met recently at a youth centre in London.

She had sent off 137 CVs, and hadn’t got a single reply.

The only job she could find, cash in hand, for less than the minimum wage, working for a couple of months at a fish and chip shop.

She was desperate to work but felt she was banging her head against a brick wall.

Friends, she is a not a layabout.

She has ambition.

She has hopes and dreams for the future.

Her problem is she hasn’t been given a chance.

She doesn’t have a government which matches her ambition.

And what’s true of her is true of the vast majority of those one million young unemployed in this country.

They’re not workshy, they’re not scroungers, they just need the chance to work.

Huge potential going to waste.

You judge the future of a political party by whether young people want to be part of it.

But let us say something clearly today our core belief:

But you judge the future of a country by whether young people feel they have a part in it.

Let me tell you what a sixteen year old once wrote in his diary:

“I am young, I have a potential which hasn’t yet been tapped, and which will not be for quite a while.”

That sixteen year-old was a member of my family.

Not me, but my Dad.

He wrote those words just after he arrived in Britain, a Jewish refugee from Belgium in 1940.

He arrived here with his father, separated from his mother and sister.

Unable to speak English.

After six months of scraping a living doing odd jobs.

And three months after that, he was accepted into Acton Technical College.

He studied at night, in the one room which he shared with my grandfather so he could learn English and pass his exams.

It was his hard work that meant eighteen months after arriving at Dover, he won a place at the London School of Economics.

After that, he never looked back.

He succeeded because he was given a chance.

And that was matched by his sense of striving.

He went on to become a university professor himself, wrote books, and his teaching inspired many young people.

He met my Mum here and they raised a family.

He is still an inspiration to me.

Hard work — and its value.

The genius of it was that it wasn’t some ‘eat your greens’ lecture.

At least most of the time it wasn’t.

It was just a sense that you shouldn’t waste your potential.

And they also taught me something else born of their experiences.

Two people rescued out of the darkness of the Second World War.

And they taught me a simple lesson.

That you had a responsibility to leave the world a better place than you found it.

And no challenge or injustice was too big for us to overcome.

I tell this story because it’s what helped make me the person I am.

Today, we live in a very different time.

Compared to the challenges my parents and their generation faced, ours do not seem large.

Think of that time.

A country shattered by war.

Facing the costs of reconstruction.

No NHS, no proper welfare state.

But the strange thing is that there is more fatalism about what happens in the world.

More cynicism about the ability of any politician to make a difference.

What is the answer to this?

Not to lessen our ambition.

But to be bolder.

To convince people that there is a clear and realistic vision of a better future.

Let’s deal with this government first.

They’ve got no compelling vision for the future.

Even Vince Cable says so.

It has no sense of ambition.

All it knows is austerity.

And it has no sense of responsibility.

‘Don’t blame us, we’re just the government.’

What have they done to young people?

They scrapped the Future Jobs Fund which provided real jobs.

They trebled tuition fees.

The number of young people looking for work for more than six months has doubled over the last year alone.

And there are 49.000 young people who have been looking for work for over a year.

Two and a half times more than there was a year ago.

Just think of that.

And what is their solution?

A Work Programme which doesn’t guarantee work.

And a Jobs Programme which doesn’t guarantee jobs.

Do you know that young people can be left languishing on their programme for 1 year, 2 years, 3 years under this government, without finding work?

What greater example could there be of the lack of ambition of this government?

And as for their work experience:

Work experience of course has a role to play, but it cannot be the summit of our ambitions.

There is only one solution to a jobs crisis.

Jobs.

No young person should be left languishing on the dole for more than a year.

It is not the Britain I believe in.

It is not the Britain you believe in.

And it is not the Britain we would have under a Labour government.

And that’s why my ambition is this:

To conquer long term youth unemployment.

The first line of a Labour Budget would be a tax on bank bonuses to get young people into work.

To business we say: we’ll pay the wages, if you provide the training.

To young people we say: if you’re out of work for a year we’ll guarantee you the opportunity to work.

Responsibility on the part of government to give every young person a chance.

Responsibility on the part of employers to make that chance real.

And responsibility on the part of young people to take that chance.

Saying no is not an option.

And when people ask what’s the difference between ourselves and this government, let’s tell them:

Under Labour, a job is guaranteed.

For at least six months.

At least at the minimum wage.

With real training.

And real prospects.

Labour’s Real Jobs Guarantee.

Real jobs, Real wages, a real chance for our young people.

If I was the Prime Minister, I would seek to mobilize every business in Britain, every voluntary sector organization, every young person too, behind this effort.

I would never stand by.

Labour would get our young people working again.

When I met the young woman who had handed in 137 CVs, just down the road from the City of London, she asked me how it was possible that in the banks a few miles away, these vast bonuses were still being paid to some of people who caused the financial crisis in the first place.

Her friend said: they seem to be carrying on as if nothing has happened, and we are paying the price.

By taxing the bank bonuses to help the young unemployed, we are doing more than coming up with a new programme.

We are saying something about who we are as a party.

We are saying something about what we aspire to be as a country.

We all owe obligations to each other, however rich or poor we are.

And when we talk about the bonus tax for youth jobs, we are showing the difference in our priorities, even in tough times.

We are on the side of those who work hard, strive, play by the rules.

Labour priorities versus Tory priorities.

Their priority is to cut taxes for people who have a job and earn over £150,000 a year.

A tax cut targeted at the richest people in Britain,

And they say we’re all in it together.

Our priority is to stand up lower and middle income families and for our young people who just need a job.

It’s right for them.

And it’s right for the country.

But it’s not enough just to convince the public that we’re decent people with better priorities.

We have to show people that we can manage our priorities and manage their money.

Including when there is less money around.

And so the challenge we face is a demanding one.

To show our radicalism, ambition and vision, even in tough fiscal times.

Not to measure the success of the next Labour government by the money we spend but by the difference we make.

But I know we can make a difference.

By showing our different priorities.

Like we do on the bank bonus tax for youth jobs.

Not going ahead with the government’s tax cut for the banks.

Instead putting the money to a much better cause:

Cutting tuition fees.

And investing in the young people of Britain.

These are just downpayments for the change a Labour government would bring.

A downpayment for the change and ambition this country needs.

But our challenge isn’t just to create jobs for young people, or to cut tuition fees, important though that is.

It is to shape a new economy.

The old economy, the one which seemed to work during your parents’ generation, just won’t do any more.

Not just because of the banking crash.

But because even before then, it was serving the few at the top, not the majority.

It created some high paying jobs in financial services.

But too often, low-wage, low-skill jobs, without good prospects.

Your generation needs not just more jobs, but good jobs.

We need an economy that is about proper training.

I met a group of apprentices here in Warwick at Jaguar Land Rover a few months back.

Their eyes sparkled with excitement about what they were doing.

Building racing car prototypes.

Not everyone can be a racing car apprentice.

But there can be a lot more apprenticeships.

A Labour government ambitious for the future will insist that every business which gets a large government contract must provide apprenticeships for the next generation.

To create an economy that works for working people, we need to back our small businesses, to help them get the finance we need.

A Labour government ambitious for the future would reform finance by planning for a British Investment Bank to help those entrepreneurs create the jobs we need.

To create an economy that works for working people, we need to make low-carbon growth a priority.

A Labour government ambitious for the future would understand that tackling climate change and a good economy are not in conflict, as George Osborne says, but going hand in hand.

To create an economy that works for working people, we need fair rewards from top to bottom.

An ambitious Labour government would reform our system of top pay and make sure there’s an ordinary worker on every remuneration committee.

To create an economy that works for working people, we need to work together to hold power to account wherever it lies.

That’s why a Labour government, ambitious for the future, will work to reform the way our energy market and train companies work, and fight for the consumer and ordinary citizen.

And will stand up to vested interests without fear or favour.

We know that none of this will be easy.

It will not be easy to create a country we believe in.

To create a country fit for our young people.

We will face many challenges.

Old orthodoxies about the way our economy is run.

Powerful vested interests who don’t want change.

High unemployment.

Tough fiscal times.

We must remember what my mum and dad taught me:

However difficult the circumstances, no injustice, no challenge is too big for our country to overcome.

No injustice, no challenge is too big for our party to overcome either.

I will never shrug my shoulders at the sight of one million young jobless.

That’s the difference with Labour.

I will never accept an economy which doesn’t work for working people.

That’s the difference with Labour.

I will never accept that there are interests which are too powerful to be held to account.

That’s the difference with Labour.

That’s why I’m Labour.

That’s why we’re Labour.

Let us hear the call of our party that echoes down the ages:

Change is always possible.

Even in tough times, we can deliver fairness, justice, responsibility, the values we believe in.

That is what should drive us on.

That is what we will campaign for in the council elections.

That is what will enable us to win back trust.

That is what will win us the next general election, and enable us to transform the country.

Below is the text of the speech made by Ed Miliband, the Leader of the Opposition, to the National Policy Forum on 16th June 2012 in Birmingham.

It’s great to be with you today at our National Policy Forum in Birmingham.

Labour Birmingham.

Labour, in whom the people of Birmingham placed their trust in May.

A Labour council changing the way we do politics with a manifesto built on 12 months of conversations with the people of this city.

A Labour council improving our society with 5,000 new homes a year.

And a Labour council changing our economy by paying at least £7.20 to every city council worker.

A decent living wage.

And let us recognise the work of every Labour council making a difference in tough times.

Liverpool’s new Mayor Joe Anderson and h is council that is building 2,500 homes.

Manchester keeping open its Sure Start Centres.

And Newham, standing up for tenants against unscrupulous landlords.

Labour councils whose examples will inspire our next manifesto.

And let us applaud them for their work.

823 seats gained at the council elections.

Let us applaud all of the Party members, trade union members, local councillors that made this possible.

The British people have given us a platform to be heard once again.

It is our job to seize the moment and show how we can change this country.

And we know this country needs to change.

We know it is crying out for change.

A lost generation of young people who cannot find work.

We say this waste of talent, this betrayal of hope, this denial of ambition is wrong and we must change it.

Families struggling to pay their bills, their living standards squeezed, prices going up and wages frozen.

While top directors are seeing their pay going up by 10 per cent again this year alone.

We know this is wrong and we must change it.

British society divided more and more under this Government.

Between the private economy and the public economy.

We are not a private economy and a public economy.

We are one economy.

Between the richest and the rest.

When we know we succeed or fail together.

Dividing the generations.

This generation of young people who are fearful for the future, in contrast to previous generations who were able to look forward to the future with hope.

It’s wrong and we would change it.

And we know too we have a politics that doesn’t stand up for the right people.

Now some people will see the revelations at the Leveson inquiry as simply a distraction from what matters.

Of course it’s not the biggest issue in most people’s lives.

But it is a symbol.

A symbol for what is wrong with our politics.

Not just a media scandal.

But a scandal about the way Britain is run.

Unaccountable power.

Innocent people paying the price.

Police not investigating.

Politicians not speaking out.

We all need to learn the lessons.

No media organisation should ever be allowed to exercise that amount of power ever again.

The Murdoch Empire must be broken up.

This Prime Minister cannot be the answer.

This is a Prime Minister who sent the texts.

He received the texts.

He even rode the horse.

A Prime Minister who hasn’t learned the lessons.

That’s why we have a tainted Prime Minister.

Tainted because he stands up for the wrong people.

Like Andy Coulson and Jeremy Hunt.

Tainted because he does not stand up to the rich and powerful.

And I’m not just talking about Rupert Murdoch.

Tainted because he cannot be the change this country needs.

And he even seems to believe that ‘we’re all in it together,’ means country suppers with Rebekah Brooks.

When we say we are all in this together, we are talking about the hard working people of this country.

And this Government cannot be the answer for our economy either.

Leaders of the most important economies will gather in Mexico this week for the G20.

There needs to be a decisive shift towards jobs and growth.

That’s also the way to get the deficit down.

That’s what I would be arguing for as Prime Minister.

It’s right to supply credit to our banks, including our banks.

But it doesn’t change the fundamental problem.

Austerity is not working.

It’s not working in Britain.

That’s why we have a double-dip recession.

A recession made in Downing Street.

And it’s not working internationally, either.

And it’s no good the powerful saying to the powerless: we’re in for a few bad years and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Saying there is no alternative to austerity.

It’s not they that will suffer.

Here in Britain David Cameron says Britain is “headed in the right direction”.

Tell that to one million young people out of work.

Tell that to the six people chasing every vacancy.

Tell that to the people struggling to make ends meet.

This crisis is about much more than just the banks.

It’s about whose interests are put first this country is run.

It’s about an economy closed to the concerns of working people.

There is a simple reason why this Government gets it so wrong.

They are stuck with an approach to our economy, society and politics that simply does not work anymore.

A set of orthodoxies whose time is over, and crumbling before our eyes.

The Tories are standing up for the wrong pe ople.

Running our country with the wrong ideas.

Out of touch and out of date.

Like believing the best way to get people back to work is to allow employers to fire people at will.

Now I am very conscious of the scale of the crisis our country faces.

We cannot carry on where we left off in government.

We cannot just make do and mend.

The task we face as an Opposition is no ordinary task.

Our task will be to rebuild Britain.

To rebuild our economy.

To rebuild our society.

To rebuild our politics.

So that we can rebuild our country to ensure that it works for everyone, and not just a powerful, privileged few.

Let me start with the economy.

The task of rebuilding we face starts with the recession made in Downing Street.

The highest unemployment in a generation.

We need real action to get growth moving here at home.

Cutting VAT.

Giving incentives to businesse s to take on new workers.

Advancing investment in our infrastructure.

And putting our young people back to work.

Long-term youth unemployment in Birmingham has doubled in the last year alone.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

I say, we say, tax the bankers bonuses and guarantee jobs for those young people.

A Labour government would get our young people working again.

So we need immediate action.

But we know the problems of our economy haven’t just begun.

The economy hasn’t been working for most working people for a long time.

We have a vision for our future economy which is different from this government and different from what we have managed to deliver in the past.

It starts from simple truths.

It starts from Labour values.

We know what the good economy looks like.

I believe nobody who works should be in poverty.

But today in our country we know that millions are.

I believe every young person, whether they go to university or not, should have a career.

But we know that today in our country, so many young people feel our economy has nothing to offer them.

I believe we must be a country that has a culture from our schools to our banks that prides itself on making things once again.

But that is still not the culture of Britain today.

I believe that the good firm comes with workers, managers, shareholders and customers working together to ensure their success.

But we know that the decades of fast buck, take what you can short termism in our economy prevents businesses from doing that.

I believe in an economy where reward is related to effort and there is a bond between the highest and lowest paid.

But we know that today in our country, people at the top can be paid 100 times, 1000 times more than their lowest paid employee.

So we have to seek to build this good economy.

And it is all the more important because the next Labour government will face a deficit as result of this government’s failure.

We will have to show how we can build social justice even when there is less money around.

It’s this different vision of our economy that drives us on.

That I want the National Policy Forum to work on in the years ahead.

We know the issues we must cover: from skills to housing to how we create a long-term economy.

It must be shared mission for our party.

We must make it the shared mission for our country.

We want an economy that works for working people.

And we need a society of which everyone feels a part.

I am incredibly proud of the work the last Labour government did.

To build and rebuild those great national institutions that we value.

Sure Start.

Schools.

And of course, our National Health Service.

And those institutions are under threat from this Government.

The NHS facing a reorganisation that no-one voted for and nobody wants.

And we have led the way in defending the values of the NHS.

And we will repeal the Bill so we undo the damage of the free market, free for all that this government is inflicting on our National Health Service.

But protecting what we have is not enough.

We need to be more ambitious than that.

My vision of our society starts with its ethic and character.

I believe in an ethic that says there is more to life than the bottom line.

I believe in a society that says we owe each other more than just to pay our way.

And I believe that the decent society is built on care, compassion and looking out for each other, and not on money, market and exchange.

And once we know our ethic we know the society we want to build.

A society of shared responsibility, among rich and poor alike.

A society that is more equal, where people do not lead lives that never touch each other.

A society with public services where everyone feels they are a valued partner, not just a customer or a number on a spreadsheet.

That means that those who use services don’t feel talked down to by an unresponsive and distant state.

And it means that those who work in public services don’t feel demotivated by central control but are trusted because they know their work and do their all.

And the good society is one where we recognise that we hold the environment in trust for future generations.

And that we make the decisions so this generation can speak proudly to the next, telling them that we weren’t the last generation who failed to understand climate change, but the first generation to rise to it.

That’s what a rebuilt British society looks like to me.

And we, the National Policy Forum, need to start planning today.

And we know where our work must focus:

How our public services will cope according to these principles in an era when there is less money around.

How to solve the unmet needs of our communities like care for the elderly.

We have a lot of work to do.

To rebuild our economy so that works for working people once again.

To rebuild our society so that it is true to our ethic and our values.

And to rebuild our politics so that we can make these changes.

After you trudge down the street in the wind and the rain, you know the most depressing thing.

It’s depressing enough when people say they’re voting Tory or Lib Dem, although not many people say that these days.

But the worst thing is when they say

‘You’re all the same, you all break your promises, you won’t make a difference to my life’

People have died in this country for the right to vote.

They are dying in other countries for the right to vote.

We desperately believe it will make a dif ference to people’s lives to vote, but too many don’t believe us.

It’s not their fault, it’s ours.

That’s why politics has to change.

It’s our job to change it.

And if you want to know how it should be done, just come to Birmingham and see what Caroline Badley, Councillor Caroline Badley, has done.

First, she helped mobilise a volunteer army of a thousand people for Gisela Stuart to win her election in Birmingham Edgbaston in 2010.

And then she decided to take on the Tories herself.

And she won her ward with a majority of more than 1,000 votes because she organised local people and local organisations to fight for the issues that mattered to them.

She showed that politics was not just about harvesting votes it was making change in our communities.

She should inspire us.

We need a politics rooted in people’s lives through the work of labour party members, local councillors, and the ordinary men and wo men of our trade unions.

The three million trade union levy payers, the most underused asset in British politics.

We need a politics which stands up for the many against the interests of the few, however powerful they are.

For too long, governments of both parties thought there were interests too big to challenge.

And so the public thought we weren’t on their side.

We need a politics where the decisions that affect people’s lives are made by people accountable to them.

So devolution is right not just for Scotland and Wales but for English local government as well.

We need a politics where politicians look like the constituents they represent.

That’s why we should not rest until 50 per cent of our MPs are women.

That’s why we should not rest until ethnic minorities are properly represented in Parliament and in our party.

And we should not rest until we deal with one of the most glaring omissions:

The skewing of our politics away from working class representation.

And I have asked Jon Trickett from our Shadow Cabinet to lead our work on this issue.

That’s where I want to take our politics.

And we know the areas we must cover: from how our party can be a genuine community organisation in every part of the country to how we devolve power.

That is what we need to rebuild our country.

These plans to rebuild our politics bring me to my final thought today.

People probably ask you sometimes why you joined the Labour Party.

People ask me sometimes why I went in to politics.

People ask me, is politics just about competent management?

Well we certainly would provide more competent management that this omnishambles government.

They ask just about waiting for our turn so we can carry on where we left off in government?

Our government did make Britain a stronger and fairer place.

But what we stand f or must be about much more than competence or carrying on where we left off.

The times are too grave, the demands too serious, the crisis too acute for any of that.

And in our DNA, is something bigger than that:

I learnt it from my parents.

Even in times of crisis people could come together to build something new.

They knew it because it was the story of their own lives.

Jewish refugees who came to Britain.

They saw it in the spirit of the British people.

The spirit of the British people that we saw on the streets during the Jubilee

The spirit of the British people that we will see during the Olympics.

The spirit of the British people that I see in this room today.

A country where we look after each other not one where we are left on our own.

I know that we can rebuild an economy that works for working people.

I know that we can rebuild a society founded on the right values.

And I know that we can rebuild our politics so that every voice counts, not just those of a powerful few.

That is the platform we have earned.

The chance to rebuild our country.

We won’t waste it.

Together lets rebuild Britain.

Below is the text of the speech made by Ed Miliband, the Leader of the Opposition, at Hyde Park in London on 20th October 2012.

Thank you.

I am here to join with people from all walks of life.

From all parts of our country.

Think about the faces in this crowd.

Young people looking for work.

Like Ashley Parsons from Wolverhampton who you saw on the film.

Let us say we stand with all the young people who want to work in Britain today.

We have nurses determined to fight for the future of our National Health Service.

Let us say we stand with them and all the men and women who serve in our NHS.

Construction workers, like Colin Roach from Greater Manchester, recently laid off.

Let us say we stand with him and people across the whole of British business who want an economy that works for them.

And all the off-duty police officers here today.

Let us say we stand with them as they seek to protect front-line policing and improve communities across Britain.

None of these people think Britain owes them a living.

They are not asking for the earth.

They just have a simple request.

They want a future that works for them.

They believe we do better as One Nation.

Private and public sectors working together.

North and South.

Trade unions and British business.

But they do not see that future under this government.

Instead, they see a government dividing our country.

Andrew Mitchell may finally have resigned.

But the culture of two nations runs right across this government.

They cut taxes for millionaires.

And raise taxes for ordinary families.

They leave young people out of work while the bonuses at the banks carry on.

They even have a Chancellor of the Exchequer who tries to travel first class on a standard class ticket.

It’s one rule for those at the top and another rule for everybody else: everybody like you who plays their part and does the right thing.

The trouble with this government is that while they are think they are born to rule, it turns out they are not very good at it.

A few weeks ago, I asked:

Have you ever seen a more incompetent, hopeless, u-turning, pledge-breaking, make it up as you go along, back of the envelope, miserable shower than this government and this Prime Minister?

What have they done since?

They’ve tried to prove me right.

Just this week:

David Cameron tried to keep his Chief Whip, even though the rest of us could see he had to go.

He made up an Energy policy on Wednesday, without any idea of how he could achieve it.

And he clings to an economic plan that is just not working.

David Cameron: a weak, clueless Prime Minister, who cannot stand up for the interests of this country.

And they are not just incompetent.

Their old answers just don’t work any more.

Trickle-down economics.

Cutting rights at work.

David Cameron calls it the “sink or swim” society.

But you don’t build a successful country with sink or swim.

You do it by building One Nation.

And that is what the next Labour government will do.

Of course, there will still be hard choices.

With borrowing rising not falling this year, I do not promise easy times.

I have said whoever was in government now there would still need to be some cuts.

But this government has shown us cutting too far and too fast, self-defeating austerity, is not the answer.

We would make different but fairer choices including on pay and jobs.

So here is what we would do.

Day one, with me as Prime Minister, we start to give all of our young people a stake in the future.

We will tax the bankers’ bonuses and start putting young people back to work again.

We would build 100,000 homes.

And get our construction workers working again.

We will end the privatisation experiment in the NHS.

And repeal the Tories’ NHS bill.

And to all the small businesses across Britain, I pledge instead of a country that serves its banks, we would have banks that serve our country.

I tell you one cut I would never make:

I would never cut taxes for millionaires while raising taxes for everybody else.

One Nation is a country where those with the broadest shoulders always bear the greatest burden.

One Nation is a country where we give hope to our young people again.

And One Nation is a country where we defend and improve our great institutions, like the National Health Service.

One Nation.

A country united not divided.

A future that works.

A future that Britain builds together.

Below is the text of the speech made by Ed Miliband, the Leader of the Opposition, in Southampton on 4th April 2012.

It’s great to be here in Southampton.

Seeing the port here reminds me of my Dad’s service in the Royal Navy.

He used to talk to me about what that service was like.

About how welcoming people were to him, a refugee, who had arrived in Britain barely three years earlier.

He talked above all about the camaraderie, the sense of solidarity.

Think about that word: solidarity.

It sounds old fashioned but I think it speaks to our time.

To what people are yearning for.

Not ‘us versus them.’

But a sense that we must all look out for each other.

People know times are tough.

People know the answers aren’t easy.

But they want a sense that there is a national purpose.

With shared sacrifice and reward.

I think it was this spirit the Government was getting at when they took office saying we are all in it together.

I think they were onto something.

But while their words were good, they have failed in deed.

Two weeks on from the Budget, that is its lasting legacy.

Whatever their twists and turns, their complex justifications, they can’t cut taxes for millionaires and then raise taxes for millions.

That’s not we’re all in it together.

You can’t pick a fight over petrol and provoke panic at the pumps.

That’s not we’re all in it together.

But the challenge is this: what would Britain really look like if we were all in it together?

And can we rise to the challenge?

I believe we can.

Today I want to give some examples, on jobs, living standards and crime, key issues for so many people.

Of the Britain where we really are all in it together.

I had a recent experience of meeting a young woman who had been looking for work for more than a year.

This story stuck with me because she said she had sent off more than a 100 CVs without reply.

And she asked me why she was suffering and the bankers just a few miles down the road were still getting their bonuses.

Thousands of young people looking for work for more than a year, while bankers are getting millions in bonuses

It’s why we say tax the bankers bonuses and guarantee jobs for the young unemployed.

I think that’s what Britain would look like if we really were all in it together.

What about living standards?

On Monday I was in Salford and I met a woman who said she was close to despair.

She employed parents working sixteen hours a week who from tomorrow will lose over £3000 pounds in tax credits making them better off on benefits than in work.

Why? Because the Government is taking away working tax credits for everyone who worked less than twenty-four hours a week.

We say reverse the £1.6 billion pensions tax break that the government has given to those earning above £150,000 a year and use the money to reverse some of the cuts in tax credits.

I think that’s what Britain would look like if we really were all in it together.

And what about crime?

Travelling round the country in this local election campaign, I have met lots of people affected by crime.

When people scrawl graffiti on walls, commit acts of vandalism in our communities, cause nuisance to their neighbours, and the government seeks to weaken powers over anti-social behaviour, that’s not we’re all in it together.

I say keep the powers over anti-social behaviour in place but also nip the problem in the bud by making offenders make good on what they have done to victims after the first offence.

Clean up the graffiti, mend the things that were broken, apologise to the neighbours.

It’s called restorative justice.

It’s about the obligations we owe to each other.

I think it’s what Britain would be like if we were all in it together.

There are many more examples of what Labour would do to show we are all in this together.

No executive should be able to award themselves a bonanza pay rise without an ordinary employee approving their salary.

That’s what Britain would look like if we were all in it together.

Every person who made a contribution to their community would get extra points for housing.

That’s what Britain would look like if we were all in it together.

And no company would be able to get a major government contract unless they offered apprenticeships to the next generation.

That’s what Britain would look like if we were all in it together.

These are just some examples, downpayments on how the next Labour government can really make good on we’re all in it together.

And there will be a lot more in the months and years to come.

This Government can no longer say: “We are all in this together.”

But we will show what that phrase really means in these tough times with different choices, different priorities, different values.

The yearning that people expressed for a sense of national purpose, shared sacrifice and reward, is there just as my Dad talked about it.

In fact, it probably never went away.

But politics has not been equal to the people.

That’s our task.

A government that really believed that we are all in this together would be very different.

It would be making different choices, based on different core beliefs.

It would be a government that understands the value of solidarity, of looking out for one another.

That’s the sort of country I want to live in.

It’s the sort of country the British people want to live in.

And it is at the heart of what Labour is campaigning for in these local elections.

Below is the text of the speech made by Ed Miliband, the Leader of the Opposition, in Cardiff on 11th October 2012.

After three weeks of the party conferences, one thing is clear. Labour has defined the central question for the next election: who can make us One Nation?

At our party conference, I set out the future for our country as One Nation and my party as a One Nation Labour Party.

One Nation is a country where everyone has a stake, prosperity is fairly shared and we protect the institutions that matter.

That is both the country we need to be and the only way we can succeed.

David Cameron spent much of his speech yesterday trying to respond.

But he failed. He failed because his government and his party is taking us away from One Nation.

David Cameron can’t be a One Nation Prime Minister when he is leaving young people without work for one year, two years, three years.

He can’t be a One Nation Prime Minister when he is cutting taxes by at least £40,000 a year for 8,000 millionaires and raising them for pensioners.

He can’t be a One Nation Prime Minister when he fails time and time again to stand up to the banks, the energy companies and the pension companies.

And he can’t be a One Nation Prime Minister when he insists on a top down reorganisation of the NHS which nobody wanted, has cost billions, while we have 5,500 fewer nurses in our NHS.

He can’t be a One Nation Prime Minister because he has the wrong answers, answers that aren’t One Nation answers.

He really believes that cutting taxes for the richest is the way to make our economy succeed.

That too many rights for people in work is what is holding our economy back and that making it easier to sack them is the answer.

And that as long as government gets out of the way – cutting as far and as fast as possible – the economy will automatically succeed.

David Cameron believes we have a choice between being One Nation and paying our way in the world.

But he’s wrong.

It is as One Nation not as a ‘sink or swim’ society that Britain will succeed. To survive in a competitive world, we need to be One Nation: come together as a country and use the talents of all.

We must change our economy so that banks work together with businesses to create the wealth and jobs we need in the future.

To compete with China and India, we can’t function as a low skill, low wage economy leaving out the forgotten 50%, so we need a transformation of vocational skills and apprenticeships in this country.

And to be a truly competitive economy, we need all parts of our United Kingdom contributing to economic growth and playing their part – not neglecting whole regions and sections of the population as this government does.

Between now and the general election Labour will be showing across all major areas of policy what One Nation means in practice, building on the big reforms in banking, skills, energy, pensions and housing that we announced at party conference.

The fight is on for One Nation. It is a fight we intend to win between now and the next election.

Below is the text of the speech made by Ed Miliband, the Leader of the Opposition, to the Unite Conference on 28th June 2012.

I want to thank Len McCluskey and Tony Woodhouse for your invitation to be here.

Away from the headlines, across the country, your union often plays a vital role helping working people and their firms to succeed.

That is what we’ve seen at Ellesmere Port.

Unite working together with General Motors to bring 700 new skilled jobs to Merseyside.

Working together to secure the long-term future of the plant.

Working together to secure a potential future until 2020 and beyond.

Without Unite, Ellesmere Port would not have been saved.

Let us all pay tribute to all of those involved in the work at Ellesmere Port.

And at thousands of other workplaces around the country.

Through your community membership, you are reaching out.

Through initiatives like the Unite Jobs board, which helps people find jobs in their area.

Showing that trade unions can help not just those in work, but also those looking for work.

That is the modern future for trade unionism.

And I applaud this work.

And I also want to pay tribute to Diana Holland.

While the Government were making the oil tankers dispute worse, ramping up the rhetoric by talking about jerry cans, she was trying to resolve it in a dignified way.

Your job is to represent your members.

My job is to lead the Labour Party.

Of course we will have differences.

I will be candid about them and so will you.

But we have to find new ways of working together for Britain.

That should be true of any Government.

That’s why today I want to talk about our economy, its present, its future, and how we can work together to change it.

I want to start by talking about the revelations about Barclays.

Nine months ago in my Conference Speech I talked about irresponsible, predatory capitalism.

Today we see one of the worst cases yet.

Millions of pounds being made by bending the rules, rigging the system to the cost of ordinary borrowers and savers.

The banks told us they had cleaned up their act.

But this shines a light on what has really been going on.

Three things need to happen:

First, this cannot be about a slap on the wrist, a fine and the foregoing of bonuses.

To believe that is the end of the matter would be totally wrong.

When ordinary people break the law, they face charges, prosecution and punishment.

We need to know who knew what when, and criminal prosecutions should follow against those who broke the law.

The same should happen here.

The public who are paying the price for bankers’ irresponsibility will expect nothing less.

Second, the Government should urgently look at the regulation of this area of banking.

We need to change the way things are run so that this can never happen again.

Third, there is a much wider issue about the culture of parts of the banking industry.

This shines a light on a swaggering culture which is not about serving the public, but serving itself by whatever means necessary.

Too many people in the banks clearly think they were big to fail, too powerful to be challenged.

They clearly believed they could do anything they liked and were above the law.

This is yet another example of some of the rich and powerful having their own moral standards, just as we saw during phone hacking.

We cannot have a country where this happens.

That is why we need the strongest punishment, a change in regulation and a change in the culture of our banks.

We need banks that serve a more responsible capitalism, working for the majority of the people and enabling us to pay in our world.

The failure of our banks is part of an economy that does not work for the working people of this country.

Stopped working for the people whose living standards are being squeezed.

Stopped working for young people like the young couple I met on a train recently.

She was working long hours at a hospital to pay her way through university.

And he had studied aerospace engineering for five years at Cranfield University.

He’d been looking for a job in aerospace for nearly two years.

This country had made an investment in him by subsidising his university fees.

Now we are wasting his talent, that investment.

That’s a tragedy for him and a tragedy for our country.

It’s why the next Labour Government will need to rebuild our economy.

Because instead of rebuilding our economy, this Government is tearing out its foundations.

They have turned a recovery into a recession.

We have a double-dip recession made in Downing Street.

And still David Cameron says ‘you call it austerity, I call it efficiency.’

Who is he trying to kid?

He says Britain is ‘headed in the right direction’.

What planet is he on?

Why are the Tories so out of touch?

Because they are listening to the wrong people.

They are listening to those who already have power and influence and not to the working people of this country.

They make policy with cosy kitchen suppers for the privileged.

Cosy country suppers for the powerful.

But in Tory Britain there is no place at the table for the decent hardworking families of this country.

We know it’s wrong.

And it would be different under a Labour Government.

But they are not just out of touch because they listen to the wrong people.

But also because they have the wrong ideas.

The wrong ideology.

Cutting taxes for millionaires while raising them for millions.

Trickle down economics.

Giving money to those at the top while taking it away from the rest of the country.

And making it easier to fire people when they should be making it easier to hire people.

It’s wrong and it doesn’t work.

Let’s call it what it is.

Old-fashioned Tory economics.

Wrong.

Inefficient.

Unfair.

And making the problems of our country worse not better.

Ask the workers at Coryton oil refinery.

Where hundreds will now lose their jobs.

The Government had a clear choice:

Do all it could to help save the refinery.

Or stand aside and do nothing.

The Government said their hands were tied because of the European Commission.

But they didn’t even ask the Commission.

If other governments can fight to keep their refineries open, why can’t ours?

Why can’t our Government even try?

It’s yet more proof that this Government doesn’t stand up for the working people of Britain.

And Britain doesn’t just need a change of government.

It needs a change of ideas.

And a change of mindset.

Because what is the other problem with this government?

It is that they really do believe that there is no alternative.

They really do believe the 1930s idea that when you’re in a global downturn there is nothing that can be done.

And so we have the spectacle of the powerful saying to the powerless:

‘We’re in for a few bad years and there’s nothing we can do to change it.’

They’re not the ones who will suffer but they say it all the same.

The G20 Summit comes and goes.

The European Summit will come and go.

But what do we get from the British Prime Minister?

No leadership.

The same old mantra:

‘There is no alternative.’

The same mindset that has been failing us for these last two years.

Friends, you know and I know:

Of course there is an alternative.

There is always an alternative.

If Labour was in Government, we would get our economy growing again.

Cutting VAT.

Encouraging businesses to take on new workers.

Investing in our infrastructure.

And putting our young people back to work.

It’s just wrong that so many young people like the aerospace engineer I met are on the dole for one year, two years, three years.

Long-term youth unemployment has more than doubled in the last year alone.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

I say, we say:

Tax the bankers’ bonuses and guarantee jobs for those young people.

A Labour Government would get our young people working again.

But we don’t just need change in the short-term.

We need to rebuild our economy from the ground up.

We need to look further back than the current crisis or the current Government.

For too long, we have had an economy that doesn’t work for most working people.

An economy where industry too often serves finance rather than finance serving industry.

An economy where too many young people leave school without hope of a real career.

And an economy where people are in poverty even though they working hard.

We need to change all that.

That will be the task of the next Labour Government.

And this task will be even more important because of the mess the Government has made of things.

The hard truth is this:

Whoever wins the next election will inherit a deficit.

And because there will be less money around, the best route to social justice will be through changing our economy so that it works for working people.

And let me tell you about my vision of the economy for the future.

It’s an economy where real engineering is as important as financial engineering.

Where every young person, whether they go to university or not, feels that they have the skills and training they need for a successful career.

Where we encourage companies to invest not for the short-term but for the long-term.

And where nobody who works is in poverty.

So how do we build it?

It can’t be built simply on the basis of old-style free market economics.

It can only be built on government, employers and unions understanding their role and playing their part.

Government needs to back the sectors that will succeed in the future.

That means a modern industrial strategy with a vision and a plan of how we can succeed as a country.

It means backing small businesses and addressing the financial barriers they face, with ideas like a British Investment Bank.

And it means taking skills seriously.

That’s why the next Labour Government will say:

‘You won’t get a major Government contract unless you offer apprenticeships for the next generation.’

For employers and unions, it will often mean working together.

At times, there will be conflict between workers and employers.

You will stand your ground.

And employers will stand theirs.

But you show every hour of every day, up and down the country in the work you do, that cooperation is the best way forward for the people you represent.

Sometimes this is difficult.

Like over the London bus dispute.

We all want the Olympics to be a success.

The eyes of the world will be upon us.

The best way to resolve this dispute is by all sides getting round a table and negotiating a solution.

I know you believe that and have called for that again in the last twenty-four hours.

But we cannot let industrial action disrupt the Olympics, and damage this special moment for Britain.

And all sides must ensure that doesn’t happen.

And we must make sure that every employer in the country fulfils their obligations to their workforce.

But we have not won that battle yet.

Friends, the minimum wage was one of Labour’s proudest achievements.

But far too many people in this country are still not paid the minimum wage.

Only seven companies have ever been prosecuted for not paying it.

Is there anyone here who believes that only seven have broken the law and exploited labour?

We all know the realities. The Labour Party and the Unions campaigned together to establish the minimum wage in law.

Now we must campaign together to make sure it is enforced.

I talked last week about the fact that we have some recruitment agencies in this country employing migrant labour and closing their books to workers from Britain.

So that they can bring in workers who are unorganised and unprotected.

Unite works to recruit workers from all backgrounds into the union, so that they get the protection and representation they deserve.

We didn’t do enough in Government.

Including on agency workers, where we acted too late.

We need to do more.

More to make sure that everyone is paid the minimum wage – no matter where they come from.

More to stop a race to the bottom on building sites, in hotels and kitchens, in food processing plants up and down this country.

And we’re not going to wait until we’re back in power to do this.

We’re starting now.

We’re launching a campaign to highlight cases of exploitation of working people in Britain – wherever they are from.

A campaign to gather that information to help us build the case for change.

So businesses can say “I know something’s not right in my sector of the economy.”

“Some of my competitors are breaking the rules.”

So workers can safely say “I am being exploited”.

“I am being paid less than the minimum wage.”

But it’s not just about the minimum wage either.

The “minimum” should never be the summit of our ambition for the working people of this country.

That’s why we are working with representatives from trade unions – including Unite – local authorities and civil society to campaign for the next step.

For a decent living wage.

Starting in local government.

You know a couple of weeks ago I met somebody, a cleaner, who said to me that she’d taken the step of writing to the leader of her council to thank him.

And I asked her why.

She said she was writing to thank him for starting to pay her the Living Wage.

So let us congratulate Labour councils like Birmingham for committing to paying the Living Wage to every one of their workers.

That’s how we start building a better economy for the future.

Because we will never rebuild Britain’s economy if it is based on the wrong foundations:

If it based on low wages, low skills, fast buck, and take what you can.

The best employers know this.

Labour knows it.

You know it too.

So we have to change our economy, but we have to change our politics as well.

You and I know that people don’t think politics can make a difference.

They don’t believe that politicians keep their promises.

They think that whoever is in power, things will be the same.

Including some of your members.

We won’t change that overnight.

But we do need to change it.

With a politics that is realistic about the promises it can keep.

A politics that stands up for the many not just for the powerful few.

And we need a politics where politicians look like the constituents they represent.

That’s not what Westminster looks like today.

That’s why I say we should not rest until 50 per cent of Labour’s MPs are women.

We should not rest until many more of our Trade Union leaders are women.

That’s why I say we should not rest until ethnic minorities are properly represented in our party.

And we should not rest until we deal with one of the most glaring omissions:

The lack of working class representation in our politics.

That’s why I have asked Jon Trickett from our Shadow Cabinet to lead our work on this issue.

I knew when I became leader of the Labour Party that our party should have one clear mission.

To ensure we are a one-term Opposition.

Not for ourselves.

But because of what this Government was going to do to Britain.

Two years on I feel that more strongly than ever.

I believe in a more equal, fairer, more just Britain.

We’re not the public economy and the private economy.

We are one economy.

We’re not the north and the south.

We are people from right across Britain who share aspirations, hopes and dreams for the future.

And we’re a country that succeeds or fails together.

At the elections in May the British people gave Labour a platform.

I intend to seize that opportunity.

To show how we will rebuild our economy so it works for working people.

To create a society that is united not divided.

And build a politics that people can believe in.

There are entrepreneurs and trade union members, builders and teachers, and working people across the country who all share this vision.

Let’s work together to make it happen.

Let’s rebuild Britain.