Tag: Speeches

Below is the text of the speech made by Gordon Brown, the then Prime Minister, at Labour HQ in May 2010.

On the back of our party cards it says: By the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more together than we do alone.

And in constituency after constituency despite all odds we proved that again and again on Thursday night.  By the strength of our common endeavour we achieved more together than any of us ever have done on our own.

And so I am here to thank every member of Labour’s staff, every volunteer, every member, every supporter for what you have done in the past, and what I know you will do in the future.

To thank also Harriet, Douglas, Peter, Ray Collins, the Chair of our NEC Ann Black, and our candidates and campaigners.

We know – more certainly now than ever before – that there is a strong progressive majority in Britain.

I wish more than I can possibly say that I could have mobilised that majority to carry the election– but I could not.

And so now I have to accept – and indeed assert – personal responsibility. The fault is mine, and I will carry it alone.

So to give this party I love the best possible chance to prepare for its future, I have resigned the leadership of the Labour Party with immediate effect.

I wish my successor in that role well; and I will stand by Labour’s new leader, whoever that may be — loyally and without equivocation.

Because one thing will not change: I am Labour, and Labour I will always be.

Let me a few days after our election thank those who never gave up and never gave in, who fought so hard and whose dignity in defeat makes us so proud.

In the past few weeks, our Labour Party has shown, even when up against the odds, what we are made of.

Of course we went into this election massively outspent and with, shall I call it, a difficult media environment. In the most difficult of circumstances after an economic crisis a political expenses crisis and after 13 years in government it is to your enduring credit that we denied our opposition the majority they took for granted.

And you know better than anybody how hard fought this election was, and how dependent we were on the small, well disciplined team of which you were such a crucial part. Strong policy, robust research, creative communications and inspired new media work were allied with the most targeted and the most commanding ground war I have seen in my whole time in politics.  And for all that, I thank you.

And I’m proud to say that we proved last Thursday that committed people matter more than limitless cash.

Sarah and I will never be able to thank you enough for what you have done. But I hope when you look back on these times you will tell your children, and your children’s children, about the Britain we built together and the good that we did in this campaign.

Because let me tell you what it was really all about. Last week when I was out knocking on people’s doors … and this wasn’t recorded on tape … I met a girl who was exactly the same age as the Labour government. Born on the 1st of may 1997, she had grown to know and love a Britain with Sure Start, with one to one tuition, with the expectation that every person from every background will have the chance to get on and not just get by.

She took opportunity for granted, and we fought for the chance for every child to be born in a Britain like that. We fought for the future.

And we continue to fight unceasingly because progress is not a word we just speak but a reality we have been creating where the ambit of opportunity always expands and never contracts. And we fight for progress because we know the energy and talent of the British people are boundless whenever they are released from stereotype and allowed to soar.

We know that progressive change is possible, because our very record shows it is.

The minimum wage.

Sure Start.

The child tax credit.

The shortest waiting times in NHS history.

Record exam results in schools.

More police officers than ever.

Half a million children out of poverty.

And two million more jobs than in 1997.

And on top of everything we did to change Britain for the better and forever, we can be proud that there are people alive in Africa today, children in school there who have access to health care there, because of what we have done here thousands of miles away.

So when this think of these times think on the lives saved and changed, and always remember – that New Labour’s achievements do not belong to me or to Tony Blair, but to you.

We fought and will continue to fight for our public services –  services that are not something that we conjure up on our own– or that most of us can pay for by ourselves – but services that are valued because they and the realization of a true nobility that sees beyond selfish individualism, on to what can be done through our collective endeavour.

That is why we fought – and why we together we will keep fighting for justice.

So tell your children you were a part of this – but also never to stop believing that people of courage and conviction can lift our country and make it equal to its best ideals.

So to those who gave their hearts, their hard work and their votes to labour, i say thank you. I will never forget how we stood together – in happier days and through the hardest hours.

And so as you fight on, know that I will be with you, heart and soul.

And know that you have my undying gratitude, because you have given the best of yourselves to the greatest of causes. And because you have fought every hour of every day you will be able to say for the rest of your days;

I was there.

I was on the progressive side of history.

And you are part of a Labour Party which is and will always be the greatest fighting force for fairness our country has ever seen.

We are irrepressible: we fight for fairness, and tomorrow we fight on.

Below is the text of the speech made by Gordon Brown, the then Prime Minister, before the 2010 General Election.

In the history of each nation there are moments of clear decision. Moments when paths are chosen and decisions made that impact not only the months or years to come, but shape the whole course of the decades that follow. So it was in 1997. And so it is today, in 2010.

In the dawn of this new decade, Britain faces the biggest choice for a generation. It is a choice about whether we want to continue on the road to economic recovery or want to turn off, whether we believe that we can face the biggest challenges with the strength of a community around us, or whether every individual should simply be left to sink or swim.

The choice is real, the risks are real, and let us be clear, the consequences are real.

If we get it wrong, we face what they themselves call an age of austerity. If we get it right, we can achieve an age of shared prosperity.

The economy is more central and the choice more serious in this election than any time in my lifetime.

That is why top of Labour’s pledges to the people is economic recovery.

When people ask what are my top three priorities for the country let me tell them – keeping on the road to recovery, keeping on the road to recovery, keeping on the road to recovery.

A sharp right turn off that road would risk your job, your home, your savings.

Securing the economic recovery or wrecking it – that is the choice the country will face in the weeks ahead.

Elections are choices for the future. And so I now pledge myself and my party to fighting each and every day for a fairer future for the people of Britain, a future in which the many and not just the few have the chance to earn a better life for themselves and their children.

We will always put the British people first – before personal interest, our party interest, or any vested interest. We will renew this nation – not for our own benefit or the benefit of a narrow section or clique – but for all the people of this country we love.

We are the people’s party – and we are pledged to serve the people. Today I am announcing the five pledges on which we will fight this election. Each is substantial, deliverable and carefully costed. If you will support us, we will:

– Secure the recovery and halve the deficit through economic growth, fair taxes and cuts to lower priority spending.

We pledge that we will:

–  Raise family living standards, by keeping mortgage rates as low as possible, by increasing tax credits for families with young children, by providing new help for first-time buyers and by restoring the link between the state pension and earnings from 2012.

We will:

– Build a high tech economy, by supporting businesses and industry to create 1 million more skilled jobs and modernising our infrastructure with high-speed rail, a green investment bank and broadband access for all.

We will:

– Protect frontline investment in policing, schools, childcare and the NHS with a new guarantee of cancer test results within a week.

And we will:

– Strengthen fairness in communities through an Australian style points-based system to control immigration, through guaranteed education, apprenticeships and jobs for young people; and through a crack down on anti-social behaviour.

I know that in this time of cynicism and lack of trust in politics, there are some people who will say that politicians will promise the earth but never deliver, that a pledge isn’t worth the paper it is written on.

And I understand that, but these are not general pledges without dates, without tests, without scrutiny. these are our pledges to every single citizen, tied to timetables, regular reporting and proof of performance.

So I want to build-in accountability mechanisms to the pledges we are making, so that you can hold me to account, and we can test our progress against our promises in the year to come.

I believe the business of government should be more business-like – that the British people are the boss and like any employer they deserve to know about the performance of their team.

And so I am proposing the following.

Firstly, Sir Tim Berners Lee, the man most associated with the invention of the internet, is the government’s advisor on data openness and transparency all across the internet.

In the months to come he will be ensuring that there is the maximum possible information available to the public at all times.

This rapid extension of transparency will show in real time how government are delivering against our pledges.

Secondly, I will set out a clear and public annual contract for each new Cabinet Minister, detailing what I expect them and their department to deliver to the British people, and that their continued appointment is dependent on their delivery just as it would be in a business or any other organisation.

Thirdly, I will require the Cabinet Secretary to performance manage the Permanent Secretary of each department against their delivery of pledges and other priorities as set out in the letter of appointment.

Because to be in Government is an honour – and if it is extended to us once again I am not prepared to waste a single second. We have big plans for this country – and we intend to see them through.

We have already laid the foundations for a better fairer future in this week’s Budget for growth and jobs – a Labour Budget with progressive priorities. If you want to know who and what we stand for, just look at what Alastair announced;

– We’re extending the young person’s guarantee, to ensure that young people continue to be guaranteed a job, training or working experience if they can’t find work within six months

– We’re funding 20,000 extra undergraduate places on courses starting this year

– We are investing in Britain’s 21st century infrastructure by creating a green investment bank that will support low-carbon projects

– We are offering first time buyers a two year stamp duty holiday on transactions up to £250,000

– From next month we will make additional payments of £100 into the child trust fund accounts of disabled children

– And we will bring in a weekly increase in the basic state pension of £2.40 from next month, bringing greater comfort to 12 million older people

That’s the difference with Labour – that’s the change we choose. So never doubt that you can build a fairer future. Never doubt we can lift this country and make it equal to its best ideals.

Some will say that we should give up on such high ambitions, that the times to build a fair society are gone and now there’s nothing great that we can do. But 65 years ago, in the aftermath of war, our Labour Party stood before the British people and asked for a mandate to build a National Health Service.

And what is the lesson of those days? Let others resign themselves to small ambitions – we the Labour Party have never believed that difficult times should mean diminished dreams.

Caution says it is too difficult. But we are not cautious but resolute – because our party is the greatest force for fairness our country has ever seen.

Fear says it is beyond our reach. But we are not afraid but bold – because our party will show the people that we are the greatest force for fairness our country has ever seen.

Cynicism about politics says they’re all the same. But we are not cynical – we are energized – because our party will prove again that we are the greatest force for fairness our country has ever seen.

Resignation says ‘they’ve had their time’. But Labour can never resign our ideals to fate we mark out a path ahead – we fight and we win whatever the odds because our party is and will always be the greatest force for fairness our country has ever seen.

We will prove it again and again because our whole history tells us never to believe that injustice is forever woven into the fabric of our lives, never to believe that fairness is a dream beyond our grasp, never to doubt the British people’s desire for decency.

So let the message go out from Nottingham – we may be the underdog but we are the people’s party and we never give up.

And remember in the next few weeks, every step forward we make. Every advance we achieve. Every family whose aspirations we can meet is a victory not just for us, but for that fundamental desire for decency of the British people.

Every time we change a life we change the world, we’ve done it before, and we will do it again.

We are fighting for Britain’s future – and we intend to win.

Below is the text of the speech made by Gordon Brown, the then Prime Minister, to the Welsh Labour Party conference on 27th February 2010.

Thank you friends – and let me say today that our thoughts and prayers are with the people of Chile who have suffered their country’s worst earthquake in 50 years. The people of Chile are in agony today, and Britain stands ready to help.

And friends I wanted to talk about what we’ve achieved together – a Labour-led Welsh administration working with a Labour Government – a partnership that has changed Wales for the better and forever.

You should be proud of the pioneering Proact and React jobs investments that have saved and created thousands of jobs.

And for children and families, a nursery and early learning revolution that is transforming thousands of children’s lives.

For school children, the largest ever school modernisation programme in the history of our country.

For Welsh teenagers and adults a modern skills for work strategy a million miles away from the so called youth opportunities of the Tory years.

For young couples starting out, funds to deliver more than 6000 affordable homes.

For travel throughout Wales, new investment in our railways and in the Ebbw Vale railway line – a key line connecting our communities, closed under the Tories and re-opened with Labour.

And for our older heroes – Welsh Labour made Wales the first nation of the UK to offer free bus travel for pensioners.

In so many ways Labour Wales has led and had a huge an impact on the world – thinking of others and not just ourselves… And so let me also congratulate you on becoming the very first Fairtrade nation on our planet.

So today we’re talking about major Labour achievements, great social advances. Even in spite of a global recession and the difficulties we have faced, we’ve had thirteen years of progress – and let us say that what we have built together with the people of Wales we will never now let the Conservatives destroy.

You know there is one symbol the people of Wales have chosen to demonstrate how you are building the future.

Every time a new baby is born in Wales you plant a new tree to celebrate that birth.

And in planting a new tree you are not only protecting the environment for them and for the generation to come, you are sending a message about the future, that every single child should be able to grow and thrive and realise their potential to the full.

That’s what I love about Wales, that with the greatest traditions of community inspiring us from the past, you are a nation that is always thinking of the future.

And so today I want to talk to you about the big choices we face for the future. I want to talk about the jobs of the future, the industries of the future and the public services of the future.

I want to talk about the future we can win if we make the right choices, and what we all stand to lose if we make the wrong ones.

And let me say our first economic priority, our second economic priority, and our third economic priority for our country remains as it has always been – jobs, jobs, jobs.

Why? Because I know like you that every redundancy is a personal tragedy. Every lost job is an aspiration destroyed. Every business closure is someone’s dream in ruins.

So we must never allow a return to the years of the Conservative Government – uncaring, unfair, years of mass unemployment and lost hope.

Our shared concern about the tragedies of unemployment arises from our background and our values.

Like so many here I come from a family whose grandfather went without work during much of the 1930s.

A grandfather whose small savings gave his son, my father, the chance of an education, the first in our family to go to university.

And the lesson of those days is that even in the worst of times families helped each other, supported each other, came to the aid of each other through thousands of acts of friendship caring and support. And that reveals the most important lesson of all; that it’s not markets that create morals: morals spring from the compassion of our hearts.

In the last two years in the face of the worst global financial recession seen since the 1930’s we have had to make some of the biggest and most difficult decisions. But that’s what leadership is all about.

We had a choice – to take control of failing banks and to nationalise Northern Rock or to take the Tory view, to reject on ideological grounds the very idea of public ownership.

And what happened? The savings of ordinary families were protected not by default but by a decision made by a Labour Government on behalf of, and with the support of, the British people – and in the face of the ideological opposition of the Conservative Party.

We had a choice to do what the Conservatives said and ‘let the recession take its course’.

Or to help 17,000 businesses in Wales and 300,000 businesses across the United Kingdom to get the cash flow they needed.

That didn’t happen by chance; it happened by choice our choice – the choice of a Labour Government.

And then we had another decision; to leave the unemployed at the mercy of market forces or to support jobs and young people into work and training and ensure that 1.7 million more people are in work than if the experience of the last recession had been repeated.

So let’s be proud; of jobs protected not by accident but by our actions, actions a Labour Government took on behalf of and with the support of the British people – and in the face of the ideological opposition of the Conservative Party.

And then we had another choice – to help 300,000 families with advice and assistance with their mortgages so they can stay in the homes they worked so hard to buy.

And that meant people’s homes saved not by chance – but by our choice – the choice of a Labour Government on behalf of and with the support of the British people – and in the face of the ideological opposition of the Conservative Party.

At each turning point our opponents would have made the wrong decision.

But for us doing nothing was simply not an option, because, for us, unemployment is not a price worth paying.

And now we have a choice in the coming days.

The Conservative Party always opposed the fiscal stimulus; they want to cut now the support we are giving to jobs, homes and businesses.

A few days ago they said they want to tear up the 2010 budget, impose deep cuts immediately and accused us of moral cowardice for not doing so.

Of course, typically of them, they called for big cuts before they called for small cuts before they called for modest cuts before they called for big cuts yet again.

So their biggest claim to be the party of change is that they are the Party that keeps changing their minds.

But I say: the consistent truth is that just as public investment has been the only way to move the economy out of recession and just as we have in place a four year deficit reduction plan to halve the deficit in the years to come, public investment must be maintained throughout 2010 until the road to recovery is assured.

And so I tell you: we will not put at risk the recovery and the jobs, the businesses and the homes of thousands of people who would be the direct victims of immediate Conservative cuts coming at the worst possible time.

And now from today there is an even bigger choice the country now faces for times to come – how we create the jobs of the future – how we can secure our shared prosperity and prevent the unemployment that every Conservative Government has brought.

In the 1980s and the 1990s here in Wales and around the UK we marched for jobs, we rallied for jobs, we petitioned for jobs.

And then we got into Government and we set about creating and supporting jobs. And now we have to work hard again for the new jobs for the future.

In 1997 employment in Wales was 1 million 200,000 men and women in work the latest estimate is almost 1.3 million men and women in work –

That’s despite the recession nearly 100,000 more people in jobs than when we first came to office.

Nearly 100,000 more men and women in work than in 1997. Nearly 100,000 more families that have the chance of prosperity they didn’t have. That’s nearly 100,000 people more able to contribute not just to their families but to the community.

And because every redundancy and period of unemployment is a matter of regret for me, I want us to do even better in the months to come.

That’s why I propose a new UK industrial policy to signal the creation across the country of 1.5 million skilled new jobs for the future.

Wales is leading the world in biotechnology with already a cluster of 250 companies.

Here at the institute of life sciences at Swansea University Wales is, with IBM, a world research hub for life sciences – with its world beating supercomputer dedicated to life science research.

And unlike the Conservatives we believe in and will push forward an industrial partnership between business, universities and Government to create over the next decade 100,000 new UK jobs. That means jobs with Labour, jobs at risk with the Conservatives.

And let me also congratulate Bangor University’s School of Chemistry for yet another world leading role from Wales – a plan to eradicate a disease which has killed millions – Wales leading the global fight against the scourge of tuberculosis.

And let us be proud that Wales is one of the countries leading the world with new jobs in energy – the UK pioneer for hydrogen energy, with the hydrogen engine test facility – and now the hydrogen highway, creating green jobs and companies to boost the low carbon economy. And while the Tories opposed the investment we made during the recession to help low carbon industries I can assure you that we will continue to invest in the green economy which can create another 400,000 future jobs.

And Wales can lead in broadband and digital too. Because while the Tories oppose the funding we are putting in place, a Labour Government can ensure that no business in Wales and no family in Wales is denied the chance to benefit from the digital revolution.

And let us be most proud of all that Wales is leading in the advanced manufacturing we need for the future.

And let us congratulate Airbus and the Labour-led Welsh Assembly on securing one of the biggest groups of apprentices on a single site in the country – young people in North Wales, working with Airbus to create the products of tomorrow.

That shows just what young people can do.

So never again should someone’s potential be lost before their lives have really begun. Never again should their talent be written off. Never again should their contribution be lost.

And that’s why, for the first time, we are putting in law young people’s rights to an apprenticeship and ensuring that an apprenticeship place is available for every suitably qualified young person by 2013. And thanks to Labour the minimum apprentice wage has just risen by more than 20 percent.

In total we will have spent five billion pounds creating jobs and helping millions of people into them and we will continue support for young people even as we cut the budget deficit in more than half in the next four years.

And it is because we are so determined to cut the deficit that we have already introduced tax changes and announced not only efficiency drives but cuts in some areas.

Because we have never shied away from tough choices and we never will.

And so I’m here to tell you that the Labour Party – our Government – has a strategy for prosperity – not just for the few, not for some, but for all. And even in the hard times we have not been deflected.

And so today let me say this to the British people; if each and every person who can find work is prepared to take it, then I am prepared to do what it takes to secure not only Britain’s recovery, but to advance further and faster to the full employment of our ambitions.

But let me also be clear; Labour’s focus on employment means precisely that. It means everyone who can work should work.

Because there’s nothing progressive about allowing people to languish on benefits while their talents go to waste. And there’s nothing left of centre about denying to some people the pride, the rewards and the worth of work.

That’s why we have told every young person who is offered work through our Future Jobs Fund that they will lose their benefit if they refuse a job. That’s why we have reformed the incapacity system so its no longer about what people cannot do but what people can.

And that’s why we have told benefit cheats that if they scam the system, they will face immediate penalties.

If young people don’t want to work, there will be no free passes. But for all those who are willing, you have a Government on your side.

And so let us reassert in this time and in this place – that the recession has not weakened but strengthened our resolve to create jobs, that Labour has not deserted our historic goal for employment, but we are redoubling our efforts to achieve it. And that this fragile global recovery is not a reason to change tack but the reason to stay the course.

And so today I feel compelled to warn you about the risk the Tories pose. The risk to the recovery, the risk to frontline services and yes, the risk to jobs. The risk to fairness.

I said last week that people should take a long hard look at the Conservatives. And now the time has come for some simple straightforward questions about the risks that they pose to our country and to our economy.

Because when they talk about change, just ask them a simple question: why they cannot tell you just weeks before their promised emergency budget which front line services they plan to cut this year, how many thousands of jobs are at risk and how much they would endanger the recovery.

And when they talk about change, ask them why they can find that £200,000 for each of these 3,000 richest estates in our country but they are this year proposing to take tax credits away from over a million families.

And when they talk about change, ask them why they say they can’t afford to guarantee front line police on our streets at the same time as undermining all the efforts we are making to close down tax havens.

Ask them why when times are hard for families they wanted an end in Wales to free bus passes for the elderly and free prescriptions.

Ask them why they want to isolate Britain on the fringe of Europe and work with only the most extreme right wing parties.

Ask them why they want to keep the hereditary principle in the House of Lords.

And ask them if they are the party of change why their highest priority at a time like this is to bring back fox hunting.

And you know – after their slogan was announced today, I really think we ought to ask them. How they can claim to be the party of change when these policies –defending the lords, backing fox hunting, designing inheritance tax cuts, are not exactly new but the very policies that have defined the Conservative Party for a hundred years.

Friends, in their policy of change for change’s sake, change that would take us backwards, they would risk our recovery, risk our frontline public services, and risk our country’s future.

They call themselves progressive Conservatives but what they offer is not a manifesto but a masquerade. Not a vote for change that would take us forwards but take us backwards. For they would make the wrong changes, at the wrong time, for the wrong reasons, to benefit the wrong people.

And let us be in no doubt; they are not the party of change for families but the party that would short-change families.

Child Tax Credits – Labour achievement. Tory target. But we will not let them do this to our families.

The Child Trust Fund – Labour achievement. Tory target. But we will not let them do this to our children.

21st century schools for a 21st century education – Labour achievement. Tory target. But we will not let them do this to our young people.

A Children’s Centre in every community – Labour achievement. Tory target. But we will not them do this to our future.

The Social Chapter which helped deliver maternity, paternity and flexible working rights – Labour achievement. Tory target. But we will not let them do that to our rights.

If the Tories were ever to trick the British people and win the election we would see in a matter of months a generation of achievements starting to be wiped out.

A hard won economic recovery put at risk.

The NHS we have rebuilt in danger.

The education of our children under threat.

But I say again; we will not let them do this to our country.

Because here in Wales the soul of our party is in the soil of these hills and in the toil of generations.

People who cared about each other, who reached out to each other, who in times of trouble sought to lift each other, who in times of prosperity sought to share with each other.

People who not only believed but proved that there is such a thing a society.

People who had coal dust on their faces but never lost their visions of a decent society.

And from these valleys, with your own experience of the inequalities and indignities of 1930s health care – of nurses having to leave the bed of their patients to run charity flag days for vital life-saving hospital equipment – men and women went on to create what people once thought impossible: a National Health Service, the greatest act of compassion our country has seen.

And over six decades what these visionary Welsh men and women achieved was not the sixty years mistake a prominent Tory called the NHS, but sixty year liberation for every single family in this country.

And their journey – through all the successes and the setbacks, in the happiest and in the hardest of days – their journey teaches us, we who have inherited their vision.

Never to give up.

Never to give in.

Always to hold to our ideals.

Always to fight for a future fair for all.

And so I ask you today: will you join me in the fight for fairness?

Let us carry this fight all across Wales and all across the country.

And when people ask if we can win that fight in 2010, I say:

We can. We must. And we will.

Below is the text of the speech made by Gordon Brown, the then Prime Minister, on 26th March 2010.

As we emerge from recession, we face fundamental questions about the kind of Britain we want to build for the future; and about who will lead us there.

Choices: about who’s best for jobs? Who’s best for industry? Who’s best for the NHS, schools and public services?

Decisions about the changes we must make this year that will lead us to a better tomorrow.

And we need to ask: who has the plan not just to secure recovery – but to go for growth? The plan that will mean not just jobs for us today – but jobs for our children tomorrow? The plan that will see British business not just succeeding in the global marketplace of this generation – but leading in the global industries of the next?

This week’s budget will set out the next stage of our plan to go for growth.

It is built on two essential pillars.

First, given the fragility of the economy both here and across the world, and the continuing weakness of the global financial system, the essential requirement today is to do everything possible to nurture and secure the recovery and put Britain back on a solid course for strong and balanced growth.

Second, once that recovery is secured – and the private sector is once again strong enough to drive the upturn without exceptional support from the Government – we must carefully but decisively bring public borrowing back down fairly and without damaging front line public services.

Our strategy for growth is not at the expense of the tough deficit reduction plan we have set out; rather it is absolutely central to it. Because it is growth that creates jobs, stimulates demand and brings in revenue.

We know that the strong and balanced growth that we need will not materialise if we simply do nothing, stand back and leave it all to unbridled market dogma. If we have learnt one thing from the global recession of the last two years, it is that unfettered and unregulated markets cannot by themselves be relied upon to deliver a fair future for all of our citizens.

Instead of a gamble on crude laissez faire economic theories we need a new industrial strategy for this country founded on an open partnership of business, people and government – doing all we can to support enterprise as the engine of economic growth and unleashing the entrepreneurial, innovative and dynamic talents we have in Britain.

Encouraging those sectors in which Britain has – or can build – a global advantage; so Britain can truly lead the world.

It means where necessary, investing now to provide the conditions in which private enterprise in these sectors can thrive.

Sectors such as advanced manufacturing, clean energy, high speed rail, pharmaceuticals, science and research; and of course the digital industries – on which I want to focus my remarks this morning.

I want us to consider today the Britain of 2020 – the Britain we can create at the leading edge of these knowledge industries, but also a Britain which leads the world in open, personal, interactive public services and in the new politics.

I want to make a radical set of proposals which include transfers and shifts in existing spending, including being prepared to cancel current projects, and which – together with more detailed plans set out by the Chancellor in the budget on Wednesday – will help us to save billions of pounds a year in public sector costs in the next few years.

I want Britain to be the world leader in the digital economy which will create over a quarter of a million skilled jobs by 2020; the world leader in public service delivery where we can give the greatest possible voice and choice to citizens, parents patients and consumers; and the world leader in the new politics where that voice for feedback and deliberative decisions can transform the way we make local and national policies and decisions.

Underpinning the digital transformation that we are likely to see over the coming decade is the creation of the next generation of the web – what is called the semantic web, or the web of linked data.

This next generation web is a simple concept, but I believe it has the potential to be just as revolutionary – just as disruptive to existing business and organisational models – as the web was itself, moving us from a web of managing documents and files to a web of managing data and information – and thus opening up the possibility of by-passing current digital bottlenecks and getting direct answers to direct requests for data and information.

It will change fundamentally the way we conduct business – with new enterprises by-passing traditional media communications and governmental organisations: new enterprises spun off from the new data, information and knowledge that flows more freely.

And in both the content and delivery of public services the next stage of the web will transform the ability of citizens to tailor the services they need to their requirements, to feedback constantly on their success, to interact with the professionals who deliver them and to put the citizen not the public servant in control.

Today I can announce the first funding for the next stage of this research – £30m to support the creation of a new institute, the institute of web science – based here in Britain and working with government and British business to realise the social and economic benefits of advances in the web.

It will assemble the best of world scientists and researchers and be headed by Sir Tim Berners Lee, the British inventor of the world wide web – and the leading web science expert Professor Nigel Shadbolt.

This will help place the UK at the cutting edge of research on the semantic web and other emerging web and internet technologies, and ensure that government is taking the right funding decisions to position the UK as a world leader. And we will invite universities and private sector web developers and companies to join this collaborative project.

So building on this next generation web and the radical opening up of information and data – and therefore more power in people’s hands – the steps towards achieving this ambition to become the leader in the next stage of the digital revolution are three-fold:

First to digitalise – to make Britain the leading superfast broadband digital power creating 100 per cent access to every home;

Second to personalise – seizing the opportunities for voice and choice in our public services by opening up data and using the power of digital technology to transform the way citizens interact with government;

Third to economise – in the Pre-Budget Report we set out our determination to find £11 billion of savings by driving up operational efficiency, much of it enabled by the increased transparency and reduced costs made available by new technology.

On Wednesday the Chancellor will set out more detailed plans for delivering these savings, totalling, overall, £20 billion.

But over the period ahead I want to go much further in harnessing the power of technology to refashion the structures and workings of government – delivering efficiencies not simply in the back room; but also looking at how the new technologies can open the door to a reinvention of the core policy-making processes and towards a renewal of politics itself.

Let me address each of these stages in more detail.

Britain is uniquely equipped to lead the digital age. We are already an international hub for creativity and commerce. We have the most lucrative e-commerce market in Europe.

And more than a quarter of our jobs – 7 million – are already in information, communications and technology related roles – a higher proportion than in France, Germany or America.

This country has always been at its best when it has led the world in its pursuit of creativity and innovation and in the promotion of fairness and liberty. And in so many ways these issues have come together in the extraordinary development of the world wide web.

It is already creating formidable new businesses and transforming the way existing businesses operate. From online shopping and banking to checking train times or booking flights. From catching up with the news to staying in touch with our family and friends – the web has already profoundly changed the way many of us go about our daily lives.

And it’s not just about convenience – it’s about quality of life too.

The other day I heard how one of Britain’s leading musicians, who spends most of his time abroad, reads his young son a bedtime story from thousands of miles away using Skype. And millions of us can now spend more time with our families because technology allows people to work easily from home.

And although hard to imagine, the revolution we have witnessed so far is only just beginning. The next stage will be radical expansion and enhancement of two-way communication between service providers and homes that new superfast broadband is beginning to make possible.

The Google smart meters programme delivers real time information on home energy use to mobiles and office desktops, helping people to manage energy consumption when they are out – and so save money.

And it could soon be commonplace for children to continue learning together after the school bell has rung by studying in virtual classrooms; and for doctors to hold video consultations from their surgeries with patients at home to diagnose and in some cases even treat them.

The internet revolution is quite literally creating a different world.

But just imagine if you weren’t part of that world.

Imagine if you had never accessed the Internet.

Imagine if you had no access to the best deals on the virtual high street – that can save you on average £560 a year by shopping and paying bills online.

Well that is reality for around one in five adults in the UK. 21% of UK adults have never accessed the internet. That’s over a fifth trapped in a second tier of citizenship, denied what I increasingly think of as a fundamental freedom in the modern world: to be part of the internet and technology revolution.

This is unfair, economically inefficient and wholly unacceptable.

Consider the advent of electricity. How acceptable would it have been to say that only some people should have access to electricity?

Superfast broadband is the electricity of the digital age. And I believe it must be for all – not just for some.

We have already decided to commit public funding to ensure existing broadband reaches nearly every household in Britain by 2012.

Now government must decide what action it will take to bring about universal access to the next generation of superfast broadband, simultaneously ensuring the highest quality content is available online and available to all.

The choice with broadband infrastructure is clear. We can allow unbridled market forces to provide a solution on its own terms and according to its own timetable as others would do.

The result would be superfast broadband coverage determined not even by need or social justice, or by the national interest but by profitability alone. This would open a lasting, pervasive and damaging new digital divide.

It would allow the country to become split between a fast-track and a slow-track to the future, between those fortunate to live in densely-populated areas and those not.

But to concede a willingness to have superfast broadband reserved for some rather than for all also betrays a total failure to grasp the scale of the educational, economic and social opportunities that it brings.

Because the truth is that a government that is prepared to allow a digital divide to grow would be one that creates a deeper and more pernicious divide than simply one of accessing e-mail or online shopping services.

Faster broadband speeds will bring new, cheaper, more personalised and more effective public services to people; it will bring games and entertainment options with new levels of sophistication; it will make accessing goods and services immeasurably easier; it will enrich our democracy by giving people new ways of communicating complaining and challenging vested interests.

In short, the world available to those with superfast broadband will be unimaginably richer than to those without.

So one vision for digital Britain would create two nations: one digitally privileged, one digitally deprived.

And this will mean a massive penalty in economic development to those who are denied access because of a failure of government to rise to the challenge where markets may fail.

The alternative is our vision: ensuring, not simply hoping for, universal coverage.

We say that Britain’s digital future – must be a future for all – not just for some. But if every household is to benefit, then it is fair that every household contributes to meeting this goal.

That is why we have chosen to raise a small levy on each household phone line – 50p per month, about the price of a pint of milk – to help fund a partnership with the private sector for a superfast broadband network right across Britain.

Building a universal fast-speed digital infrastructure is necessary but not sufficient.

High quality content – whether it is news, entertainment, games, networking sites or information services – relies on maintaining the conditions for innovation and competition online.

So in addition to the measures in our digital economy bill, I say clearly today, we will support the independence of Ofcom to ensure creativity, diversity and high standards. And we will retain the BBC licence fee to ensure a strong, independent BBC remains at the forefront of providing world-class quality content across different media.

So we are:

– Investing now in bringing superfast broadband and new technology to all;

– Creating the right environment for innovation and competition in the digital sector; and

– Leading the next generation of the web and internet.

But now we must use this technology to open up data with the aim of providing every citizen in Britain with true ownership and accountability over the services they demand from government.

And in doing so we can put in place the best most personalised but universally accessible digital public services in the world, and harness the power of technology to economise – shaking up Whitehall and making us the most efficient, open and responsive government in the world.

Building on the outstanding work Sir Tim and Nigel Shadbolt who have been leading on ‘making public data public’, I can now announce that we are determined to go further in breaking down the walled garden of government, using technology and information to provide greater transparency on the workings of Whitehall and give everyone more say over the services they receive.

In January we launched data.gov.uk, a single, easy-to-use website to access public data. And even in the short space of time since then, the interest this initiative has attracted – globally – has been very striking. The site already has more than three thousand data sets available – and more are being added all the time. And in the past month the Office for National Statistics has opened up access for web developers to over two billion data items right down to local neighbourhood level.

The Department for Transport and the transport industry are today making available the core reference datasets that contain the precise names and co-ordinates of all 350 thousand bus stops, railway stations and airports in Britain.

Public transport timetables and real-time running information is currently owned by the operating companies. But we will work to free it up – and from today we will make it a condition of future franchises that this data will be made freely available.

And following the strong support in our recent consultation, I can confirm that from 1st April, we will be making a substantial package of information held by ordnance survey freely available to the public, without restrictions on re-use. Further details on the package and government’s response to the consultation will be published by the end of March.

And I can also tell you today that in the autumn the Government will publish online an inventory of all non-personal datasets held by departments and arms-length bodies – a “domesday book” for the 21st century.

The programme will be managed by the National Archives and it will be overseen by a new open data board which will report on the first edition of the new domesday book by April next year. The Government will then produce its detailed proposals including how this work can be extended to the wider public sector.

To inform the continuing development of making public data public, the National Archives will produce a consultation paper on a definition of the “public task” for public data, to be published later this year.

The new domesday book will for the first time allow the public to access in one place information on each set of data including its size, source, format, content, timeliness, cost and quality. And there will be an expectation that departments will release each of these datasets, or account publicly for why they are not doing so.

Any business or individual will be free to embed this public data in their own websites, and to use it in creative ways within their own applications.

For example, Jobcentre Plus now offers a job search widget which can be put on any other website and a similar application for mobile phones.

And independent developers are using the information we’ve published for innovative new websites and mobile phone applications such as ‘asborometer’ – built by one person in just five days. It finds your position using GPS and tells you how many people have been served with an asbo in that area. When it launched last month it was the number one free application in the iTunes store after a reported 80,000 downloads in two days.

We’re determined that government websites should be efficient and meet people’s needs – easy to find, easy to use, and fully accessible. And in our relentless drive to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the way we use websites to meet this goal, we have already closed 900 now unnecessary government websites, with plans to close nearly 500 more. And we will set new challenging standards of quality and accountability for government websites – including a requirement that each one allows feedback and engagement with citizens themselves.  From today no new website will be allowed unless it fully meets these requirements.

Six years ago we launched Directgov, as the first version of a joined-up view of government on the web.

It now has 25 million visits a month, offering in one place a single portal of information for all citizens on all our public services. And by the end of May, developers will be able to use content from the Directgov website – for example, to translate it into another language, to rearrange it so that it is more relevant for a specific local community, to alert people when it changes, or to let people create their own personal tailored view of Directgov.

But we need to go much further.

So our goal is to replace this first generation of e-government with a much more interactive second generation form of digital engagement which we are calling Mygov.

Companies that use technology to interact with their users are positioning themselves for the future, and government must do likewise.  Mygov marks the end of the one-size-fits-all, man-from-the-ministry-knows-best approach to public services.

Mygov will constitute a radical new model for how public services will be delivered and for how citizens engage with government – making interaction with government as easy as internet banking or online shopping. This open, personalised platform will allow us to deliver universal services that are also tailored to the needs of each individual; to move from top-down, monolithic websites broadcasting public service information in the hope that the people who need help will find it – to government on demand.

And rather than civil servants being the sole authors and editors, we will unleash data and content to the community to turn into applications that meet genuine needs. This does not require large-scale government IT Infrastructure; the ‘open source’ technology that will make it happen is freely available. All that is required is the will and willingness of the centre to give up control.

This bold new approach will transform the way services are delivered but, more importantly, it will be the vehicle through which citizens will come to control the services that are so important to their lives and communities. With Mygov, citizens will be in control – choosing the content relevant to them and determining their level of engagement. And their feedback will in turn help us to improve services.

With the rapid development of technology consumers today expect so much more – but when it comes to government they don’t always seem to get it. With Mygov they will.

Today you can book and pay for a holiday online in minutes. Why can’t you do that for a blue badge for a disabled person? With Mygov you will.

You can deal with your bank when and where you want, at any time that suits you. Why can’t you do that with your Jobcentre? With Mygov you will.

These days websites tell you what other services or products might interest you. Why don’t government websites do that? With Mygov they will.

And recognising the frustrations of having to prove ID in different ways to access different services, we have launched the access to public services initiative to provide a shared service across government, allowing users of government services to identify themselves simply and definitively, and to access those services online.

Online, Mygov will give people a simple “dashboard” to manage their pensions, tax credits or child benefits; pay their council tax; fix their doctors or hospital appointment and control their own treatment; apply for the schools of their choice and communicate with their children’s teachers; or get a new passport or driving licence – all available when and where they need it.

And it’s not just about gains for citizens either. Businesses can benefit too. By the end of the year, all public service contracts over 20 thousand pounds will be available on a single, free, easy-to-use online portal, and the data will be available free of charge for others to re-use.

To help us realise this vision I am delighted that Martha Lane Fox has agreed to broaden her current role to become the UK’s digital champion and help us establish in the cabinet office – at the heart of government – a new digital public services unit.

The unit will be charged with ensuring that departments achieve rapid progress on transferring and transforming services to online channels.

It will ensure those services are designed around the needs of those who use them most.

And it will put the 4 million people who are among the heaviest users of government services – but who have never used the internet – at the heart of our strategy rather than letting them literally slip through the digital net.

Increasingly the digital net will be the social safety net – the only way to extend access to new, higher quality and more efficient digital services, to all of our citizens.

Pricewaterhousecoopers has estimated that the Government can save £900 million a year just by bringing those who don’t have access to the internet online so that they can carry out transactions with public services more quickly and efficiently.

We know that for every transaction with a public service that is done online rather than over the telephone we can save around £3.30 in administration and staffing costs.  And using the internet rather than filling in paper forms or writing letters can typically save £12 each time.

But the total savings would be far bigger if all public services could be accessed online.

So I want the new unit to act as a dynamic force for change within government helping to quickly drive significant cost savings with radically increased digital public service delivery.

But this drive to economise must go further than the delivery of public services – for the coming second digital revolution also offers the opportunity to radically refashion government and Whitehall departments.

A restructuring that means we become the most efficient, open and responsive government in the world. A reform that should allow us to make major savings on running costs – while providing better services to the citizen.

Traditionally Whitehall departments have in varying proportions comprised three main elements. First, policy teams including people who oversee or regulate front-line delivery agencies. Second, a set of public-facing, often transactional services. And third, a series of back office functions essentially supporting the other two.

The power of the new digital technology now gives us the chance to transform this model: to make Whitehall and the wider public sector more efficient and more effective.

Every industry has felt the force of the internet’s ability to empower consumers and increase transparency. Now is our opportunity to be one of the world’s leading governments addressing these challenges – to oversee an enormous shift from what many have in the past seen  as  a  too  paternalistic, closed Whitehall to an open, interactive responsive enabler  where citizens personalise shape and ultimately control their services.

I have already set out how I believe Mygov can transform the nature and cost of the Government’s public facing services.  But the same is potentially true of the other two core civil service functions.

Take the back office. The Government is committed to achieving £4bn of savings from back office functions by 2012-13. To drive this ambitious programme forward, we intend to establish a number of business service companies that will handle the routine back office functions of Whitehall departments.

The prototype for this new approach already exists – the shared services centre in the department for work and pensions, which already supports 140,000 staff in three departments and plans to take on four more in the next year. DWP also has plans to establish its shared services as a trading fund within the next twelve months, and will explore in parallel the scope for bringing further commercial expertise into its work.

Our aim and intention is that these public business service companies will use modern digital platforms wherever possible, and aim to be leaders in green technology and working practices. And as they demonstrate progress there is no reason why these companies should not in time draw in private capital, giving rise to the possibility of substantial capital receipts.

I believe that a similar approach can also be used to drive down the Government’s property costs. Significant efficiency improvements have been made over recent years and overall costs are now £740 million a year lower in real terms than in 2003.

But operating costs can still be reduced further. We have committed to save £5 billion per year in running costs and dispose of £20 billion surplus property over the next decade.  To achieve this we will look to create a number of specialist government held property vehicles run on commercial lines.

But the impact of technology on central government should not be confined to the back office and transactional services. We have within our grasp the opportunity to harness new technology to deliver a major step forward in giving the public a greater influence over the Whitehall policy making process.

Revitalising our politics, our governance and our democracy means going beyond simply increased openness about previously secret information – it requires the policy-making monopoly of ministers and the civil service to be challenged – where practicable – through a step change in the opportunities for people to engage with and interact with government in its policy proposals.

And it also means a less centralised approach to government. The Chancellor will publish on Wednesday Ian Smith’s report on how to secure a further substantial transfer of civil servants out of London and the South East to other parts of the country. I intend to build on this in the next parliament with a further strengthening of the role of regional ministers and a streamlining and amalgamation of central government functions at the regional level.

At the same time I want to look again at whether we need so many independent Whitehall departments in the age of digital government. Most policy and delivery issues cut across the departmental boundaries – and it is not clear – despite much  innovation and experimentation with cross cutting units projects and public service agreements – how the traditional silo-based Whitehall approach can best be overcome.

I have said there will be at least a 20 per cent cut in the senior civil service paybill and the Chancellor will provide more details of this in the Budget. And as we make these radical changes we can also reduce the number of Whitehall departments.

But as well as rethinking how the different parts of the Government machine can be streamlined and decentralised we must urgently explore too how all practical means for giving the public far greater influence over the Whitehall and Westminster policy-making processes.

The web and the internet offers us a chance to reinvent “deliberative democracy” for the modern age.

Digital government will help open the door to new ways of enabling people to influence and even decide public policy. And it will give them better and more comprehensive access to the information they need to make informed choices.

Ultimately this can provide the basis for them to participate in deliberative processes to formulate policy – setting off a historic shift in the way public policy is made.

This includes opening more policy development to wider scrutiny, for example through the use of e-petitions and deliberative events.

Since it was established at the end of 2006, the number 10 e-petitions service has received more than 70 thousand petitions. There have been more than 12 million signatures placed and the Government has replied with more than 8 million e-mail responses.

Each week I record a podcast and use twitter most days. Number10.gov.uk carries out daily conversations with more than 1.7 million followers. There have been almost 2 million views of our images on flickr and 4.3 million views of our films and videos on YouTube.

But we can do much more. Today, we are launching a brand new Number 10 iPhone application that will bring news, video and audio from the downing street website to potentially millions of users completely free of charge.

So what I am talking about is in essence a new partnership to govern – an invitation for people to directly share in the task of government that is there to serve them.

And I am today tasking every department to identify the far wider scope for deliberative engagements with the public, specifiying the outcome expected from such engagement.

The digital revolution is creating a different world. And I know that we in Britain have the spirit and the talent to take the lead in that new world.

The question is whether we are bold enough to make the necessary decisions today to build Britain’s digital future.

My message is clear.

We have the courage to invest in that future and secure the growth and jobs it offers not just today but for generations to come.

We have the determination to harness the new digital technology to shake up Whitehall and drive a radical reshaping of government – focused on giving people a greater say over the policies that affect their lives and the services on which they depend.

And above all – we have the resolve to make sure that the immense opportunities that Britain’s digital future offers us are available to all – not just to some.

Below is the text of the speech made by Gordon Brown, the then Prime Minister, to the Progressive Governance Conference in 2010.

Over the last decade Policy Network has performed a momentous role in the development of progressive thinking, bringing us together as a global progressive family.

Few organisations could have achieved more in such a short space of time.

And in particular, let me say what an honour it is to welcome Prime Ministers Stoltenberg and Zapatero to Britain.

Prime Minister Stoltenberg has been a global leader on development and climate change and let me thank him and Norway for their pioneering initiatives on health education and environment.

And Prime Minister Zapatero has inspired the world with his passion and programme for social rights, his commitment to equality for women, and his determination that Spain will lead in international aid for the poorest countries of the world.

By the actions they have taken, founded on the progressive beliefs they hold, both Prime Minister Stoltenberg and Prime Minister Zapatero have changed the world for the better and forever and we are very proud of all that they have achieved.

And today, I want us to imagine what people will say of us all, a century from now.

People look back on the moments that are the turning points in world history.

1789. 1848. 1945. 1989.

Only in retrospect do people see the significance of the times they are living through.

But in the last two years our world has been suffering not just an ordinary economic downturn but the first crisis of globalisation.

It is the first crisis of a world being totally transformed by the scale of global financial flows, by the global sourcing of goods and by the speed scale and scope of globalisation itself – a world of massive new opportunities but also of massive new uncertainties and insecurities too.

What we have experienced is not the usual inflation-driven economic crises like we have seen in the past, but a wholesale crisis that has gone right to the heart of the global financial system itself.

And so it is time for us to draw conclusions about the new framework and policies we need to build a stronger and fairer world economy that will meet the needs of its citizens in this new global age.

Quite simply: without radical change we will not be able to emerge from the crisis into a stronger, fairer, more stable future. And so here are my proposals;

I believe first of all that we now need nothing short of a world constitution for the global financial system.

Second I believe that that each country needs national growth and jobs strategies founded on innovation and skills, but also – and this is my key point – growth for each us will be lower and therefore low growth will affect all of us, unless there is a strategy for global growth agreed between the G20 countries.

Third I believe that as we developed the skilled jobs of the future we should see social mobility as the modern route to social justice and devise together the radical measures to massively accelerate the rate of social mobility in our societies.

And fourth with globalisation we have a unique chance to recognise our global independence as citizens and work towards a truly global society: towards a world free from climate change catastrophe ; and a world free from terrorism, poverty, disease, illiteracy and inequality.

Together my proposals are the modern progressive way of achieving our historic goals of economic progress social justice and environmental care.

So let me begin with proposals for financial reform, because the lesson of the financial crisis is a progressive one — that markets need morals.

Let me say clearly that we need successful and profitable banks for our economies to flourish.

But left to their own devices, they do not always self-regulate and self-correct; sometimes instead they self-destruct.

The great myth the right are spreading through their friends in the press is that government caused this crisis and that government spending is prolonging it.

But what caused this crisis was unfettered markets which imploded and destroyed growth.

The last two years have exposed free market fundamentalism, destroyed the idea that the private sector working badly is inherently better than the public sector working well.

And they have shown that while markets must be free, they should never be values-free – that if they are to work, they must be underpinned by the same ideas of fairness, responsibility, hard work and just rewards that we celebrate at home and at work.

And either we will learn these full lessons from this financial crisis – and advance a global growth strategy that delivers both jobs and social mobility – or we will relapse into the old ways of business as usual and bring crisis upon ourselves anew.

And that is why we in Britain have a radical set of policies to transform financial services and why:

We are ensuring that the public money loaned to the nation’s banks is fully repaid.

Why we have set new rules for financial bonuses.

Why we have set a 50% tax on this year’s bonuses over £25,000 and raised the tax rate on earnings above £150,000.

And why we have restructured our banks by ensuring they have not only sufficient day to day liquidity but sufficient capital to withstand the crisis.

We are doing what we can in Britain to give our banks a sound capital base from which to move forward.

But we need a global solution: common rules for capital and liquidity, common standards for supervision, common rules for bonuses and a shared way of assessing the contribution banks should make to society, free of the unfair and disproportionate use of regulatory and tax havens which penalise countries doing the right things.

So we in Britain hope to work with the people gathered here, and those from other countries, to develop a new world constitution for the global financial economy which will deliver these objectives.

And just as we began the debate about the best way for the sharing of risk and reward with banks with our report back in December, we are now discussing with the IMF and other countries the prospect of a global levy that will embody the contribution global banks should make to the public interest.

I hope that all these things can be agreed in the coming months in the meetings in Canada and Korea. Because one thing is clear; either governments cooperate internationally, or the invisible hand of the unfettered market will fail us again.

But let me talk of a second truth we have recognsied: that it is not by chance but by adopting social democratic policies that countries have got on the road to recovery round the world.

Here in Britain, if the experience of the last recession of government inaction had been repeated, people’s chances of having a job would have been four times worse after they became unemployed, repossessions twice as bad, and company insolvencies two and a half times worse.

So the recovery did not happen by accident it is happening because of our actions – our interventions to secure jobs, to maintain mortgages and to help businesses large and small.

Of course nothing is inevitable – neither progress nor retreat; it is a question of whether we are prepared to fight to secure the recovery, or will allow our opponents to put it at risk.

And now we face a new choice for 2010 about that fiscal stimulus -whether to continue the stimulus to make sure that a fragile global recovery does not dip into a further recession or whether we take the necessary measures to ensure that growth in 2010 is stronger and more stable.

So this is the critical question economies round the world face now: whether to go for growth in 2010. Progressive rounds the world say rightly that we have to go for growth and do nothing to put the recovery at risk.

Put simply today’s letter to the FT by over 50 leading economists argues that the first priority must be robust growth. I say to the British people this is not the time to put the recovery at risk, this is the time to make sure that growth and jobs are secured.

But instead of admitting the mistakes of private banks and financial institutions, this well financed right wing are not only trying to blame governments for the crisis, but trying to use legitimate concerns about deficits to scare people into accepting a bleak and austere picture of the future for the majority and then to use it as a pretext for public services to be marginalised at precisely the moment they should become smarter and more personalised. And they are using the cloak of action of debt to conceal the hard fact that their real position is that they remain wedded -as they have always been – to an ideology that would always make government the problem and deny people the helping hand that government can be.

It was said of the Hapsburgs that they would never learn by their mistakes. This is true of the Conservatives. So instead of helping the recovery, in our country Conservative dislike bordering on hatred of government action would risk the recovery now.

And so I am confident that if we are prepared to fight for our progressive values, we can continue to win the battle of ideas in the years to come. I am convinced that the growth of the future belongs to those countries which make and do things once again.

But beyond a transformation in financial services, we need a growth strategy where we can rebuild from secure foundations of new industries and new jobs.

That includes a strategy for bringing our deficit down. And we have been crystal clear that we will halve the deficit over the next four years – indeed more than halve it.

That does mean that we must raise taxes and cut some programmes. But the vast majority of the increase in our deficit since the global financial crisis hit the UK has been caused by a decline in estimated tax revenue – and so we must redouble our efforts to restore growth and get people back into work.

But we cannot rely on markets alone to make the right decisions

The creative, digital, scientific and low carbon revolutions are simply too big and too important to the rest of the economy to be left to chance.

Up until now, with the banks failing to make the right decisions and finance has not done enough to serve industry.

And that is why we are creating funds and institutions that take a long term view – helping businesses to access the finance they need to start and grow and supporting the creation of a modern, low carbon infrastructure.

And it is why we have decided that as a nation we will

– Back British scientists

– invest in renewable energy

– give priority to biotechnology

– And encourage digital and creative industries

And even as we implement our tough deficit reduction plan – to more than halve the deficit in four years – we will remain resolutely focused on progressive priorities – protecting the key front line services and targeting investment to take our country forward.

Take just one example; we are investing the most ambitious plan of any country to ensure a digital Britain for all.

In fact already as a result of the expansion of digital, the UK is the world’s leading internet gateway with 36% of internet traffic routed through UK servers.

The first step to the future is the delivery of the universal service commitment, which will give virtually every household in the UK a broadband service of around 2 megabytes per second. The World Bank estimates that every 10% increase in broadband penetration results in a per capita increase in GDP of over 1% households offline are missing out on savings of £560 per year from shopping and paying bills online.

The next stage is superfast broadband – our next generation access plans will see government invest over £1 billion between over the next seven years. For some people it will mean massive increases in the speed they have, by maybe as much as 50 times more access available to 90% of the population by 2017.

The third stage is to reach the final 10% – satellites could have a role to play, as could mobile broadband – and that is our ambition. The body which will be set up to advise on how best to use the new investment to deliver next generation access will advise on how best to reach the final 10%.

And to achieve this we will invest one billion pounds of public money in private sector projects. You might think that a policy of partnership to achieve the digital revolution is so obvious that not even a right wing party would oppose it. But far from being modern, the Conservative view has retreated in Britain to the old one- to let the market decide everything.

But we want every family and every business and not just some to benefit from the new technology – and because we know that under a policy of leaving it to the market only some will benefit from high quality broadband – and poorer areas and remote communities will be denied it or offered it at such a cost that they will be unable to afford it.

So when people ask why we in Britain are prepared to offer direct support to the business community of a total of £1 billion in incentives and support so that we become a world-leading digital economy, it is because we want to prevent a digital deficit and ensure digital access for all .

And a modern industrial society embraces direct support for a balanced energy policy to combat climate change and dependence upon oil and that is why we are investing in using thousands of miles of coastline and shallow waters to become the world’s largest offshore wind power. It is our answer to those sceptics and climate change deniers who say we can do nothing about climate change.

And my answer to all these questions about government investment through a crisis is simple; it is because these policies taken together will bring 2 million new skilled jobs to our country, set the course for employment growth over the next few years, and quite simply because some things are too important to jobs and our shared prosperity to be left to the market alone.

We need not just a new financial markets policy and an industrial policy for the jobs of the future. But our task is so much wider still – because for the progressive left the question is not simply how many decent jobs are there in total – but who are they going to, and whose lives will they change? And so let me talk about my third proposal – to take radical action to accelerate the rate of social mobility in our societies.

For the left employment has always been more than a way to survive but a ladder of opportunity for people hoping for a better life for themselves and their families. That is why we strive not only for full employment but for decent work – not simply for jobs at any price, but for work with prospects that can lift those on modest incomes into the middle, and the middle class onwards to the top.

Time and time again when I travel around Britain I meet people who would never have gone to university and got a decent job without Labour’s help for family finances making it easier for young people to stay on at school and invest in their futures. And I do not understand how the Conservatives can turn around to this generation and say that there is only limited room at the top and the vast majority of young people should resign themselves to never reaching it.

That, to me, is a betrayal of Britain’s future – and so let me tell you about three ways we are backing parents’ aspirations with government action to give children springboards to soar from.

First; because we know that the first two years of a child’s life are more important in determining outcomes than the next twenty years, we have invested in early learning with Sure Start children’s centres – in every community not just for a few – a policy that the Conservatives would put into reverse.

Second; we have pledged that every child who needs it will get one to one tuition in the state sector, the kind of personalisation that those who can afford to pay take for granted in private schools. This too has not been supported by the Conservatives.

Third; we have raised the education and training leaving age to 18, so that every young person enters adulthood with the chance of an apprenticeship, a place at college or the option of university. This too has not been supported by the Conservatives.

And the evidence suggests that if we maintain effective investment and reform in our schools and children’s centres, the proportion of low-income children achieving five good GCSEs could rise by around half between now and 2020 – and the proportion getting A-level equivalent qualifications at 19 will almost double over the same period.

So we know what works – and we have shown in Britain that we can unleash social mobility when we both believe in and invest in the potential of each and every child. And let us tell the truth. Conservative policies would remove these opportunities from young families – Sure Start at risk, educational maintenance allowances at risk free personal tuition in schools at risk, education to 18 all at risk. Instead of defending ordinary families they would kick the ladder of opportunity away from them. And instead of supporting the middle classes, their policies would hurt the middle classes.

And so today let us be confident and proud to be progressives. Because today the left has three winning arguments;

– that only we can regulate the market in the people’s interest

– that only we can pursue the industrial policy that will deliver the jobs of the future and

– only we can ensure a social mobility revolution that means birth is not destiny

And when people say that times when money is tighter are not good ones for progressives, I say that is exactly when people need a progressive government even more. And so on every test of domestic policy, it is the parties of the centre-left which have the answers.

But we also have a further characteristic that makes our values profoundly of the time – and it would be remiss not to mention it at this great progressive governance conference which has brought people together from every continent.

We are, of course, the true internationalists – the people who know we are stronger together than we ever could be apart.

And I know that people have been deeply concerned by recent developments on the British right, by the decision of the British Conservative Party to leave the mainstream right grouping in the European Parliament to join an alliance of the extremes and the fringes. So let me reassure you today; as long as I remain Prime Minister, Britain will stay firmly in Europe’s mainstream, never in its backwaters, and we will resist the attempts of the Conservatives to pull Britain into isolation and irrelevance.

The obsession of the Tories with narrow nationalism is totally out of tune with the modern world – because people today know that no one country can solve terrorism or conflict or poverty or climate change on their own, that there is no firm line separating what happens ‘over there’ from what happens ‘over here’.

Earlier this month, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of the release of Nelson Mandela. It was an event I will never forget – not simply because of what it meant for South Africa, but because of what it said about the ability of people of good conscience to impact on what happens a continent away. As Nelson Mandela himself said, he was the servant of a worldwide cause.

As I said on the anniversary, one day we will explain to our children why so many streets, student union buildings, council chambers, town squares and even people in Britain are named after this man from so far away. We will tell them about a great uprising of hope – a time when ordinary people stood up for justice, and we prevailed.

It reminded me of that amazing video that was made for Live8. It shows great social movements in history – but it pans past the people who made the headlines and focuses in on the people behind them.

So in the great abolitionist rallies it goes past Wilberforce to focus on a face in the crowd. Then they show the votes for women campaign and go past the Pankhurst to those who protested alongside them. And then it shows the march on Washington but pans past Dr King to focus on all those he had mobilised to march with him.

The point it makes, of course, is that great change only occurs when leaders inspire others to follow – when they stand up for justice and pass its torch along, person to person, to build a movement, first hundreds, then thousands and then finally millions strong.

That is the lesson those campaigners of the past are trying to teach us. If we listen, we can hear them whisper from the past – hear them remind us that change never comes without a fight, but when we fight, progressives can change the course of history.

And so while the right are marshalling the vested interests, we are marshalling a movement, fighting not for a candidate but a cause. Let us never forget that throughout all time there have been people who have fought and won – progressives who have brought great change starting with their courage to will it.

We’ve done it before – we will do it again. There is nothing to do now, but begin.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Let me express the NHS simply.

Our commitment is national.

Health is a fundamental human right.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who of us knows what costly treatments we may need?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Every family has its own story to tell.

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

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

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

Can I not see another’s woe?

And not be in sorrow too?

Can I see another’s grief?

And not seek for kind relief?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She sang the impossible dream.

And why?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– Operation waiting times less than 18 weeks

– A&E less than four hours

– Cancer specialist seen within two weeks

– Cancer diagnosis within one week

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

These are new priorities for our new times.

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

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

Each with their own stars to reach for.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Why?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The answer is because they look to the future.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

– all and not just some banks stabilised

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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