Tag: Tony Blair

Below is the text of a statement made by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, following the death of the Queen Mother. The statement was released on 30th March 2002.

During her long and extraordinary life, her grace, her sense of duty and her remarkable zest for life made her loved and admired by people of all ages and backgrounds, revered within our borders and far beyond.   She was part of the fabric of our nation and we were all immensely proud of her.

Along with her husband, King George VI, she was also a symbol of our country’s decency and courage.

Her bravery, when she refused point blank to leave London and her husband’s side during the Blitz epitomised both her own indomitable spirit and the spirit of the nation in its darkest hours. Later as Queen Mother, she was a unifying figure for Britain, loved by all, sharing in its joys and troubles.

But respect for her went far beyond Britain.  Throughout the Commonwealth and the world she was greeted with instant affection and acclaim. Above all, she was motivated by the most powerful sense of duty and service, enhanced by her profound religious conviction.

She believed that the Royal Family’s role and duty was to serve the British nation and she carried out that duty with total and selfless devotion.

Our thoughts are with The Queen, and particularly so after the sad loss of Princess Margaret, and with all the Royal Family, with whom Britain mourns, united in grief at our loss and giving thanks for a life of extraordinary service to our country.

Below is the text of the speech made by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, on the future of New Labour. The speech was made at the LSE on 12th March 2002.

Just under a decade ago a gathering like this would have been a wake; raking over the ashes of Labour’s fourth election defeat, with everyone asking, can we ever win? Is the left in Britain doomed? Is this the end of progressive politics?

Today the contrast is almost taken for granted. Labour has won an historic second term. As if we had been in power for decades. The Right is seen as divided and incapable.

We are emerging from a long period in which Tory values held sway; elitism; selfish individualism; the belief that there is no such thing as society and its international equivalent, insularity and isolationism, which led Britain to turn its back on Europe and the world.

I passionately, profoundly, reject these values. I reject elitism because I believe that our country will only ever fulfil its true potential when all of our people fulfil their potential. And there is such a thing as society. As communities and as an international community, we do best when we work in co-operation with others.

Our values – our belief in equality, in progress, our belief in the power of community to be a force for good, at home and abroad – these are the values that hold strong now.

But as Mario Cuomo once said: “you campaign in poetry: you govern in prose”. There is a danger in the day to day business of Government – keeping the economy on track, getting the details of health and education improvements sorted out, dealing with the innumerable practical obstacles – large and small – strewn across the path of progress – that we lose sight of the destination. The destination to me is clear: to build a Britain that is a modern, tolerant, outward-looking nation where power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many not the few. Our basic analysis is that people are held back from fulfilling their true potential – by economic failure, poor education, poverty, prejudice, discrimination, class, inadequate access to top quality services. Our job is to liberate that potential; to remove those barriers. To make aspiration and achievement not the ambition of a privileged few but of all; where the limit to that achievement is merit, not birth, class, race or gender.

Britain under the Conservatives was a long way from that lofty ideal. And because we had failed to modernise ourselves, for a long time Labour lacked the credibility to be able to win power, or even had we won power, to deliver it.

Now two election victories later, people are asking: can we carry it through? Is there a core of beliefs that will sustain us? Will we be submerged by the slings and arrows of an outrageous opposition, furious we are in power at all, never mind in power for a full second term for the first time in our history.

The answer is to take stock. Lift our eyes from the immediate and hold high again the ideal we are striving for. And then return to work with renewed energy and determination.

And, of course, patience: change takes time. Yet consider: an economy that is stable, has weathered the downturn better than many, with the best economic record in Europe and the lowest unemployment in the Western world; the first clear signs of public service improvement, certainly in education and increasingly in health; the first concerted attack on social exclusion any Government has undertaken with increased participation rates at work, one million children out of poverty, Sure Start and other programmes giving deprived children at least a fighting chance; overall crime down and police numbers the highest ever; and Britain’s position and influence in the world incomparably higher than 5 years ago. In all sorts of small ways – from banning handguns, to the equal age of consent, to the trebling of women MPs and the first black Ministers and Muslim MPs – the country has a different feel to the harshness of the Thatcher years.

But yes, naturally, a huge amount remains to do. Too many people still wait an unacceptably long time in the NHS. The transport system is nowhere near what the world’s 4th largest economy needs. Street crime and social disintegration in parts of the inner city are a menace we must tackle quickly. There are still many people who could work but don’t. Still too much ignorance, too much wasted potential, too much inequality.

We accept these challenges remain. And the forward programme of the Government is designed to meet them; still driven by that same ideal, of a modern, fairer Britain, where opportunity is open to all.

What we have to do is to explain the journey we are undertaking by reference to that ideal, blow away the fog that is designed to cloud the sight of it and work ever harder to translate it into reality.

Today I call on those who share our beliefs to join us in the battles that lie ahead.

Join us in the battle to extend prosperity and full employment to all parts of the country based on a platform of economic stability.

Join us in the battle for the investment and reform necessary to build strong public services and encourage greater opportunity and equality.

Join us in the battle to tackle crime, anti-social behaviour and poverty to build a society based on rights and responsibilities

Join us in the battle against the sceptics and phobes to get Britain back once again at the top table of Europe.

This is the progressive project for a second term, the next steps for the New Labour project, an ambitious programme for the Labour Party as it enters its second century.

First phase of new Labour: becoming a modern centre left party.

But to chart New Labour’s next steps we have to understand our first steps.

The collapse of the Labour Party and its electoral base, most painfully dramatised by the 1992 defeat, was only the most obvious sign of a broader shift in politics and society. Labour stuttered when confronted by the new world that emerged in the 1970s and 1980s: a more diverse, more fractured society; new industries and new attitudes to work and consumption; and an international order that was both more integrated and yet more unpredictable.

In 1956, Anthony Crosland had set out a new path in his “Future of Socialism”. He urged socialists to acknowledge the successes of post-war capitalism and to understand the consumer society and why it was advancing so fast including in Labour’s heartlands.

But in the 70s Labour seemed to forget Crosland’s revisionist message.

New Labour was in part a response to what had gone wrong. We strove to modernise social democracy, to become a party that brought together wealth creation as well as wealth distribution; enterprise as well as fairness.

So New Labour put levelling up, the aspirations of the majority, at the centre of its appeal.

And we changed our constitution to bring it up to date with the modern world.

New Labour’s second phase: laying the foundations

The first phase of New Labour was becoming a modern social democratic party fit for government. The second phase was to use our 1997 victory to put in place the foundations that would allow us to change the country in a way that lasts.

Labour governments of the past had tried to make progress without firm foundations, firm economic foundations in particular. Getting the foundations right is not time wasted. It is not the boring housework of Government. It is the structure within which we live.

That is why we transformed the framework for economic management.

– It matters whether prices in the supermarket are the same from one week to the next. It matters that today inflation is at its lowest level for 30 years.

– It matters whether interest rates let you pay the mortgage or threaten to lose you your home, and today, it matters that the average family is paying £1800 less on their mortgage compared to the early Nineties.

On welfare reform getting the first term foundations right meant tackling unemployment. The New Deal has helped halve unemployment which is now at its lowest for forty years. We introduced the Working Families Tax Credit and the Minimum Wage to make work pay.

On public services, let us be in no doubt what we inherited:

– Crime had doubled

– Waiting lists had risen by 400,000

– Hospital beds cut by 60,000

– Nearly half of all 11-year-olds were failing to reach the basic levels expected for their age in maths and English.

– Infant class sizes were far too high

– Police numbers falling

– Child poverty tripled

– Investment in rail and the tube stalled

– the railways subject to a botched privatisation, which had fragmented them completely.

In each area in the first term we laid the foundations for investment and reform.

– A strategy for improving numeracy and literacy in primary schools, with record primary school tests results.

– A ten year plan for the NHS including the first ever independent inspection, league tables, the creation of primary care trusts now coming to fruition to transform local services, more doctors and 31,000 more nurses since 1997.

– Crime and Disorder Partnerships in every Community. Police numbers rising. Our youth justice system overhauled. Burglary fell by 34% and car crime by 24%. The Auld Report on the criminal justice system was commissioned.

– A 10 year Transport Plan to treble public sector investment in rail and tube.

– devolution and House of Lords reform, a peace process begun in Northern Ireland.

We also set the foundations of a new foreign policy. Before the Amsterdam Summit in 1997 Britain was totally isolated, treated with something between exasperation and contempt. Today as we approach the summit at Barcelona, Britain has a highly influential position. We have a strong constructive relationship with our partners and we have led the way over Kosovo and more recently Afghanistan, and on debt and aid.

New Labour’s third phase: Driving through reform

Now is the third phase of New Labour. It is about driving forward reforms, building lasting change – and a better society – on the foundations so carefully laid.

– on the basis of economic stability a sustained improvement in productivity and enterprise, measures that will form a key part of next month’s Budget.

Overhauling the Criminal Justice System to support victims and witnesses and bring the most persistent offenders to justice; a thorough programme of police reform; and a reform of the asylum system.

– welfare reform that cuts even further the numbers of working age on benefit plus the integrated children’s credit, and the new pensions credit; and the merger of the employment and benefit service, a huge cultural change in Britain’s welfare system.

– completing House of Lords reform, bedding down devolution and making the peace process in Northern Ireland durable for the long term.

– Britain taking its rightful and leading place at the centre of Europe.

– implementing the plan for Africa, continuing to lead on aid and development and the Kyoto protocol on climate change as the basis for sustainable development in the world.

Alongside this, our core mission: to improve our public services.

In each service, there is a comprehensive, detailed plan for change and reform, broadly supported within the public services themselves.

Underlying the plans are the four principles of reform set out in our pamphlet last week: national standards, devolution, flexible staff, more choice – all aimed at redesigning high-quality public services around the consumer.

But without investment, reform will get you very little further – as the Tories found in the Eighties. There is no point designing new structures for the health service if you don’t tackle the fundamental problem of inadequate capacity – and fashion your reforms around the significant increase in capacity essential to build a modern, consumer-focused service. It is the same with schools and transport, and across our public services.

Under this Labour government there will be no blank cheques – but nor will we expect public services to run on empty.

So in next month’s Budget and the spending review in the summer, the country is faced with a fundamental choice. Either we continue investing. Or we cut back.

We aim to continue investing.

There is no question of putting money into some bottomless pit. Each pound spent will be accounted for.

But we can see already where the existing money has gone. The extra money on infant class sizes reduced them. The money spent on literacy and numeracy, together with the teachers’ dedication, delivered the results.

The schools with new buildings: tell them the money’s wasted.

The new surgical centres, the extra cancer and heart operations, the extra critical care beds, the extra nurses in wards: tell the patients using these facilities the money is all wasted.

Money is not enough. But money used to lever in change is what will work.

So these are our second term ambitions and broadly I believe the country supports them. But that is not enough.

Values that unite us

There is a clear road-map to our destination. But sometimes it can seem as if it were a mere technocratic exercise, well or less well managed, but with no overriding moral purpose to it.

What is vital now is to explain the “why” of the programme, to describe it not simply point by point but principle by principle. The reason for the changes we are making is not for their own sake but because they are the means to the fairer society, where aspirations and opportunity are open to all, which we believe in. The programme is not driven by administration but by values.

It means quality public services because they are social justice made real.

It means an economy with a new job if your old one goes.

It means stable mortgage rates.

It means giving the children of someone who did not go to university the hope they can go. Enough of this nonsense that more than half the population don’t have the brains to get there. When I was a student, 7% of school-leavers went to university. Today it’s 33% and rising. Yet we heard the same arguments back then. Are those extra 27% undeserving?

Opportunity means a young woman with a nursing diploma who is able to work her way up to become a consultant nurse or Director of Nursing or hospital Chief Executive.

It means a first rate vocational education system so people can get new and better skills.

It means children in deprived areas getting first-class schools, their parents helped, their environment improved.

It means your health care shouldn’t depend on the size of your wallet.

It means your security shouldn’t depend on the neighbourhood you can afford to live in.

It means that decent hard-working people who play by the rules don’t see others who refuse to, gain by it.

That is the other part.

We believe in responsibility going with the opportunity. That is the reason for measures to curb anti-social behaviour; to ensure if people have the ability to work, they don’t remain dependent on benefit; that employers treat their employees fairly; that we don’t allow poverty pay; that increasingly the polluter should pay for polluting the environment.

It is why we are making a priority of discipline in the classroom. Because without learning discipline and respect, children will not only fail to learn at school but leave school unfit to be decent citizens.

So it’s about the two together – opportunity and responsibility. And its about using our collective power, in our local communities, in society, and through Government, to enable people to help themselves.

At the root of it all is a simple belief in fairness. It isn’t fair that people are held back or live in poverty. We want to change it. Amidst all the day to day pressures, that is our ideal. That is what we hold aloft. Sure, it’s hard to see it from time to time. But it’s there and it will see us through.

My final point is this. It’s important to understand why people can sometimes find the ideals obscured. It’s not just that Governments get embroiled in events and controversies, though they do, and whilst they dominate the news, the people think: what are they concentrating on this for, when, of course, it’s the opposite of what we’re trying to do.

It is also that for some, even in our own ranks, the idea of New Labour remains controversial or unclear. Even now, a large part of the political discourse in Britain assumes that the “true” Labour Party is one that puts trade unions before business; is indifferent to financial discipline; addicted to tax and spend; weak on issues of crime; irresponsible over state benefits for the unemployed or socially excluded; backs the producer interest in public services; and, give or take the odd exception, weak in defence and foreign policy. Since this Government is plainly none of those things, ergo: we are not real Labour and are “unprincipled”.

This, of course suits immensely the right-wing in politics. They love the “true” Labour Party. These positions made it unelectable. But it also suits some on the left. They see the Labour Party as a pressure group. We campaign against those with the power. We fight for these positions, rejoice in our “principles”, are given the odd crumb from the governing table and avoid the harsh realities of taking any hard decisions.

After 18 years of Conservative government we changed all this. I am not so naïve as to deny some changed to win. Banging your head on a brick wall, hurts. At some point, if you want to stop hurting, you devise the brilliant solution of ceasing to bang your head on the wall.

But changing those positions to win, was never the right reason for changing them; nor can it sustain us over the long term. The right reason for change was a principled one. Those positions, hallowed by the Party over many years, were a tangled and mistaken view of the Party’s true raison d’etre and values; positions that were the product of the circumstances of our birth, of 20th century politics and ideology and of the post-war settlement.

The values of the Labour Party are the values of progressive politics throughout the ages. The same values as those of the great Liberal reformers of the 19th Century and early 20th Century, as well as those of the Labour heroes of 1945: the belief in social justice, opportunity for all, liberty; the belief that the individual does best in a strong community and society of others.

The essence of New Labour is to strip away all the outdated dogma and doctrine, the “hallowed positions” and return to those first principles, to those values. Then we ask: if these are our values, what is their proper translation into practice for today’s world? And that is the question each generation of Labour members should ask, and answer in a different way.

New Labour answered it in this way: that if we want strong economic growth to increase the prosperity of ordinary families, we need low inflation and low interest rates and that requires financial discipline. If we want enterprise to flourish in the post industrial economy, to give our people jobs, we need to support and work with business; and levels of tax that don’t discourage the entrepreneur.

If we want to protect the poor and vulnerable against attack and crime, we have to make sure that the criminal is brought to justice. If we want to stop the working age poor being poor, we need to help them to work, not give them more benefit, which would never provide them with a decent enough income. If we want to rebuild our public services, we need to make them work for the consumer of those services, because they are the very people dependent on them for opportunity and help.

If we want to shape the world around us, outside Britain, we must have the alliances and where necessary, the armed forces, to allow us to do so.

And, yes, we are financially disciplined, but one of the ways we got there was by cutting massively the bills of unemployment through the New Deal. Yes we work with business, but we also introduced the minimum wage. Yes we are reforming our public services, but we are also the only major country in the world today increasing health and education spending as a percentage of national income. Yes we are tough on crime but have also lifted one million children out of poverty, cut pensioner poverty and have huge inner-city regeneration programmes underway.

Yes, we are prepared to take military action where necessary, but are also leading the way on debt relief, and international development, especially in Africa.

Hence the confusion I talked of earlier. We don’t fit the mould. Good. We never intended to.

Why don’t we just conform? Because we shouldn’t. The modern Labour Party is here to stay because it is based on values and principle; and is the right way forward for us and the country.

So we should have confidence, hold firm to our course and above all, hold true to the basis of New Labour. We are changing the basis of British politics. Progressive values are in the ascendant because, in the end, they are also the values of the British people and only needed to be applied in a modern way, to be popular.

Look how our opponents are coming on to our agenda.

What a reversal in these last 10 years to see the Tories now falling over themselves to agree with our economic policy hoping some of our economic competence rubs off on them, travelling around Europe to look at public services but dodging the real test of whether they support our extra investment. As someone said success in politics is not changing your own party; it is changing the opposition.

The Lib Dems don’t know whether to oppose us on reform, for opportunism sake because they know change can be unpopular; or scuttle to our right as a pale imitation of the Tories calling for tax cuts.

The centre of gravity of British politics is moving in our direction. A new post Thatcherite progressive consensus is being born and it is one we should be proud of.

A consensus that a dynamic economy and a fairer society where we realise the potential of all go together; a consensus that our public services have been under-invested in for two decades and now need sustained investment, but that investment will only work if coupled with reform.

Understanding this and not being frightened by it is a vital part of us retaining our ability to change Britain.

So help us get there. We need your energy, your ideas, your commitment. We can’t do it alone. The dialogue and partnership we offer you is an indispensable part of our being successful.

Remember ten years ago: we were on our knees, out of office and out of hope. Now look forward ten years and imagine what could be possible. A society that is fairer, more tolerant of people’s differences, with prosperity shared, quality public services more social mobility and less poverty. And imagine too what we could achieve pulling together if we show our determination, stick to the values we believe are right, stick to our plans and see them through.

A Britain that is modern, fair and strong.

Below is the text of the speech made by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to the TUC Conference in Blackpool on 10th September 2002.

Tomorrow, September 11, is the anniversary of the worst terrorist act in history. Let us today, once again, remember and mourn the dead. Let us give thanks to the fire fighters, the police, the ambulance and medical services, the ordinary citizens of New York. Their courage was the best answer to the terrorists’ cruelty. Terrorists can kill and maim the innocent, but they have not won and they never will.

We should never forget the role played by trade unions in the struggle for justice. Today we welcome Wellington Chibebe of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. Your opposition to the regime of Mugabe is the ultimate riposte to his fraudulent nonsense about fighting colonialism. People here, including myself, fought the detestable apartheid system of South Africa and we know the difference between the cause of freedom and a leader abusing that cause to conceal incompetence and corruption on a catastrophic scale.

We welcome, too, the Colombian CUT’s Hector Fajardo. Your nation is fighting the ugly scourge of narco-terrorism, in which the drugs trade and terror destroy the life chances of a country. You have our solidarity in that struggle.

Thank you also to the trade unions of Northern Ireland – who, throughout the worst and even at the best, are symbols of the non-sectarian future that Northern Ireland needs.

Around the rest of world too, trade unions are at the forefront of campaigns to end child labour, to remove discrimination, to bring democracy in place of dictatorship.

On September 11 last year, with the world still reeling from the shock of events, it came together to demand action. But suppose I had come last year on the same day as this year – 10 September. Suppose I had said to you: there is a terrorist network called Al Qaida. It operates out of Afghanistan. It has carried out several attacks and we believe it is planning more. It has been condemned by the UN in the strongest terms. Unless it is stopped, the threat will grow. And so I want to take action to prevent that.

Your response and probably that of most people would have been very similar to the response of some of you yesterday on Iraq.

There would have been few takers for dealing with it and probably none for taking military action of any description.

So let me tell you why I say Saddam Hussein is a threat that has to be dealt with.

He has twice before started wars of aggression. Over one million people died in them. When the weapons inspectors were evicted from Iraq in 1998 there were still enough chemical and biological weapons remaining to devastate the entire Gulf region.

I sometimes think that there is a kind of word fatigue about chemical and biological weapons. We’re not talking about some mild variants of everyday chemicals, but anthrax, sarin and mustard gas – weapons that can cause hurt and agony on a mass scale beyond the comprehension of most decent people.

Uniquely Saddam has used these weapons against his own people, the Iraqi kurds. Scores of towns and villages were attacked. Iraqi military officials dressed in full protection gear were used to witness the attacks and visited later to assess the damage. Wounded civilians were normally shot on the scene. In one attack alone, on the city of Halabja, it is estimated that 5,000 were murdered and 9,000 wounded in this way. All in all in the North around 100,000 kurds died, according to Amnesty International. In the destruction of the marshlands in Southern Iraq, around 200,000 people were forcibly removed. Many died.

Saddam has a nuclear weapons programme too, denied for years, that was only disrupted after inspectors went in to disrupt it. He is in breach of 23 outstanding UN obligations requiring him to admit inspectors and to disarm.

People say: but containment has worked. Only up to a point. In truth, sanctions are eroding. He now gets around $3 billion through illicit trading every year. It is unaccounted for, but almost certainly used for his weapons programmes.

Every day this year and for years, British and American pilots risk their lives to police the No Fly Zones. But it can’t go on forever. For years when the weapons inspectors were in Iraq, Saddam lied, concealed, obstructed and harassed them. For the last four years there have been no inspections, no monitoring, despite constant pleas and months of negotiating with the UN. In July, Kofi Annan ended his personal involvement in talks because of Iraqi intransigence.

Meanwhile Iraq’s people are oppressed and kept in poverty. With the Taliban gone, Saddam is unrivalled as the world’s worst regime: brutal, dictatorial, with a wretched human rights record.

Given that history, I say to you: to allow him to use the weapons he has or get the weapons he wants, would be an act of gross irresponsibility and we should not countenance it.

Up to this point, I believe many here in this hall would agree. The question is: how to proceed? I totally understand the concerns of people about precipitate military action. Military action should only ever be a last resort. On the four major occasions that I have authorised it as Prime Minister, it has been when no other option remained.

I believe it is right to deal with Saddam through the United Nations. After all, it is the will of the UN he is flouting. He, not me or George Bush, is in breach of UN Resolutions. If the challenge to us is to work with the UN, we will respond to it.

But if we do so, then the challenge to all in the UN is this: the UN must be the way to resolve the threat from Saddam not avoid it.

Let it be clear that he must be disarmed. Let it be clear that there can be no more conditions, no more games, no more prevaricating, no more undermining of the UN’s authority.

And let it be clear that should the will of the UN be ignored, action will follow. Diplomacy is vital. But when dealing with dictators – and none in the world is worse than Saddam – diplomacy has to be backed by the certain knowledge in the dictator’s mind that behind the diplomacy is the possibility of force being used.

Because I say to you in all earnestness: if we do not deal with the threat from this international outlaw and his barbaric regime, it may not erupt and engulf us this month or next; perhaps not even this year or the next. But it will at some point. And I do not want it on my conscience that we knew the threat, saw it coming and did nothing.

I know this is not what some people want to hear. But I ask you only this: to listen to the case I will be developing over the coming weeks and reflect on it.

And before there is any question of taking military action, I can categorically assure you that Parliament will be consulted and will have the fullest opportunity to debate the matter and express its view.

On Kosovo, on Afghanistan, we did not rush. We acted in a sensible, measured way, when all other avenues were exhausted and with the fullest possible debate. We will do so again.

But Saddam is not the only issue. We must restart the Middle East Peace Process. We must work with all concerned, including the US, for a lasting peace which ends the suffering of both the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and the Israelis at the hands of terrorists. It must be based on the twin principles of an Israel safe and secure within its borders, and a viable Palestinian state.

This must go alongside renewed efforts on international terrorism. That threat has not gone away. I cannot emphasise this too strongly.

Put it alongside India and Pakistan, climate change and world poverty, and it is a daunting international agenda. But the most difficult thing is to persuade people that all issues are part of the same agenda. A foreign journalist said to me the other day: ‘I don’t understand it Mr Blair. You’re very Left on Africa and Kyoto. But you’re very Right on weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. It doesn’t make sense.’

But it does. The key characteristic of today’s world is interdependence. Your problem becomes my problem. They have to be tackled collectively. All these problems threaten the ability of the world to make progress in an orderly and stable way. Climate change threatens our environment. Africa, if left to decline, will become a breeding ground for extremism. Terrorism and weapons of mass destruction combine modern technology with political or religious fanaticism. If unchecked they will, as September 11 showed, explode into disorder and chaos.

Internationalism is no longer a utopian cry of the Left; it is practical statesmanship.

That is one reason why Britain turning its back on Europe would be an error of vast proportions. Be under no doubt: if the economic tests are met, Britain should join the single currency. For Britain to be marginalised in Europe when soon the EU will have 25 members stretching from Portugal to Poland and the largest commercial market in the world, would not just be economically unwise. It would betray a total misunderstanding of the concept of national interest in the 21st century.

Solidarity is at the core of the being of trade unionism. I want to work with you in confronting the challenges abroad and the challenges at home. Again they are linked. The greatest challenge of our age is globalisation. Tremors in one financial market cause the ground to move round the world. Capital is footloose, fancy-free but also intensely vulnerable to changes in consumer fashion. Industries spring up and fall back. Some corporations, in their desperation to satisfy investors, bend or break the rules, collapsing confidence across the globe.

Meanwhile employees often feel powerless, victims not beneficiaries of globalisation. To add to it all, people live longer and retire earlier, bringing a real strain on pension provision, short and long-term.

This challenge needs a strong and vibrant trade union movement, standing up for its members in a coherent and intelligent way.

It needs the trade union movement to work with employers and Government, mapping out a strategy for the future.

What is it? First and foremost it’s jobs.

Since 1997, we have one and a half million more jobs. More people are in work than ever before. Thanks to the New Deal, over 750,000 have benefited and now long-term youth unemployment stands at just 5,300, the lowest total for 30 years.

We are modernising the whole welfare state, bringing benefits and employment support together in Job Centre Plus, offering the unemployed a deal: we will help you, with money and skills and a job offer; you use that to help yourself.

As a result our unemployment levels are below those not just of France and Germany but of Japan and the US.

The trade unions have been instrumental in the New Deal. That is partnership in action. And don’t let anyone say a Conservative Government – who put unemployment above three million – would ever have shown that commitment to the unemployed.

Second, it’s not just jobs but skills. Since the launch in 2001 of Skills for Life we have helped over 156,000 people achieve basic skills qualifications. And we are on course to meet our 2007 target to help 1.5 million adults do so. Over half a million people have gained new skills for the workplace through Learn Direct, our e-learning network, with trade unions at its heart.

Meanwhile there are over 200,000 young people on modern apprenticeships this year – compared to little more than a tenth of that in 1996. Just this morning at the BAE training centre in Preston, I saw the modern apprenticeships scheme in action, all supported by trade unions.

In the North East, the GMB has pioneered a cross-company skills and workforce strategy for shipbuilding, removing old enmities, dismantling outdated practices, creating new opportunities. The result? An industry people thought was dying on the Tyne, now being re-born.

Third, we need modern manufacturing. We understand the worry about currency instability, which is one of the main reasons why, in principle, we favour joining the single currency.

We understand the need to invest in science, skills and technology, and we are doing so – to the tune of £1.25 billion extra in science alone over the next three years.

The new working group established by Patricia at the DTI, which has trade unions represented on it, will allow us to develop policy together to shape our response to the challenges facing manufacturing, which are common not just in Britain but throughout the world. And this is why we must also continue to press internationally – in Europe to end the wasteful abuse of the Common Agricultural Policy, and with the US to persuade them to reverse their decision on steel tariffs.

And modern workplace partnerships also demand modern employment laws. I am proud we have given union learning reps proper recognition in law – something the TUC long campaigned for. We need fair rights at work, not to revive industrial conflict but to make sure that we do not only have more jobs, but jobs of quality.

I am proud that we brought in the National Minimum Wage, putting money in the pockets of 1.5 million workers – something you campaigned on for years.

We introduced the Working Families Tax Credit – helping to make work pay for 1.3 million families.

Everyone is now entitled to four weeks’ paid holiday. No-one now has to work more than 48 hours a week. There is better protection against unfair dismissal, there is longer statutory maternity leave, and for the first time, paid paternity leave too. We have made sure part-time workers get a better deal.

And there is a statutory right to union recognition where a majority vote for it.

Funding to promote social partnership is now well-established and government support for partnership and the TUC Partnership Institute will continue.

We are reviewing the operation of the 1999 Employment Act to ensure that it is working effectively. We are also considering the best way to implement European provisions on informing and consulting employees, and we look forward to working with the TUC on this.

We are addressing the issue of the two-tier workforce. We are introducing new rules so that new recruits enjoy broadly comparable pay and conditions as other local government employees transferred to the private sector. And that includes, for the first time, a right to a proper pension.

We have also ensured that the vast majority of staff involved in hospital PFI schemes are able to stay on NHS terms and conditions of service. I understand you want us to do more. But when some people say there is no difference between a Labour or Conservative government, I say no Conservative government would ever have introduced a minimum wage or statutory union recognition and both you and I know it.

And in the face of globalisation we need public services of quality too. To achieve their potential, young people need first-class educational opportunity. To work effectively, employees need quality healthcare. To make business efficient, we need a good transport infrastructure.

And across all the public services, we require staff to be motivated, skilled and well resourced.

I always said this was a 10-year challenge and it is. But let’s be clear. Real progress has been made. This year, next year, the year after, the year after that we will be increasing health and education spending as a percentage of GDP faster than any other government in the world. Tell that to those who say a Labour Government makes no difference.

Funding per pupil will have increased between 1997/98 and 2003/04 by over £1,000 in real terms – and it will go on rising, with a further real terms increase in education spending of six per cent up to 2005/06.

At the end of 1997, half a million infants were taught in classes of more than 30 children. Now hardly any child under age 7 has to suffer that.

In 1997 the numbers of nurses in training, teachers in training, police in training were all being cut.

In 2002, we have over 29,000 teachers in training and we have increased the number of training places to 32,000. And there are 20,000 more in post than in 1997. There are 38,000 more nurses at work in our hospitals. And police numbers are at record levels, having increased by 4,500 in the last two years alone.

And it is not only the inputs that have changed. School results, not just for primary schools but also secondary schools, are way up. For instance, under 60 per cent reached the expected standard in maths in 1997, compared with over 70 per cent last year. In 1998, well under half of secondary students were getting more than 5 good GCSEs. This year, we hope results will show that more than half of them are doing so.

On every measure – inpatients or outpatients – waiting lists are shorter now than in 1997. There used to be over 70,000 on the outpatient waiting list for more than 6 months. Now it is down to just over 1,000.

The average waiting list time for an operation is now 4.2 months, and 70 per cent of patients are treated inside 3 months.

So don’t fall for this nonsense about the NHS being a third world health service. I saw a third world service in Mozambique two weeks ago, despite the heroic efforts of its doctors and nurses. To describe the NHS as like that is not just a gross distortion of the truth, it is an insult to the brilliant and dedicated NHS staff who give such good care to people.

Remember: of course in a service that treats 1 million people every 36 hours, there will be mistakes – there are in every healthcare system. But those who use those exceptions to denounce the NHS do so not to improve it but to dismantle it.

But money is not all the services need. They need change and reform. New ways of working. New ways of delivering services. New partnerships between public, private and voluntary sectors, and between managers and unions. More choice for the consumer of those services.

On these issues, I offer again a partnership on this basis. No prejudices. No pre-conceptions. On either side. One test only: what is good for the service and the user of the service. We will listen to you on genuine concerns about workforce conditions. I ask you to listen to us on the need for reform.

Because be in no doubt: if we do not join together and reform our public services, the result will not just be unreformed services. The result will be public dissatisfaction and eventually a Tory government who will return to their unfinished business: the break-up of public services. We both have a responsibility never to allow that to happen.

Finally, our partnership must also tackle the issue of pensions. We have already helped the poorest pensioners, and have announced significant rises this year in the basic state pension. We are reforming SERPS. We have introduced stakeholder pensions and Pension Credit. Later this year, we will publish a Green Paper outlining the future for pensions.

But these issues are really tough. There is real concern at employers opting out of final salary schemes and then cutting their contributions; real anxiety amongst older employees; real confusion amongst younger ones as to the best way to provide for the future.

So I have asked the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to bring together both the CBI and the TUC to address these issues to inform the Green Paper. We need your input and welcome it.

This is a big agenda for us both: jobs, manufacturing, public services, pensions.

On all these issues we should work together to make globalisation work for the people we represent.

In the last five or six years the trade union movement has come a long way. Last year saw nearly 500 recognition deals – nearly three times the number in the previous year – all made possible by our legislation and your hard work.

Unions are consulted and listened to. My door is open to any union leader. There is no obligation, of course.

But it’s sensible to remember how very different things were just a few years ago. You suffered 18 years of Conservative Government in which union leaders couldn’t get to discuss anything with the Prime Minister. 18 years of being kicked from pillar to post. 18 years of being ignored, derided and attacked as the ‘enemy within’, years of falling membership and zero influence. 18 years in which Government never offered a partnership and employers were encouraged to decline one.

The trade union movement, however, didn’t give up. You re-grouped – not least through the leadership of John Monks. You re-made your reputation with the public, you worked hard to get a government in place that did believe in social partnership.

It would be ironic if, just at the moment when trade unions are achieving such a partnership, some of you might decide to turn your back on it.

It happened before: in 1948, in 1969, in 1979. The result then was the folding of the Labour Government and the return of a Tory Government. Not this time. It will just be less influence with the same Labour Government.

Don’t misunderstand the situation. The media will love the talk of going back to flying pickets, industrial militancy, unions attacking a Labour Government, the BBC re-running all that old footage of the winter of discontent. Believe me, anyone who indulges in it will get a lot of air time.

By contrast, I can honestly say I must have done scores of initiatives on skills and training and never got a blind bit of publicity for any of them. And even pensions only hit the news when there’s a scandal.

Partnership doesn’t make headlines. But the vast majority of trade union leaders and members know that it does far more good than a lot of self-indulgent rhetoric from a few that belongs in the history books.

Indulgence or influence. It’s a very simple choice.

Of course there will be hard issues in this partnership. There are low-paid workers who deserve more, yet we know we have to be careful we don’t just swallow up all the extra public service spending on pay. There are genuine issues around the desire for employees to have better protection and the need to keep the flexibility of our labour markets. And it is in the nature of governments never to be able to satisfy all the demands made on them.

But we also know that a Labour Government making steady progress is infinitely better than a Conservative one taking us backwards. We know it from our experience. We know it from the rest of Europe, where governments of the Left which desert the centre ground, or where the Left has split its vote, have gone. New Labour was the route to victory. It remains the only proven path to continue it. And it’s successful because it’s right.

Your partnership was vital in that victory. Let us keep it, build on it and make it a new political consensus in Britain. That would be an achievement of which we could both be proud.

Below is the text of the speech made by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, on February 2nd 2002.

It is a pleasure to be here in Ghana today – part of a four-day visit I am making to West Africa, including Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Senegal. I am accompanied by Clare Short, who will be well known to many of you as the UK’s International Development Secretary.

Yesterday, I spoke to the Nigerian Assembly and today it is my pleasure and privilege to have the opportunity of speaking to your Parliament. Right across the African continent, countries are emerging from military rule and dictatorship. You are rightly proud of your own democratic institutions, including the elections that took place just over a year ago which saw a peaceful change of government. The strength and vitality of this assembly is proof of the strength and health of your young democracy.

The theme of my visit this week is partnership – the necessity and the possibility of a greatly strengthened partnership between reforming African governments and the world’s richer countries. A partnership based on shared responsibility and mutual interest. A partnership in which both sides commit to the policy reforms required for Africa to secure poverty reduction and development. I believe that the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD) creates an unprecedented opportunity for progress.

It is clear that Africans themselves must drive the process of reform. If we have learned anything in development over the last decade it is that development strategies imposed from the outside, in the absence of local leadership and commitment, will fail.

But you and I also know that poor countries need support if they are to promote development and consolidate their democratic institutions. Today, I want to focus on this – on our responsibilities to you. The efforts we can make to support your efforts.

There are three dimensions to this.

First, we need to be clear about the purpose of our development co-operation.

There are too many mixed motives in aid and development. Indeed one of the reasons that many people in the West are cynical about aid and development is because a lot of aid has been misused over the years, feeding the elites and corrupt rulers like Mobutu, rather then helping the poor in developing countries.

We need a very different approach. At the UN Millennium Assembly the governments of the world have endorsed a set of Millennium Development Targets. These include halving the proportion of the world’s population living in poverty, universal primary education, a reduction by two-thirds in child mortality, and a cut of three-quarters in maternal mortality – all to be achieved by 2015.

These are the world’s agreed development goals. While there has been progress in recent years, the efforts of the international community are still falling well short of their potential. Too much of global aid is still used to sweeten commercial contracts or tied to the purchase of goods from the donor country. If we are going to make faster progress in development, we need to strengthen the international focus on achieving the Millennium development goals.

Second – if we are to achieve this progress – we need a fundamental conceptual shift in our approach to aid. Not aid as a hand-out but aid as a hand-up, to help people to help themselves. Not aid to create dependence but to create sustainable independence, so that the relationship between the developed and the developing world is not one of donor and passive recipient but one of equal partners in building prosperity for all. This is aid as investment in our collective economic and political security.

Over the years, a great deal of aid has sapped rather than strengthened the capacity of the government locally. This is the very opposite of what is needed. We need investment to help countries put in place more effective states, capable of generating higher levels of economic growth, creating the resources to fund better health, education and public services. In many developing countries institutions are weak, including systems of financial management, increasing the risk of corruption. Our new approach to partnership in development is to provide technical assistance and financial resources to enable you to build capable states.

This is why NEPAD is such an important initiative. It is a real chance – the best chance in a generation – to do development differently, and more effectively. You will understand that there is often concern amongst the publics of developed countries about the way in which development resources are used. This is not a lack of compassion. There is huge compassion and a willingness to tackle poverty and injustice across the world. But there is often scepticism that resources really get to those who need them.

The reforms that NEPAD is making, and that you are making, respond to this concern. It will ensure that our development efforts are more effective. It will also help us to gain support for development across the world.

The UK and other progressive development agencies are now increasingly allocating their aid resources in line with this new approach. As you know, this is also very much the thinking behind the new Poverty Reduction Strategy process, linked to the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative (HIPC). Of the 24 countries that have qualified for HIPC debt relief, 20 are African, freeing up $1.2 billion this year to spend on health, education and other services. I am pleased that Ghana has opted for HIPC, and I hope that within the next month you will have reached Decision Point, and begin to get the benefits of debt relief.

The UK has a £60 million development programme with Ghana. We are working with your Government on health and education, water, roads and bridges, and governance reform. I believe that on health in particular you are at the cutting edge of the new approach to development – with the UK and other donors pooling their resources in support of your own nationally-agreed health strategy. I hope that before too long, the whole of the donor community can go a step further – allocating all of their development resources in support of your Poverty Reduction Strategy. The UK is already doing this in Uganda, Tanzania and Mozambique. And I believe this approach is the way forward for development as a whole.

Third – and this is critical – we need to recognise that the modern development agenda goes far wider than resource transfers, to embrace issues of trade and investment, conflict, governance and the environment. We need to look at all our policies in these areas to see what reforms are necessary to better assist the poorest countries in their development. Let me say something about two of these issues – trade and conflict.

On trade, I know that Ghana has a particular interest in securing improved trading opportunities.

Developed countries retain significant barriers to trade, particularly in agriculture. Access to EU agricultural markets is still restricted by the Common Agricultural Policy, including tariffs and seasonal levies. And although the market is open to tropical African agriculture and commodities, such as coffee and cocoa, tariffs of up to 300 per cent exist on some products. As I said in my speech in Nigeria yesterday, developed countries must practice what they preach, and cut these trade barriers.

My other priority is conflict, a subject we have been discussing this morning We have published a paper today, setting out some proposals for the G8. Over the years, Ghana has played a crucial role in UN peacekeeping, including in Sierra Leone, and you have been an important stabilising force in the region. And of course in Kofi Annan you have an outstanding representative of your country leading the reform agenda in the UN, including its role in conflict prevention and resolution.

I believe that the developed countries, particularly the G8, need to do more. Yesterday, I announced the establishment of a special envoy for Sudan. We need similar energy and commitment to drive forward on the Lusaka peace process in the DRC. And we need to provide practical support for Africans to tackle conflict on the continent.

This is a big agenda. I believe that it has never been more timely or necessary to forge such a partnership. The NEPAD process creates real potential on your side. On our side, through the G8 and in the wider international community there is a willingness and determination to work with you in new ways.

Real advance is possible. Let’s agree today to work together to make it happen.

Below is the text of a speech made by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to the Confederation of Indian Industry in Bangalore, India, on Saturday 5th January 2002.

I’m glad to see today such an impressive turnout of both British and Indian companies and so many representatives of key Indian business organisations at this Indo-British Partnership Summit.

I pay especial tribute to both Narayana Murthy and David Jefferies, Co-Chairmen of the Partnership which has proved such a success over the last nine years.

But the partnership between our nations goes much further than that. It has strong roots in a long shared history. You can see that history every day on the streets of both modern India and modern Britain.

Today, as well as our business and trade links, we are joining together in the fight against terrorism. I want to express our total solidarity with you in the face of recent terrorist outrages in India.

There can be no room in any civilised society for organisations such as Lashkar e Toiba and Jaish Mohammed – groups banned by the British government some time ago. The appalling attacks on India’s Parliament of 13 December and on the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly on 1 October demonstrate more clearly than ever the threat such fanatics pose not just to your democracy, but to all democracies – and to civilised values in the whole world.

Of course, people are entitled to pursue their political views by legitimate means. But the indiscriminate and deliberate murder of civilians to cause chaos and mutilation defiles any political cause. The 11 September attacks in America have changed attitudes towards terrorism. The action against the Al Qa’ida network in Afghanistan has shown international determination. Al Qa’ida failed in their effort to break the West and its economies. They are now themselves broken in Afghanistan.

I am very proud of the role that Britain has played since September 11. Diplomatically, in the UN, and in the alliances we have built to good effect as we have sought to maintain and strengthen the international case against terrorism. On the humanitarian front, where our own Department for International Development has a deservedly high reputation, and where Governments and aid agencies have frankly exceeded all expectations in the help they have managed to get to those who need it most inside Afghanistan. And of course militarily, where Britain has played its part both in offensive operations against the Taliban and the Al Qa’ida network, and where we now lead the International Security Assistance Force helping the new interim administration in Kabul.

I am proud of our role not just because it is the right thing to do, and because we have been able to make a contribution, but also because in today’s globally inter-dependent world, foreign policy and domestic policy are part of the same thing. Dealing with international terrorism abroad is not just right in itself. It is vital to our economy, our jobs, our stability and security.

KASHMIR

Of course, there is much focus at the moment on the issue of Kashmir and the acts of terrorism connected with it. This will feature heavily in my discussions over the coming days here and in Pakistan. But one thing is clear. Only politics not terror can solve issues like this. And the starting point of any dialogue must be the total and absolute rejection of actions such as those of 1 October and 13 December. I view an attack on your Parliament with every bit as much outrage as I would an attack on the Parliament in which I sit. It was an attack on democracy itself. Terrorism is terrorism wherever it occurs, whoever are its victims.

BRITAIN AND INDIA – WORKING TOGETHER

Today, inevitably, I speak against the background of September 11 and the tension here in this sub-continent. But I want to set even these events in a wider context: how Britain and India work together, with others, to confront terrorism; but also how we build support for the policies and values that promote peace and justice and mitigate against extremism and terror, in all nations everywhere.

For terrorism is not new. Fanaticism is not new. What is new is the combination of terrorism, fanaticism and the technological capability to wreak vast and inhumane devastation, whether by acts of terror, weapons of mass destruction, or other means. And even without either the terrorist or the fanatic, the challenges we face of environmental degradation, poverty and the uneven spread of globalisation are more than enough to occupy us.

The dangers are clear. Sometimes the opportunities are less so. Yet the possibilities of technological and scientific advance, particularly now in the new field of genetics, are immense. And the world has recovered from its 20th century infatuation with fundamentalist political ideology, though religious fundamentalism remains a potent threat.

For most politicians, ready to listen and learn from an analysis of the developments of the last few years, the basic rules of what works and what doesn’t, what advances a nation and what holds it back, are increasing plain.

In any country I visit, from the mighty USA to still impoverished Bangladesh, the basic rules are there to be followed. It’s not always easy to follow them, of course; but it is relatively easy to discern them. Let me set them out; and then let us see how Britain and India can work jointly to help achieve them.

AN OPEN ECONOMY

First, any successful economy needs to conform to certain basics. It should be an open economy, willing to let capital and goods move freely. It needs financial and monetary discipline – the markets and investors swiftly punish the profligate. It needs to encourage business and enterprise – to create an enabling climate for entrepreneurs. A few years ago, people might have stopped there. But now we can add confidently: the successful economy also must invest heavily in human capital, technology and infrastructure. Education is a top economic as well as social priority. High levels of unemployment and social exclusion do not just disfigure society, they waste the national resource of human talent. That is why both Britain and India place such emphasis on it today, backed by businesses that know that without the skills, the economy cannot progress. This is the role of the enabling state. These rules are tough though. They require nations to open markets and that can be painful. And they require political leaders to fund investment where benefits may not be fully realised within the electoral cycle.

GOOD GOVERNANCE AND DEMOCRACY

Secondly, good governance and democracy are not just right in themselves, they are, at least at a certain juncture, critical to political and economic progress. These include not just regard to proper elections, the absence of corruption, respect for human rights. They also include well-functioning commercial, fiscal and legal systems. People need to know the rule of law is not an empty phrase. They need to know that taxes will be collected and litigation fought over, in a fair and open system. It is hugely to India’s credit that, with all its difficulties and vast population, it provides such governance. Increasingly in the field of development assistance, donor nations are realising that help with a proper system of government or law is at least as crucial, sometimes more so, than cash.

A SOCIAL CONTRACT

Thirdly, the welfare state of the future is based on a social contract between citizens. The relationship cannot simply be one of give by the state and take by the recipient. It must encompass rights and duties. We have a very generous programme to help unemployment in Britain. But we insist that opportunities given are matched by a responsibility to make the most of them or state benefit can be withdrawn. And part of this social contract concerns criminal behaviour. The young child in the village in Bangladesh who told me that when he grew up he wanted to be a lawyer so that he could ‘hang the criminals’ may have taken it a little far! But he was articulating a heartfelt anger in communities the world over at the misery and arbitrary tragedy that crime provokes. There are of course social causes of crime. Tackling them – the poverty, poor housing, lack of education – is part of that social contract. But the causes can’t excuse the criminal. Citizens need protection and they should have it.

GLOBAL INTERDEPENDENCE

Fourth, my constant theme, before September 11 and increasingly since that fateful day, is global interdependence.

Long before September 11, Afghanistan was a failed state, exporting terrorism around the world, living off the drugs trade, the source of 90 per cent of the heroin on British streets; and millions of its people stateless refugees, seeking asylum not only in the immediate region but also in Europe. Finally, it erupted into shocking evil on the streets of America.

This interdependence is being intensified by a number of factors. Global trade has grown twenty fold since 1947, the year in which India became independent and the GATT was formed. Global finance has grown six fold in the last ten years. Today’s economies and markets are heavily swayed by that intangible essential, confidence. Just a few years ago, the East Asian financial crisis nearly provoked a global slowdown. Tensions in the Middle East can impact on the price of oil. Post September 11 there was an immediate effect on the world economy.

Confidence is, by its very nature, directly affected by political events. Those that promote stability increase confidence. Those that tend to instability diminish it. And it can show up, quite quickly, on the jobs, investment and hence living standards of communities in countries like Britain, far from the original source of instability.

Add to that the information revolution. Its consequences are not only economic. It provides, immediately and across the globe, news, views, information that can excite and influence opinions. Again, after 11 September, the battle was not just military – there was a battle for hearts and minds. Would action in Afghanistan be seen as anti-terrorism or anti-Muslim? Had the international coalition been weaker, had the false propaganda that it was anti-Muslim been widely accepted, the whole train of events could have been quite different and adversely so.

Then there is migration and travel. Some interesting facts: 25 per cent of the US population today is Hispanic; there are 4.7 million Muslims in France, 2.6 million in Germany; 1.3 million Indians in the UK, almost 4 million people of Asian origin. The city with the second largest Greek population is not in Greece but Australia. There are over 300 languages spoken in London schools today. The tensions in such migration are very familiar to us. People rightly seek order and discipline in how it occurs. But that it will occur in an ever more intense fashion is frankly beyond doubt.

In consequence of this, politics itself is globalising. If the WTO succeeds, nations prosper. If the problems of global warming are tackled, every nation’s environment is helped. If the global financial system is properly ordered, our economies prosper. If international terrorism is defeated, we are all safer. Very few of these problems can be addressed effectively other than by common action. Hence the need to make alliances to secure it.

So alliances between nations become a vital part of a nation’s self-interest and standing, its ability to secure the advances it needs.

CLARIFYING A NATION’S POSITION IN THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY

Which brings me to the fifth rule of politics we can discern today. In this interdependent world, nations need to define their place in it. Other nations need to know what any particular nation stands for, where it is located in the multiplicity of alliances and interests around it.

Here both our nations are in a process of change.

India’s success today is rooted in its long history of civilisation and strong tradition of democracy, grown out of a rich patchwork of ethnicity, religion and language. It is this combination of stability and diversity which gives India such powerful potential.

Over the last decade, more than ever before, India has been realising its potential. The green revolution set the stage, giving India self-sufficiency in food. By opening up its economy in the early 1990s, India released its creative potential, making it one of the fastest growing economies in the world – soon set to join the top ten – much of it based in cutting edge technologies like IT and biotechnology. And India’s culture too has impacted worldwide. Bollywood films are seen all over the world. Writers like Arundhati Roy and Gita Mehta have as strong a following in the UK as in India.

So India is strong internally, vibrant culturally and economically, and influential internationally. Its traditions of freedom and democracy make India an obvious partner for us. Its diversity and energy put it in a prime position to benefit from today’s globalising world.

For Britain, there is both challenge and opportunity. The days of Empire are long gone. Europe has been at peace for half a century. Britain has the fourth largest economy in the world but our land mass and population inevitably constrain us. We are not a superpower, but we can act as a pivotal partner, acting with others to make sense of this global interdependence and make it a force for good, for our own nation and the wider world. In so doing, I believe we have found a modern foreign policy role for Britain.

In part this is by virtue of our history. Our past gives us huge, perhaps unparalleled connections with many different regions of the world. We are strong allies of the US. We are part of the European Union. Our ties with the Commonwealth, with India and other parts of this sub-continent, are visibly strengthening. Similarly, our relations with the Middle East, with Russia and China, are all areas where we are enjoying a closer friendship than for many years. Japan already rightly regards us as a leading partner for it in Europe.

Our armed forces in their professionalism and skill give us reach and influence abroad. It is generally accepted that our development assistance programmes, massively increased since 1997, give us an opening to help partner countries achieve their goals. The initiative on Africa is one prime example.

The opportunity therefore is obvious. It shouldn’t be exaggerated. I stress the role is as partner. The challenge, however, is to throw ourselves into this role with confidence, to discard isolationism or retreating into nostalgia. Whatever the merits of membership of the Euro for Britain, the proposition that Britain should be an involved, constructive, leading partner in Europe, seems to me indisputable. It is the key alliance right on our doorstep. We are in it. We aren’t going to leave it. So let us make the most of it, with confidence.

Likewise elsewhere, as here in India, we should engage without hesitation – with humility about the limits of what we can do, but with conviction that much can indeed be done together.

THE SPEED OF GLOBAL CHANGE

Finally, a rule that is a warning.

One consequence of all this economic, political and, above all, technological change is that the change itself moves so fast today. The opportunities are there to be seized. But time doesn’t wait for the hesitant. Moments come in which new directions can be struck, but they pass. The pace, in particular, of the information revolution, and soon the revolution of the human genome, requires in business and in politics a perpetual alertness and willingness to adapt. Nations can be left behind. Businesses, even whole industries, can become obsolete. And we have to look ahead. Let me give one example that I think it is vital.

We have had a wake-up call about religious fundamentalism and fanaticism. There are many reasons why the Al Qa’ida network developed. But one reason that cannot be ducked is fundamentalism. We need a twin track approach. One, within the Moslem world, is to take on the fanatics, the extremists who warp the true message of Islam, which is caring and decent. That can only be done by the true voice of Islam itself; it can’t be imposed from outside. And it must deal with the fanaticism head-on; the schools that teach it, those who preach it, the political extremism that feeds on it. It is immensely encouraging that there are real signs that many clerics and political leaders in the Moslem world are now reclaiming the true values and spirit of that great faith.

Simultaneously, we all need to build a bridge of understanding between faiths. There is too much ignorance, too much prejudice, too little tolerance and all those things are dangerous in today’s world. Understanding the other person’s point of view does not shut out the storm but it gives us shelter under which we can discuss and debate and plan ways forward, with mutual respect rather than fear as our guide.

There is so much here for Britain and India to work on together. A new century. A new partnership. A shared future.

India’s role in peacekeeping from Bosnia to Sierra Leone is just one example of the true international leadership your country has shown the world. India is now a natural contender for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. We will work with you to achieve it.

India knows better than most the terrible risks posed by climate change, especially to some of its low-lying coastal areas. The agreement in Marrakech last November showed that we make progress. Now we need to make a success of the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in September. India and Britain should co-ordinate closely on our approach.

Nearly a quarter of the world’s population live on less than one US dollar a day. This year nearly 11 million children will die from poverty-related diseases. And 120 million children worldwide are denied the right to basic schooling.

Both India and the UK are jointly committed to the UN Millennium Development Goals, including that of halving, by 2015, the proportion of the world’s population living in abject poverty. Despite India’s economic progress, there are still some 300 million people here who are very poor. So much remains to be done.

The next couple of years will see a major increase in the UK’s bilateral development programme in India, rising from £175 million in the current financial year to £300 million in 2003/04. We intend to increase this further in years to come. Our funding is allocated according to a strategy agreed with the Government of India, and includes spending on health and education and on improving, and getting access to, services for those who need them most.

This month we expect to see the signing of agreements for £98 million of UK government support for polio eradication in India and £123 million for HIV/AIDS relief. In addition, £32 million has been agreed for rebuilding primary schools damaged in the Orissa supercyclone.

Ultimately, the key to reducing poverty is economic growth and policies that help the poor. The lifeblood of the global economy is trade. Since the end of the Uruguay Round in 1994, developing countries’ trade has grown at twice the rate of other countries. That is good for you and good for us.

But not all have benefited equally. Our common challenge now, with the start of a new WTO trade round in Doha last November, is to ensure that globalisation spreads the benefits of economic growth throughout the world and reduces poverty.

The UK is committed to pressing for an EU negotiating position which promotes development. This should include opening markets in the developed world through substantial cuts in high tariffs and subsidies which distort trade. And developing countries also have much to gain by opening their own markets to trade with each other. Again, let us work together on this.

Educational links between the UK and India are flourishing. We are on target for our goal of doubling the numbers of Indians studying in the UK. And I can announce that as a result of the initiative to attract private sector funding for more Chevening scholarships, we will be increasing funding of the India programme to £2 million a year.

We enjoy just as strong links in science. In Delhi on Monday I will open the British Council Science Festival, the largest gathering of top-level British scientists ever outside Britain. We also look forward to better networking between British and Indian scientists, including a substantial number of new scientific scholarships.

And the UK and India are already strong partners for trade and investment. The UK is India’s second largest trading partner. Already there is £5 billion of trade between us. I am confident that India will, in the early part of this century, join the world’s top ten economies.

Since the Indo British Partnership was formed in 1993, UK-India bilateral trade in goods and services has grown by more than two-thirds, and more than 1500 new Indo-British joint ventures have been approved. There has been significant investment by British firms in India, while in the UK some 250 Indian companies are now also well-established investors.

To encourage such activity, the UK Government has relaxed procedures for work permit holders, especially in high-tech industries. And we have simplified processes for allowing innovators and entrepreneurs to set up business in the UK.

The CBI and the CII intend to hold a major economic summit in London in July 2002 involving senior CEOs from both countries, in part to look at the major challenges we face together.

So this is a big, even heady agenda for us to develop. For reasons that don’t need stating, from time to time since independence relations between Britain and India have, let me put it diplomatically, occasionally been a little scratchy. Not so today. Today relations are strong and confident and the deep affection and fascination people in Britain have always had for India has never waned. History, culture, shared interests and values and now those of Indian origin living in Britain, valued and contributing enormously to our society, bind us together. India is changing, finding its place in a new world; Britain likewise. We have much to offer each other. Our new partnership for a better and safer world awaits. I extend to you our respect, solidarity and friendship in making it a reality.

Below is the text of the speech which was meant to be delivered by Tony Blair to the TUC Conference on 11th September 2001, but which was cancelled due to the terrorist acts in the United States.

I know Congress has paid warm tribute to Jimmy Knapp this week. But I want to add my own words today.

He was a man of huge integrity. He was a good and candid friend of the Labour Party. Within the Labour and trade union movement, he is missed today and will be deeply, deeply missed for many years to come.

A word on asylum, which you, Bill, raised in your speech yesterday, I agree totally with you that this issue must never be exploited,

The lives and future life chances of those fleeing torture and persecution are far too important to play politics with and Bill Morris and others are right to remind us of that.

But, asylum is rightly an issue of huge national concern. It is not limited to Britain. Across Europe there are large numbers of people on the move. In the first six months of this year in France applications for asylum rose 20 % whilst falling 10 % here, Look at the US, the problems in Australia, in Canada, This issue is global.

But we have a clear responsibility here in Britain to make sure our system is not abused. Already in the past few years, we have tightened the rules, increased immigration staff and brought in measures to curb the horrific trade in illegal immigrants.

Over the next few weeks, we will announce a further series of measures as we and others in Europe come under renewed pressure from migration.

But in truth, there is now a need across Europe for wholesale reform of the procedures and process for asylum claims. We should always remain open to genuine asylum claims. But they must be decided by a system with proper rules and fair procedures not in an abused system that leads to the injustice of the survival of the fittest.

As for the TUC, there is so much for you to be proud of this year.

You have launched the Partnership Institute, a truly groundbreaking initiative which can help revolutionise industrial relations in this country.

You have introduced a new stakeholder pension scheme with the Prudential, which is set to benefit half a million people.

You have shown your commitment to tackling racism with the work of your Stephen Lawrence task group setting challenging targets for eliminating institutional racism within union ranks – an example to other institutions.

The New Unionism Project is developing new ways of reaching out and recruiting, 14,000 new members in the last year have been covered by new voluntary agreements.

But I would single out the work of individual unions and the TUC in the whole field of education and lifelong learning. The Government will be placing union learning representatives on a statutory basis to take this workplace revolution further.

Thank you also for the support and understanding you have shown in our management of the economy, As you and your members know, we now face a more difficult economic climate. US and European growth has slowed. In the US and much of Europe, unemployment is rising. Japan remains in stagnation. In today’s world, the fate of the large economies is intimately interconnected, No nation stands alone, able to insulate itself entirely from any cold winds from abroad.

Britain is bound to feel the draught. We are, in many ways, better protected than most. Underlying inflation is the lowest in Europe. Interest rates lower than for thirty years. Unemployment the lowest of any major European country. Yet as Friday’s manufacturing output figures illustrate, there are real problems facing us, especially in that sector. I know the pain much of manufacturing is experiencing. The pound-to-Euro rate has made life very tough indeed, Now with export markets shrinking, that pain is worse. In the UK, as round the world, jobs are being shed even from the most seemingly secure of companies.

We will be increasing the support we give to employees made redundant and working with you to provide the re-skilling and retraining where we can.

There is no point in offering false hope. And I am aware of Keynes riposte to talk of long-termism – ‘in the long run, we’re all dead.’ But there are three key things affecting our long-term strength which we must hold to.

The first is prudent economic management. Bank of England independence, sound financial policy: they have been the bedrock of stability for the UK over the past four years. They must and will remain.

The second is work we are pursuing with you now, in improving productivity. In some sectors, we still lag 45% behind the US and 20% behind France. That is why the investment in education, skills, science and technology is so vital,

The third is to continue to play our part in Europe and to be part of the single currency if the economic conditions are met.

On Europe I want to make it clear. This Government believes Britain’s proper place is at the centre of Europe as a leading partner in European development. There is nothing more damaging or destructive to the true national interest than anti European isolationism of today’s Conservative Party.

Three million jobs depend on our being part of Europe; nearly sixty per cent of our trade; we negotiate together in international trade and commerce.

It is the most integrated regional bloc of nations the world has seen. It now often works together on issues of common foreign and defence policy.

Tell me what other nation anywhere, faced with such a strategic alliance right on its doorstep, at the crux of international politics, would isolate itself from that alliance, not out of accident but design? It would be an absurd denial of our own self interest. It’s not standing up for Britain. It’s sending Britain down a road to nowhere.

And, of course, Europe needs reform; of course, it will do things we don’t agree with, at times; but aren’t we better in there, with confidence in ourselves and an ability to win debates, than sat on the sidelines as irrelevant critics, affecting nothing?

From next January there will be a single currency circulating in twelve out of the fifteen EU countries. Sweden is considering joining. Denmark rejected membership but remains with its currency tied to the Euro. All those people who said it would never happen now content themselves with saying it will be a disaster. I believe they’re wrong. And a successful Euro is in our national interest. So provided the economic conditions are met, it is right that Britain joins.

We are working in partnership with you on Europe and it was in partnership with you that we introduced basic fair rights at work. I know you would have wanted us to go further. But after the first ever statutory minimum wage, the Social Chapter, the right to union recognition, when people ask ‘what has the Labour Government ever done for us’, I think we are entitled to say: quite a lot,

And of course now we look to ways of building on that record: as well as the review of current legislation, extending maternity pay from 18 to 26 weeks; rights to parental leave; new information and consultation rights to workers: and equal rights for part time workers. Again all achievable in partnership together,

The trade unions we prospering again, better respected, more creative, still with work to do but in better shape than for decades. Why? Because you have changed with the times and you have embraced partnership as the way forward.

Partnership with you and between you and employers is a reality, And, incidentally, this is in no small measure due to the leadership, intelligence and perseverance of your General Secretary, John Monks.

People want fairness at work; they understand that there are employers who treat employees unfairly; but basically they prefer to regard their employers as partners not enemies. Partnership is not a denial of trade union interests. It is their modern expression. Reading the TUC pamphlet on attitudes to trade unions and the sense of this is clear, The threats to trade unions are either in poor service to members or a return m old-style political syndicalism. The opportunity is in high quality service and partnership.

The impact of what we have done together is enormous. The minimum wage gave one and a half million people a pay rise. Over three million people got paid holidays. So far almost 200 new Union recognition deals have been struck, most of them voluntarily.

Union membership is growing for the first time in over 20 years.

And the opponents of these things? Those who claimed they would violate the British economy are forced to claim they support them after all.

That is the measure of the shift in British politics.

7 June confirmed it.

The Party that had opposed the minimum wage defeated heavily.

The Party that campaigned on xenophobic anti-Europeanism defeated heavily.

The Party that advocated cutting public spending trounced out of sight,

For the first time in our political life, in the battle between investment in public services and short-term tax cuts, public services won.

That is a big achievement. A big shift, A big challenge ahead,

For, we may have won the battle. We haven’t won the war.

Because those we defeated are re-grouping around exactly the same ultra-Thatcherite agenda.

Either they will have a leader whose policies are anathema to his Party; or a leader whose policies are anathema to the public.

In any event, the Conservative Party is not going to change. Not yet.

So battle will have to be joined again, And we will win, not by changing the basic reasons why New Labour has been successful but by deepening them, and explaining how they are the modern expression of our values, just as partnership is the modern expression of yours.

In 1987, after the third election defeat, people said Labour could never win again. Ten years later we won a landslide. In June, we won again with the largest second term majority in British political history. How did we win’?

People never doubted, in my view, even in the 1980s that Labour’s core values social justice, opportunity for all – were right. That’s why it was always nonsense that after 1987 we couldn’t win again. What they doubted was whether we understood how those values should be applied in the modern world.

Our goals today – jobs, economic stability to help hardworking families, a reduction of poverty, high quality public services – would be recognisable to any Labour leader in history. The values have not changed and will not change. They are based on the core belief in society, in community, in solidarity, the idea that we help each other as well as ourselves; and that this, not some laissez-faire selfish individualism is the way to greater prosperity and a more fair and just society.

But just as you are doing these values need application, to a new and modern world of global markets, technological revolution, a consumer age, of instant communication, choice and change. This is the world we must make our way in.

The challenge of this world is the need constantly to adapt to the pace of change.

The opportunity is that today: developing every person’s potential to the full, treating them as of equal worth, goes hand in hand with economic success.

Fairness and enterprise go together. So in our first term, we were pro-business, cut corporation tax, but also introduced a minimum wage.

We got rid of the appalling legacy of national debt, ran the economy better than the Tories, but we also took one million children out of poverty, increased old age pensions and cut youth unemployment by three quarters.

Now we must show how it is possible to sustain it, why Thatcherism has had its day, why modern social democracy is the way forward. In a sense we seek to combine American economic dynamism with European social solidarity, without the inequity of the one or the rigidity of the other.

But it isn’t just a question of money. The systems need fundamental reform,

The principles of reform are clear,

1. A national framework of standards and accountability.

2. Within that framework, devolution of power to the local level with the ability to innovate and develop new services in the hands of local leaders.

3. Better and more flexible rewards and conditions of employment for front line staff.

4. More choice for the pupil, patient or customer and the ability if provision is poor, to have an alternative provider.

As for the involvement of the private sector, I have a sharp sense of deja vu, in this my 8th year as Party Leader. Wherever change is proposed, there is a familiar pattern. First opponents of change construct an Aunt Sally grossly misrepresenting it; then a great campaign is mounted against the Aunt Sally; then we defend ourselves; then those who created the Aunt Sally, ask us why we keep talking about it. Then after the change goes through, people wonder what the fuss was about.

So let us get a few things straight. Nobody is talking about privatising the NHS or schools. Nobody. Nobody has said the private sector is a panacea to sort out our public services. Nobody,

There are great examples of public service and poor examples. There are excellent private sector companies and poor ones. There are areas where the private sector has worked well; and areas where, as with the railways, clearly it hasn’t.

Round the world and certainly in Europe, people are changing and reforming public services. Sometimes the private or voluntary sectors play a role, sometimes they don’t.

The key test is: improvement of the public service, We can argue about the new PFI hospitals or GP premises, the largest re-building programme in the NHS since the War. But the patients that will be treated in the new Bishop Auckland hospital or the new GP premises in West Comforth in my constituency, will be NHS patients treated in the NHS. Likewise the pupils in the new City Academies will be state school pupils.

So where use of the private sector makes sense in the provision of a better public service, we will use it. Where it doesn’t, we won’t. The areas we propose to have a role for the private sector are set out with crystal clarity in the NHS plan; the Education White Paper; and the 10 year transport plan. Should those proposals change or be added to, we will discuss it with you. But the blunt fact is that our health and education services are run by publicly accountable authorities and overwhelmingly delivered by public servants. That is not for narrow ideological reasons but because we know what would be lost if we undermined the fundamental values that motivate staff, underpin those services and on which they are held accountable to the community, and that we will not do.

One further point where the private sector is used it should not be at the expense of proper working conditions for the staff. Which is precisely why we are proposing to strengthen the TUPE regulations so as to give workers better protection.

However this is only one part of a far larger reform programme.

We need proper systems of inspection of accountability right across public services. We need to let schools, PCTs [Health: Primary Care Trusts], BCUs [Police: basic command units] develop and innovate, not have one size fits all driven from the centre. We need not just more teachers, but more classroom assistants and ICT specialists in our schools. We need pay and conditions to be more flexible to retain good teachers. In the NHS the traditional roles of nurses, doctors and consultants need change. Some of the perverse incentives need to be stripped out of the system.

The way public servants are employed, the inflexibility of their working arrangements, particularly for women with family pressures, need radical change.

There is a massive under utilisation of the potential of new technology in our public services, And where possible we need the users of services to know they can choose different providers. If a service fails, we need to be able to change its provision.

The reform programme to improve public services is every bit as crucial to the future of Britain as changing Clause IV was to the future of the Labour Party, except of course infinitely more important in its impact on the lives of the people we serve.

Be under no illusion. If we fail in this task, the Conservative Party stands ready with an alternative:

Let the public services wither;

Let those that can afford to, opt out;

And let what remains be there for those that cannot afford to buy better.

That’s what reducing public spending to 35 % of GDP, as Mr Duncan Smith proposes, means.

So my focus now, and the focus of the government from top to bottom, is to deliver better public services for the people of this country.

It won’t be easy, expectations are high. The legacy of years of neglect and underinvestment is strong.

But my determination to deliver is absolute.

And why? Because of the basic belief that has driven me all my political life; that everyone, every man, every woman, every child, deserves the chance to make the most of themselves within a strong and cohesive society. Public services, and the ethos of public service, are vital to making that happen.

We are all in politics, or in public service, because we believe it can make a difference for the better. Because we believe that we are not just atomised individuals fighting for ourselves and our families, but part of a society held together by basic beliefs and values and aspirations.

I believe education should be the passion of any government because I believe every child is of equal worth, Every child deserves a decent education and our country is a better and stronger country if they get it. And many of the problems we face today stem from the fact that for too many decades this country failed too many children by thinking we only had to educate an elite.

I believe in the NHS because we are all of equal worth, every person should be treated with dignity and respect and where people are in fear or in pain, we owe it to them to relieve that fear and pain, without them having to worry about paying for it to be done.

These are basic articles of faith for us. It is why we put schools and hospitals first. And what 7 June showed is that they are basic beliefs which go with the grain of the basic beliefs and values of the British people.

So with their backing, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to deliver better schools, better hospitals, to step up the fight on crime, to sort out our transport system, to restore confidence not just in our public services, but in the very concept of public service.

Why do I want so passionately for every school to be a good school? Not just because every child deserves to be able to get on. But because unless we make the most of the talents of every child, we are simply pouring our country’s greatest asset – the potential of our people – down a drain.

Why do I want to get health spending here up to the European average? Not because the NHS is some relic museum piece that we want to save as a monument to a great reforming Labour government, but because a country that believes in fairness knows that the central principle of the NHS – healthcare available to all regardless of ability to pay – is as right for today as it was for 1945.

Why am I so determined to push through the changes to the criminal justice system, slid to modernise the way our police forces work? Not because I have some arcane interest in the intricacies of reform, but because I know that the people most affected by crime and the fear of crime are decent people living in hard-pressed communities, and I am in politics to give them a better chance of living in security.

So let us start from agreement that these are our motives, yours and mine, Let us not misrepresent our positions for the sake of a headline or an invitation to the TV studio. And let us hear no more false charges about privatising schools and hospitals when we are set to spend this year more money on them than ever before, are employing more people in them and their pay is rising faster than the private sector, for the first time ia years,

It is precisely because of our commitment to public services that we need to make sure that the money is used to improve them. Because in the end it is the pupil, the patient, the passenger, the victim of crime, who comes first. They are my boss. They are your boss, and we should both of us never forget it.

I know too that nothing that we plan for our public services will be delivered without the support and the professionalism of the people who work in them.

I believe in public service. I believe in public servants. I know how strongly public servants believe in the public service ethos.

The change we need in public services can only be achieved with, not in spite of, our public servants. Of course, no-one can have a veto over reform. Of course, the user of public services comes first. The vast bulk of public servants accept this. They, like us, only want to get it right. So I offer a partnership for change. There are people now showing how it can be done. Public servants doing a brilliant job. Let’s build on their success and let no outdated ideology, or misguided Government bureaucracy or vested interests, public or private, stand in their way.

Change is never easy. But I tell you: reform is not the enemy of public service in Britain; the status quo is.

That is our joint responsibility. It is our joint goal – to give this country improved public services. We offer a partnership for change and reform. Work with us and in the spirit of solidarity, we will succeed.

Below is the text of the modified speech given by the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to the TUC Conference on 11th September 2001.

Bill, Congress, as Bill has just informed you there have been the most terrible, shocking events taking place in the United States of America within the last hour or so, including two hi-jacked planes being flown deliberately into the World Trade Centre. I am afraid we can only imagine the terror and the carnage there and the many, many innocent people who will have lost their lives. I know that you would want to join with me in sending the deepest condolences to President Bush and to the American people on behalf of the British people at these terrible events.

This mass terrorism is the new evil in our world today. It is perpetrated by fanatics who are utterly indifferent to the sanctity of human life and we, the democracies of this world, are going to have to come together to fight it together and eradicate this evil completely from our world.

Delegates, I hope you will understand that I do not believe it would be appropriate to carry on the speech that I was going to give to you today. I know I have issued copies of the speech and we will make sure that all delegates get copies of the speech, but I think it inappropriate to give that speech now here. I will obviously want to carry on the discussions that we have had about the issues that concern us.

I will now return to London and once again I thank you for your indulgence here. I am very, very sorry it has turned out the way that it has but I know that, as I say, you would want to join with me in offering our deepest sympathy to the American people and our absolute shock and outrage at what has happened.

Below is the text of the speech made by Tony Blair, the then Prime Minister, at the EU/Balkan Summit in Zagreb on 24th November 2000.

We Europeans – all of us gathered here today – have waited a long time to come together in this group and talk in good faith about the way forward. When the former Yugoslavia began to break up, the European Union argued for the politics of co-operation and compromise as the only responsible way forward. We got instead the politics of extremism and intolerance.

The human cost has been horrific. Tens of thousands of our fellow Europeans killed, often in unspeakable massacres. Many people still missing. Hundreds of thousands made homeless – even now far too many people can still not return home and rebuild their lives. Piles of bodies in Bosnia unidentified to this day.

These horrors have dishonoured all of us as Europeans. This Summit sends a strong, clear message. We can do better than this. There is only one way forward – the way adopted by the rest of Europe. What does that mean in practice? To quote President Kostunica, it means the rule of law.

It means that the will of one man can never again triumph over the will of the people; that a whole country can never again become a presidential fiefdom. It means that borders are opportunities not problems; that they never again become military frontlines or barriers to trade and co-operation. It means that diversity is strength; and that societies root out ethnic, religious and racial discrimination wherever they find it.

Above all, it means responsibility, and responsible politicians. As I look around today, I can only marvel at what a difference democracy makes. New hope. New faces. People for years consigned to the margins by intolerance and conflict. People who stood up to the dictatorships that were tearing their society apart. Today, the future belongs to them.

I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the people of Serbia. We all feared that Milosevic’s downfall would take place in a tragedy of bloodshed. And yet the BuIldozer Revolution succeeded not through violence, but through the dignified uprising of a whole people. Milosevic’s fall has paved the way for reconciliation, stability and prosperity throughout the whole region.

When Prime Minister Racan of Croatia visited London earlier this year he talked of a new, critical mass for co-operation across the region. He was absolutely right, as subsequent events have so dramatically shown. This is why this Summit today is so important. It is our task, in the European Union, to hold out the hand of friendship and partnership to the new democracies of the former Yugoslavia. Each country must decide for itself how best to make progress. No country should be held back by slower neighbours.

You are all European countries. We will judge you by the same European standards. That means settling disputes by negotiation. That means proper treatment for minorities and creating the conditions for the return of refugees. President Kostunica has made an impressive start. President Mesic and Prime Minister Racan have transformed Croatia through their courageous decisions. They have shown that there is a route to Europe. Others should make sure that they take it too.

The British position in all this is clear. The political framework represented by the former Yugoslavia is finished. We have no interest in seeing it recreated. Our only interest is to see the new states that have emerged from the old framework working with each other and with us according to modern European standards.

A lot is already happening. We have made major progress in breaking down the trade barriers between South East Europe and the European Union. But there’s a lot more to do. We want to see this Summit leading to concrete action. A region-wide approach to refugee return. Co-operation between all our countries in the common fight against organised crime, illegal immigration and drugs. A concerted offensive against corruption and discrimination.

The European Union will help. But we are looking for further action from the countries of the region on economic reform. Trade liberalisation by the European Union should be matched by regional free trade agreements.

During his campaign President Kostunica spoke movingly of the dignity of his people. There is an important message for all of us. None of us can promote the dignity of our own people by denying other people their dignity. All Europe’s citizens must feel safe and welcome in the country they live in.

The threat we face is a retreat into narrow-minded nationalism which in the name of misguided patriotism takes our countries backward. When people attack the EU, they ask: what is the good of it? I say to them: look at this meeting and see the purpose and achievement of the EU.

The 15 member states of the EU – countries that in the lifetime of my father were at war with one another – now working in union, with 50 years of peace and prosperity behind us. And now, holding out the prospect of bringing the same peace and prosperity to the Eastern and Central European nations and even to the Balkan Countries.

The very word ‘Balkan’ has for centuries tragically been synonymous with destruction and racial conflict. Yet today, the vision of a united Europe, secure, free and prosperous, offers for the first time the chance of a new history for the region. Let no-one say nothing ever changes. Europe, the present EU and the EU of the future, is the standing example that the past need not repeat itself. All this is possible, provided an enlightened patriotism, which sees co-operation and partnership as strength not weakness, replaces the fear and prejudices of that narrow nationalism.

This is the common goal we proclaim today: an historic commitment to enhancing and enlarging the European family. To achieve for the Balkans, the security and prosperity that the EU has brought to Western Europe. To build a new Europe that rejects discrimination and narrow﷓minded nationalism and bases itself instead on responsibility, dignity, and democracy.

Below is the text of the speech made by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to the 1999 TUC Conference.

Hector, my Lord – in fact my Lords actually looking along the platform there – it is a delight to be with you today and to be here again at Congress, and I am particularly flattered and privileged to be the warm-up act for the poet laureate. (Laughter) In fact, I am so flattered and so privileged I have written you a little poem, which I am going to read to you:

Every year, this time of year I come to the TUC and every year the press report, there’ll be a row between you and me.

They say I’ll come and beat a drum, unleash the annual cry,

“Change your ways, clean up your act, modernise or die”.

“Well, modernised you have”, I say, New Labour, new unions too,

both for the future, not the past, for the many not the few.

So the link between us changes, you’ve changed and so have we.

You’re welcome now in No.10 but no beer today, just tea.

And amid the change there’s bound to be a call for the link to end.

What staggers me is the call should come from the left-wing firebrand Ken.

Ken, I thought your job was to put out the fires not start them, and maybe that is the way we should keep it! So now you have got my poem, you have got Andrew Motion’s later and tonight you can composite the two of them.

Congress, it is a real pleasure to be with you because there are huge and important challenges that we face and it is those that I want to set out in my speech to you today. But before I do that I also want to deal with what is the criticism or the attack that is sometimes mounted on us as a New Labour Government, and it is really summarised in the phrase, “What has New Labour done for us?” If you take out the “new”, that cry has been made within our ranks whenever there has been a Labour Government for the 100 years of our history.

For example, I came across a quote the other day from Walter Citrine, no less, who said in the 1940s, “I can’t remember a single occasion when Attlee has ever helped us since he has taken office”, and we all remember some of the speeches made in the Labour Government of the 1970s, or the 1960s, or even the 1920s.

So what has this New Labour Government done for the country, for the workers of the country, for your members? – A statutory national minimum wage, lifting the pay of 2 million workers, the first ever under the Labour Government; the right for unions, where their members vote for it, to be recognised by employers for the first time ever in our history; halving the qualifying period for unfair dismissal; raising the compensation limits back to their real value of 20 years ago; an end to check-off; paid holiday for the first time ever; the Social Chapter signed; parental leave so that people can balance work and family responsibilities. These are things that the New Labour Government has done for people in this country.

The New Deal for the unemployed: 250,000 on the programme, almost 100,000 young people into employment who were previously unemployed; youth unemployment halved; long-term unemployment down to its lowest level since the early 1970s and no one I have ever talked to on the New Deal calls it a skivvy scheme.

Or the working families tax credit, lifting the living standards of 2 million lower and middle income families; or the biggest ever rise in child benefit this April; or this November £100 extra to every pensioner household to help tide our pensioners over the winter months. Those are achievements that any Labour Government and any Labour Party can be proud of.

More than that – the £800 million John Prescott is putting into the poorest estates in the country; capital receipts after years of lying idle freed up for use by local councils; Section 11 money restored to help ethnic minorities with the English language; the abolition of charges for eye tests for the over 60s; a 10p tax rate for the low paid; cutting class sizes for 5, 6 and 7 year olds; replacing nursery vouchers with guaranteed nursery places; £40 billion extra spending on schools and hospitals; ending the ban on unions at GCHQ. All these things has a Labour Government done and, of course, there is much, much more to do. Hospitals still need to be modernised, schools that are run down to be changed, sink estates still sink estates, pensioners still living in poverty.

We know all these things remain to be done, but we should remind ourselves of two things. First, we are working hard as a Government every moment of every working day to put right what is still to be done and we will not rest until we’ve done it. We have made a start but we know there is so much more to do. Second, every bit of that progress – every bit of it – has been opposed root and branch by today’s Conservative Party, every bit of it delayed in the House of Lords by Tory hereditary peers, every last line of it fought over by the ever-more extreme sect that is now the Tory Party in the House of Commons.

That is the choice, not between this New Labour Government and some fantasy Government where no hard decisions are ever taken and everything is put right overnight. The choice is between a New Labour Government, trying our best to put right 20 years of Conservative Government, and a Conservative Party that is worse than they were before and if they ever got the chance would reverse every bit of progress and change we have made in the last two years, be in no doubt about that whatever.

There is another thing: for the first time in 20 years, yes, trade union leaders come to Downing Street. They are consulted, they are listened to, just as the CBI are. No favours but fairness, equality – exactly what we promised. Yes, we are New Labour. You run the unions, we run the Government and we will never confuse the two again. Yes, we are not going back to the old days of secondary action, mass pickets and all the rest, but don’t let anyone pretend that this is not a Labour Government delivering for ordinary working people in this country because we are and we need your help to do it. The moment we ever go down that road of betrayal, we all know the destination as well. This is what will happen if we ever listen to it, not a left-wing Labour Government but a right-wing Tory Government and that is not what this country needs.

It is necessary to say this because whenever the myth of “What has the Government done for us, what has New Labour done for us?” is raised, we have to dispel it, otherwise our supporters are told the myth but not the reality. I know that remarks that are made are often misinterpreted. You don’t have to tell me – I have got the scars in my back to prove it!

But actually I know that the vast majority of you here today don’t share the sentiment of betrayal. You do recognise the change that we have brought about. Yes, you would like us to go quicker and further, and there will inevitably be disagreements, but I believe in many ways we have today a better, clearer relationship than ever before between trade unions and Labour Party, between trade unions and Government. We share many of the same goals and values, but we are not in each other’s pockets. We have both matured. We have both changed, and for good.

Because when we are attacked as having ‘sold out’, it is largely not because of what we have done or what we are, but because of what we are not. We are not as a Government, or as a Labour Party today, anti-business or anti-wealth. We enjoy good relations with business. We are in favour of wealth creation. We celebrate British entrepreneurial success. Many successful business people support New Labour, and we are proud of it.

The real criticism is that we are not out there jabbing our finger at the ‘bosses’, engaged in old-fashioned class-war rhetoric and all the rest of what used to be standard stuff for conference speeches (and occasionally still is) and it is for good reason. Business and employees, your members, aren’t two nations divided. That is old-style thinking, that is the thinking of the past. Business and employees, your members, work best when they work together for their common interests, when they’ve got one direction and one purpose. So I make no apology for saying that New Labour does strongly support business, but it is absurd to suggest that supporting business means somehow we don’t support employment or we don’t support employees or we don’t support trade unions. When we back business, we are supporting employees and employment. When we support employees and employment, we are backing business.

On the Working Time Directive, for instance, the Government is accused by the TUC of listening to the CBI. Let me answer that charge by pleading guilty. Yes, we did talk to the CBI. The Government is accused by the CBI of talking to the TUC. Let me answer that charge too by pleading guilty. Yes, we did talk to the TUC. Curiously enough, we talked to both TUC and CBI, and to lots of others too. That is because we are, and should be, a Government that listens, a Government which includes all sides in the argument. But it is a Government too which ultimately must make the final decision, not a decision for one side or a decision for the other – those are, indeed, the sterile ways of the past – but a Government that takes decisions for the whole country. I will say that here today at the TUC and I will say that in November at the CBI conference, because taking decisions for the whole country is what we have been about since May 1997, and it is what we will continue to do now.

You, in your way, are doing precisely the same. Of course you will resist bad employment practices, of course, in certain circumstances, there is going to be conflict but your emphasis today is on partnership with your employers, recognising the common interest you both have in producing quality goods or delivering quality services. We have both been – TUC and Labour – politically liberated and as a result we both do a better job. We have actually done more as a Labour Government in two years than virtually any of our predecessors, and the trade union Movement’s standing today is higher than it has been for decades.

That political liberation was necessary, not necessary simply to win but necessary in a far more profound sense, necessary to achieve our basic aims and values. For you, the old-style confrontation harmed your ability to represent your members and harmed your ability to recruit because, though day in, day out, trade unions were doing a thoroughly responsible job, though in fact, not in myth, most unions were preventing strikes not calling them, though on the ground away from the media profile employers and unions were actually co-operating, because the profile was different, the perception based on some reality of a politically charged, highly confrontational trade union Movement, it did nothing but damage. Now the perception and reality are different and, as a result, this union Movement today is once again recruiting.

When the TUC and CBI discussed how the new laws on recognition would work, I was struck by how you were both clear that the mere presence of the law would encourage voluntary recognition. We can already see this happening, and it is clear that unions are helping to make it happen. There is a huge change in industrial relations. That partnership message that you have spearheaded is actually spreading. The days of mass meetings in car parks and readiness to strike have gone for good, but that does not mean that employers should ride roughshod over their staff. Modern organisations have to succeed in today’s competitive-orientated society. Your insight is that they will do that best when they take their staff with them, when they work with their staff, when they treat their staff as partners in the enterprise and that is the appeal of that partnership message.

Sceptical employers – and there are a few – should just look at the many successful companies who say that the partnership they have with their staff is not just good for employees but benefits their business through good and bad times. As I said in your TUC partnership report, “Britain works best when business and unions work together”. So that is a huge change that you have brought about.

The same was true for us as a Labour Party. Though, in fact, Labour Governments were often clearing up an appalling financial mess inherited from Tory Governments, we were perceived, it was the common myth, you will remember finding it on the doorstep from time to time, that we were somehow financially irresponsible and we would expend masses of our political credibility, political energy, doing things we felt we had to for reasons of ideology which obscured the true aims of social justice that we really care about.

Take the New Deal: it is the biggest ever programme spending money, £3.6 billion, getting people who have languished on the dole for months and years back into work. It is being done, however, with the support and active participation of employers. It is helping get welfare bills down but, more important, it is giving real hope and opportunity to thousands previously denied it. It is social justice in action and isn’t it a far better way to do it with employers helping us, with the country behind us? When we introduced the minimum wage, isn’t it a good thing that we should be proud of, that now today many employers in the country actually support it?

In May I addressed a joint TUC-CBI conference on work and industrial relations. I think it was not just constructive and serious, it was a ground-breaking conference. What has happened is that at long last our belief in social justice has become allied to modernity. In history that is, in fact, what has always allowed people from the centre and centre-left political persuasion to advance. We have always advanced when the belief in justice has been allied to a commitment to the future, to progress, and that is the challenge we have risen to.

But – and this is my message to you today – this challenge never stops. The real point I want to make is that we now face a bigger challenge in this country than ever before. We can rise to it but not if we under-estimate its scale or its scope, and that challenge is the challenge of the new economy. The economic world around us is changing so rapidly, the pace of technological advance is so fundamental, the revolution in communications and business practice so pervasive we cannot as a country sit still. We cannot rest on our laurels. Our country needs us as a government to be fully alive to the threats and opportunities of a future that is upon us, and your members need you to help equip them and help them cope with this massive economic change, with this new economy.

I want to see trade unions as partners in this change, not as enemies but as champions even of this change. Together – Government, people, business, trade unions – we have to address the challenge of this new economy, and I say to you in all seriousness this challenge of the new economy is the fundamental issue of our times. It does not grab the headlines but it will make the history.

Yesterday when I was in Cambridge I saw the huge potential of the Internet and electronic commerce to transform business, and not just business but the public sector too. Today, all right, it is only a minority of people who are using it, but in years to come, as a matter of course, people will shop, they will buy goods and services of every description using this technology. They will look for jobs, they will book government services. They will use government services through the new technology. Industries will alter dramatically. Unskilled low-pay jobs will go. It is why, to take controversial examples, running the Post Office in the same way, or failure to reform the way we pay teachers or organise the Health Service isn’t on. Without change we will, as a country, decline.

There are opportunities, of course, in this new technology revolution too. We can get better ways of working, of combining modern family life with modern working. You know better than me bringing up children as well as making up the family income, as well as caring for elderly relatives or the disabled, all at the same time is today’s reality for millions of women and men, and it can be hell. We have to use the changes that are coming to find new and better ways of working to improve people’s lives, but it all requires change and modernisation.

To succeed in this competitive global economy, our economy needs to be stable, knowledge-driven, skilled, flexible, creative, collaborative and inclusive. Our vision, the vision we have got to unite the whole of this country behind, is of Britain as a knowledge-driven economy competing on the basis of skills and talent and ability, not low wages and poor working conditions. There is no future for Britain as a low-wage, sweat shop economy – none. Anybody who fails to realise it, like today’s Conservative Party, does not actually understand the new world that is upon us.

It is an enormous task. It is why we cannot waste time on outdated ideology, on old-fashioned attitudes or practices. It is why every ounce of our political energy and our political credibility has to go on carrying out this task.

It is why we gave the Bank of England independence in monetary policy. It is why we have set tough new spending rules. It is why we have introduced what amounts to a revolution in British economic management. We have done that in these first two years and the result? – We have the lowest interest rates for over 30 years, the lowest level of inflation for over 30 years, our budget is now moving into surplus. We can afford to spend now, but wisely and in a way that can be sustained over a number of years, but I promise you, if we had not had those first two tough years, if we had not taken the measures, some of which were unpopular, like petrol tax rises and all the rest, to sort out the huge debt we inherited, we could never have achieved the position of economic strength we have today.

Already we have people trying to drag us back into the past. The Tories, who oppose Bank of England independence, who accused us of putting the country into recession last year and have had to eat their words, are now already spending what they call Gordon Brown’s war chest. I tell you, start back on that road and we’ll end up where the Tories put us – boom and bust. In today’s global financial markets, prudence is the only course and we are going to stick to it.

I say this to you: New Labour, not the Tories, is the Party of economic competence in Britain today and I am proud that we have achieved that record for ourselves, proud of it and proud of what it can do for our country.

Stable economic management is here to stay, but it is the foundation. On that foundation we then build the knowledge economy and that is the reason why we focus relentlessly on education. Yes, it needs more money. We are putting in £19 billion extra in the next three years. But it does need reform and modernisation too – school standards raised; basic literacy and numeracy in primary schools achieved; comprehensives that take account of pupils’ different abilities; poor teachers rooted out; teachers pay linked to performance; bad education authorities no longer running children’s education; more school leavers at university; all schools connected up to the Internet and using the new technology; increasing the number of computer literate people (including myself); learning for life; and a £1.4 billion investment in science and engineering already paying dividends is what the New Labour Government has committed to science and research.

These changes are necessary. It is why we need a flexible labour market. It is why we need to remove unnecessary bureaucracy and regulation. It is why we need to change and have changed capital gains rules to help small businesses and stimulate more venture capital.

It is why, in my view, we must remain fully engaged with change in Europe, now a vast single market of 360 million people. We must be leading partners in shaping the Europe of the future, sensible and positive about the single currency whilst maintaining the economic conditions for British participation, and we must leave behind us for ever the disastrous isolation of the Conservative years to which today’s Conservative Party wants to return us.

We must achieve all these things and it is why we need you, the trade unions, to be at the forefront of this change, driving it on, making sure it works for your members, delivering that partnership. We will give the help and support that we can. It is why we gave £5 million to form the new trade union Partnership Fund, why David Blunkett is making available an additional £2 million to establish a Union Learning Fund. To represent the employees of the future we need trade union officials who understand that future and the challenges it presents.

Following our conference in May, I would like to propose a joint Government-CBI-TUC Conference specifically on the knowledge economy early next year, where we think through the consequences of this technological revolution and what it means for us in our working lives.

Your own Millennial Challenge shows you in pretty stark terms that union membership isn’t there as much as it should be in the growth areas of employment. John Monks said yesterday that he was ambitious for unions to be as relevant to the jobs of the future as you were at the birth of trade unionism to jobs in the mines, mills and factories of industrial Britain. He is right. You can seize the opportunity to be part of the modern economy and the modern Britain I want to see created. That is the vision of which you can be a part – an economy and a country which has at its heart success and achievement but social justice too; an economy which sees no gap but the vital connection between competitiveness and compassion; an economy which praises entrepreneurship and promotes opportunity for everyone; an economy and a country which wants to see business do well with employment growing and one which wants to see help for those who need it and the way clear for those who can make it and do well; an economy and a country which can compete in the modern world and which can ensure that as many as possible are ready and able to contribute to that modern world.

A hundred years ago, at the turn of the century, the Labour Representation Committee was formed, and at the 1906 general election a fledgling Labour Party, 29 MPs, was elected to Parliament. At the heart of this historic partnership between trades unions and Labour Members of Parliament was a passionate desire to end the squalor of long hours and low pay, dangerous working conditions, to put an end to slum housing, poor health care, inadequate education. We have achieved so much with successive Labour Governments and with the unsung work of countless volunteers working for the Labour Movement.

That spirit of the beginning of this century, the spirit of fairness and of justice, and the anger at waste and the lives of unfilled potential, those values and that spirit drive us still. But I have to say to you, in all frankness, it should not have taken us, should it, 98 years to achieve a national minimum wage? It should not have taken us that long to achieve many of the basic rights that we now have and that is why we must all be even more ambitious for the next century, and that means making the next century one that is not dominated by the Conservative Party. That is our ambition because this century has been. If you look back on this century, three-quarters of it has been dominated by Conservative Governments and we ourselves spent 18 long years in opposition whilst the Conservatives did whatever they liked to our country in Government.

So if you think from time to time I get a bit too restless to make sure we win a second term of a Labour Government, if from time to time you think I am a bit too hard in knocking down those who I think are being irresponsible and wrecking our chances of achieving that second Labour Government I tell you, a Labour Government is always better for this country than a Tory Government.

I remember the very worst thing about those 18 years. It was sitting there, day in, day out, in the House of Commons, winning the argument, losing every vote and ending up being completely and totally powerless to prevent the decimation of parts of our country, to prevent 3 million unemployed growing up and being taken as a matter of course, powerless to prevent the poll tax, powerless to prevent every single part of rights being taken away from working people, powerless to prevent a two-nation Britain growing up around us.

So when we look at what we have done in our two years, I believe we have a lot to be proud of, but I am not so naive as to think we can transform the whole of the world in one term of a Labour Government. We need more than one term to succeed in doing the things our country needs. So I will carry on working for that second term. It is why our Government is unremitting in its determination to renew our economy, our institutions, to match the breakneck speed of change in the world about us, and it is why I repeat unashamedly to you that that challenge of change to you here in the trade union Movement, as to us in the Labour Party in Government, is not something with a beginning and an end. It is a relentless process of modernisation with a timeless purpose of releasing the energies and enriching the lives of all the people that we represent.

We have come a long way but our memories should not be too short. Three years ago we were still under a Conservative Government. Three years ago we were setting out a programme that was a New Labour programme and people supported it. Some people supported it, like me, because they believed in it; other people supported it because they realised it was a way of winning an election. What I say to you is that is no longer good enough. It is important we all believe in this because what New Labour is is very simple: it is Labour values applied to the modern world. It is the values of community and fairness and social justice and opportunity for all – all the things that brought me into the Labour Party, that brought many of you into the trade union Movement, but it is just always allied to progress and to the future.

These challenges we can meet together. The fact that we have a dialogue together is a good thing today. The fact that I come down here today and there isn’t some great sense of impending crisis – at least not until I have given one – is a good thing. The fact that you can just tell from the way that people regard our relationship today that it is a good thing. Yes, you will make your demands that we should go further and do more, of course you will, and that is your job. You are the trade union Movement there to represent your members and it is right that you put pressure on us to do more and to achieve. But it is right also that we remember how far we have come and how important it is that we carry on doing the right things for our people. Yes, there will be times when I have to say “No” when you would like me to say “Yes” and when I might like to say “Yes”.

People who come into my room, day in and day out, it does not matter who it is, the one thing they always have in common is they always want money from the Government. The other thing they have in common is that all the causes are just causes and the problem is you can’t say “Yes” to everybody, and that is what Government is about. But for the first time, at least in my adult political life, we have got a Government that will listen, that will let people in the door. So, yes, I agree £100 for the pensioners is not enough, many of them want more – quite right too – but it is £100 more than they ever got under a Tory Government and people should not forget that.

There are lots of people who want more for the minimum wage and I agree it would be nice to pay everyone everything you want, fine, but never forget you have only got a minimum wage because you have got a Labour Government and a Tory Government would take it back off you again.

The other day I wrote an article. I had been to this marvellous new Health Service facility where we spent all this money giving the very best care that possibly is there for all elective surgery and people were only having to wait two months and they were getting booked appointments and you got the hospital surgery done at the very time you wanted it, and I got all these letters in from people saying, “That’s marvellous, when can I have it?” I say to them, “You will have it, we will get round to doing it in every part of the country but we have to start somewhere”.

When David Blunkett is starting his education revolution and raising the standards for 11-year-olds and putting an extra £1.5 billion in school buildings, yes, there are still other school buildings that need changing, but at least we are starting and at least we have got our hearts in the right place and at least the policies are coming there that will ultimately deliver the changes we need.

So what I say to you is what I always say to the Labour Party and, in a sense, what I say to the people of this country. This is a Government that is on your side. We will get there, we are getting there. We have made changes that no Government before us, Labour or Tory, has ever done, in our two years of office, but we are going to do it this time in a way that lasts. We are not going to be having two years of giving people everything they want and then three years of retrenching. We are not having any more irresponsible financial policies pursued and then finding we don’t have the money to pay the bills and we are going to chop away the spending in the years to come.

This is a New Labour Party and it is a New Labour Party for one very simple reason, that the 21st century, if I have anything to do with it, is going to be the century of the progressives again, of those who believe in social justice. It is not going to be another Conservative century for this country.

As ever, it has been a delight to be with you; as ever, you probably have not enjoyed everything I have had to say; but, as ever, remember that I am proud to be a member of the Labour Party and to be a Labour Prime Minister. If I am ever tough on the things that I believe Labour has to do, it is for the very simple reason that I want a Labour Government that succeeds not in the impotence of shouting about what Tory governments do, but in the sense of having principles and being able to do something about them.

When I talk about the new economy and the knowledge‑driven society I know it is not as interesting as giving the usual lines on what we are going to do about this and that and all the rest of it (and you know the little pattern that you get when everyone knows you are going to applaud and all the rest of it, sometimes anyway!) but it is important too. When we hold that conference next year, TUC and the CBI, you should really get engaged with it and take the debate out to your members. The technology that is developing now in our country is going to transform the world. We have to have our values intact and secure but apply them to the modern world. If we do that, then I (or someone else) will be turning up as Labour Prime Minister to address you for many years to come.

Despite all the changes and all the interesting people that now address the TUC, I think you would prefer to have us than others.

The below speech was made by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, on Sunday 8th February 1998 to the Local Government Conference.

Let me begin by letting you in on a secret. My official visit to the US was originally envisaged as being longer than the three days I have just enjoyed there.

But when the dates for the visit were pencilled in, there was another engagement already there in ink – this one. If its Sunday, it must be Scarborough.

International issues, obviously, matter enormously and occupy a very large part of any Prime Ministers time, and I will say a little on that in a moment.

But this Prime Minister and this Government will never forget who elected us and why – the British people, because they want us to improve their standard of living and the quality of their lives and to deliver better services to them.

First though, Iraq. The UK, like everyone else, wants the current crisis resolved by diplomatic means. But we have to be realistic about the nature of the man we are dealing with. Saddam Hussein has lied and cheated at every turn. He is a man without moral scruple.

We want a diplomatic solution but this is a dictator developing an arsenal from which the Weapons Inspectors have already uncovered 38,000 chemical weapons, a vast biological warfare plant, 48 Scud missiles and attempts at nuclear capability. This is a dictator who has sufficient chemical weapons to wipe out the worlds population. Simply, he cannot be allowed to prevent these inspectors doing their job. These Weapons of mass Destruction must be destroyed for the future peace of the world.

Second, Northern Ireland.

I am delighted that the President has indicated he wants to make a return visit in the hope he can give further impetus to a process that could end in lasting peace and prosperity for Northern Ireland.

His message to me, and the message he delivers to the Parties and the Talks, is that the peaceful democratic path is the only way forward, that the chances for peace are real, and what we must not squander the opportunity before us. His message too was that anyone who returns to violence will find no friends in the White House or anywhere else in the US administration. I say to the political parties in Northern Ireland today: put the past behind you, leave the ancient enmities aside and embrace a future of peace. Do it for the future. Do it for the children – they deserve better.

I was also able to use the visit to advertise Britain, the dynamic, modern country we are building, to a wider audience. And I told them, as I tell you, that it will take time to turn Britain round.

Two tough years may not be the most politically exciting slogan. But we came to power precisely because we were honest about the changes we have to make to the Party, and we were tough and determined in seeing them through.

Britain renewed as a dynamic economy and a modern civic society.

We can and will do it. The gains will be immense. But only if we face up to the tough choices we have to take.

That goes for local Government too.

The best of local government is brilliant.

And the vast majority of councillors do a good job, often in very difficult circumstances. But our aim, as ever, must be to do better.

At the heart of our vision for local Government is leadership. Strong clear leadership that gives pride to villages, towns and cities all over Britain.

Strong clear leadership that gets local people, businesses, public agencies and voluntary and community groups working to a common agenda and pulling in the same direction, as we tackle drug abuse, poor health, crime, failing schools.

I picked up the paper the other morning and read, BEECHAM IN MEGA PLAN TO BE WORLD LEADER.

However, I need not have worried. When I read on I saw that the article was about Smith Kline Beecham not Jeremy Hugh Beecham.

But leadership is important and I pay tribute to Jeremys leadership.

And if local government is play its full and proper leadership in local communities then it has to change. It has to modernise.

We are modernising our party. We are modernising government. We are modernising Britain. We must modernise local government.

Tomorrow John Prescott and Hilary Armstrong will announce a new approach to improving local democracy.

Today I want to set out how local government can play its full part in the process. We want local government to work with us in achieving this new vision.

But to do that, local government needs to change. And to recognise why change is needed.

It needs a clear sense of direction.

It needs to improve its role as the key local co-ordinator.

And it needs to make sure that the quality of services it provides for people is always as good as the best.

I want to see change in four important areas.

Firstly, I want to see a new legitimacy in local government.

The claims of local councils to speak and act for local people are too often weakened by their poor base of popular support.

Local councillors are not sufficiently representative of the mix of local people.

Nearly half are over 55. Just one in 10 is under 40. Only a quarter are women. People from ethnic minorities are under-represented.

At the same time, Britain is at the bottom of the European league table on the proportion of people who vote in local elections.

Participation levels in council elections average 40 per cent, and are often as low as 25 per cent. Especially in inner city areas.

Boosting those may mean adopting some new techniques.

Steps like postal voting. Citizens panels. Polling stations in shopping centres and supermarkets. Community forums. Elections every year. Electronic voting. Voting at weekends. Referendums.

Local people need new local ways to have their say. I want every local authority to set itself targets for improving voter turnout, and strengthening local participation. And to meet them.

Secondly, new ways of working.

Many councillors are hugely diligent, spending many hours on council business. I want to thank them here and now for all their work on behalf of their local communities.

But as the Audit Commission said last year, endless committee meetings place too much of a burden on local councillors.

Recent survey figures suggest that councillors spend almost 100 hours a month on civic business – two thirds of it on meetings. Thats more that half a normal working week.

And the more time councillors spend on committees, the less time they can give to doing what is their most important job – representing people.

Seventy per cent of councillors feel that representational work is their most important job. But they spend an average of less than a third of their time on it.

How many people in your area even know the name of the leader of the council? Let alone the chair of education. Very few.

Leadership in local government, as in national government, needs to be clear. Visible.

So in London were going to propose doing just that – by having a referendum on introducing an elected mayor.

And not just in London – the bill sponsored by Lord Hunt will allow the idea to be piloted in other areas.

Elected executive mayors. Dynamic. Influential. With real power. Getting things done for people.

That will allow the leaders of our major towns and cities to be influential figures on the national stage. As they deserve to be. As they are in other countries.

Now I know some councillors are concerned about this. I know some of you may be worried about what role it will leave for you.

Your role will be vital. And it will be clearer.

Instead of spending your time in fruitless meetings, you will be able to scrutinise in detail what council leaders are doing.

And not wasting time in meetings will mean youll be able to spend more time in your local communities. Listening to people. Absorbing their views. And then taking them forward into your council.

Nothing is yet set in stone. John Prescott will tomorrow set out some options about how in practice the idea of mayors would work.

He will as well be exploring further our proposal that a number of councillors in each area should be elected every year.

Thirdly, new disciplines.

The vast majority of councillors are decent and honest.

But we know there have been problems in some councils. We know there have been cases where actions have been unacceptable.

I intend to tackle them. Head on.

Councillors and officials who are incompetent, or worse still corrupt, not only undermine their own claims to leadership – but tarnish the reputation of local government as a whole.

I will not allow the behaviour of a few to undermine the reputation of the many.

The Audit Commission. OFSTED. The Social Service Inspectorate. They all show that there are some councils failing to deliver acceptable standards of service.

Weve seen too often the sad and sometimes savage results of council incompetence.

Failure which may blight the chances of a child receiving a decent education.

Or even worse. Failure which can result in harm to the elderly. Or the abuse of children.

CCT did not address the problem. And it will go.

But dont for a moment think our drive for Best Value in councils will be a soft option. It wont be.

If authorities cannot – or will not – take the load, we will have powers to intervene. We want you to succeed. But we will be ready if you fail.

But worse still than any council incompetence is council corruption.

Council corruption is unacceptable. Not on. Not in any circumstances. Not for any reason.

We will publish proposals, based on Lord Nolans report on conduct in local government, for a new framework of standards in local authorities.

Every council will have to introduce its own code of conduct, based on a national model.

And every council in its code will need to include provision for the investigation of all serious allegations of malpractice.

Any investigations will be independent. They will be swift. They will be searching. And their findings will be put into place.

I know corruption is not widespread. But one case is too many. On corruption, its one strike – and youre out.

Finally, new powers.

We want local authorities to change. We want them to embrace this programme of change.

Where councils do so, they will see an effect. They will see their own powers, and their own status, enhanced and improved.

The Government will want to see evidence of change. Of local authorities modernising themselves.

I see little point in giving extra powers and functions to councils which are not dealing adequately with the powers they already have.

But equally, theres no reason why councils which are performing well should be held back by those who arent.

Increased responsibility. Increased rights. Rights and responsibilities going together – in councils, and across the Government.

That is the message, the clear message, to local authorities. I say to you that if you accept these challenges, if you take part in the process of reform, than at national Government level, you will not find us wanting.

You will be able to play a full part in the process of modernisation New Labour has been elected to enact.

Thats the message. Change – and get involved. Change – and work with us. Change – and be a part of it.

Modern government – national and local – for a modern Britain.

So with the country, if we explain why we are taking the decisions we take, if we are honest about what we can and cannot do, we will keep the people with us.

I want to say two things to you about your Government. First, whatever the day to day news agenda that knocks us this way or that, we will remain forever focused on the big picture. An end to boom and bust, rising living standards, schools, hospitals, crime. Thats what we were elected for. That is what we will do, and no amount of hype or heat from the media will deflect us.

Second, I know the frustration you feel in wanting change quicker. I feel it too. You want more money on schools, hospitals and transport. You dont like interest rates going up. You could probably do with some more money on local Government, you think!

But let me tell you something. Since the war the British economy has gone from boom to bust. Twice in the past twenty years alone, Conservative Governments have sent the economy up only to have it come crashing down. In the early 90s we had mortgage rates at 15% for a year and the largest borrowing in British peacetime history. In a boom and bust economy, one year the money would be there for health or other services. The next it would be gone. No stability. No capacity to think long-term.

One of the myths of the election was that we inherited an economy where everything was in good shape. Not true. Inflation was back. The budget deficit was too high. We were heading for the old boom and bust cycle. I am determined this time we will beat boom and bust.

That is why we have given the Bank of England independence in setting interest rates. That is why we have cut the budget deficit. Within three years I want that deficit gone. If we avoid boom and bust, we can enjoy rising growth, more investment and more resources to spend where we want to spend them. But it cant be done without the tough choices on interest rates and spending now.

On welfare reform, more tough choices. People in need are not going to suffer. We want to help them. But we have to end the situation where there are 3.5 million households of working age with nobody working in them. It is not good for them. It is not good for the country. It cannot be afforded and that is why welfare to work is right and we will carry it through with the rest of welfare reform.

Schools and hospitals. Yes more money, but tough choices too. We are getting extra money in and will get more in if we get the economy right. But they need reform – LEAs, schools, teachers, parents and Government – we all have a responsibility to root out failure, to raise standards and to pursue excellence. Ive said we will build the best education system in the 21st Century and I mean it.

But again, it takes time. There will be two tough years. But if we see it through, we will reap the benefit.

A stable economy with no boom and bust. An education system showing real improvement in results and standards. An NHS that is cutting waiting lists and improving patient service. Juvenile crime cut. The most comprehensive programme of constitutional reform this century delivered. Britain strong again in Europe and the world.