Home » Posts tagged 'Conference speech'
Tag Archives: Conference speech
How the quiet man Ed Miliband managed to turn the volume up
For Ed Miliband, this particular conference speech was a ‘coming of age’. It’s somewhat bemusing that political journalists have described Ed Miliband as “disappointing”, or “singularly unimpressive”, but Miliband does not need to impress these people who’ve got it wrong before.
Most people will converge on the notion that David Cameron gave a horrifically dull speech, more akin to a newsreader reading out a corporate’s executive summary of an annual report. The pitch of Nick Clegg, that he could permanently be Deputy Prime Minister, was frankly risible. UKIP managed to propel Godfrey Bloom into the limelight for all the wrong reasons, in their pitch to make cleaning behind a fridge more relevant than the ‘cost of living crisis’.
Ed Miliband’s moral triumph is that he can genuinely say he is going into the election, to be held in the UK on May 7th 2015, having tried his best to piss off the key players in the print press. The BBC’s news coverage, whether it includes not reporting the National Hospital Sell-off following the Health and Social Care Act (2012), or not reporting the closure of law centres in England, or not reporting a march against NHS privatisation in Manchester involving approximately 60,000 people, has become astonishingly irrelevant.
The ‘coming of age’ of Ed Miliband politically is an intriguing one. Whilst Miliband has really struggled, initially, to convince others of the need of ‘responsible capitalism’ or indeed ‘predistribution’, he managed to produce a populist synthesis which was strikingly popular.
Phone lines are typically inundated in any radio phone-in with callers moaning about how their utility bills have shot up. The ‘free market’ has not offered choice or competition, but has become a gravy train for greedy companies.
There is not a single truly ‘free’ market. Virtually all free markets have needed some degree of regulation, to stop customers being abused.
It has become much easier to fire employees on the spot, and access-to-justice evaporated. Virtually all free markets have needed some degree of regulation, also to stop employees being abused.
Whilst then the ‘One Nation’ concept may seem a bit pie-in-the-sky, an economy and society which works for its citizens ‘for the public good’ is a worthy one. It is a bit of a stretch to make this sound like a return to 1970s socialism. It is entirely about making the State protect the interests of its citizens.
The media have long been gleeful at the personal ‘poll ratings’ of Ed Miliband being dire, but David Cameron impressed as a dodgy double-glazing salesman this week. Nick Clegg, having led his party to voting for NHS privatisation and the decimation of legal aid, has become a laughing stock with his argument that he is a ‘moderating force’.
Many people will therefore say begrudgingly that Ed Miliband had by far the best conference season. This was not because he had ‘rote learned’ a script rather than reading an autocue. This is because, whether it was synthetic or not, struck a chord with the concerns of ordinary voters not corporate directors.
The Westminster Class is clearly going to take a bit of time to readjust to the new mood music. Miliband has, whether they concede it or not, has been able to change the narrative from the deficit to the ‘cost of living crisis’.
The ‘cost of living crisis’ is a genuine one, with the cost of living outstripping real wages for the vast majority of the term of this government so far. It is shocking perhaps it is taken so long for the political class to realise that this is an issue.
This is not, of course, a rejection of the market in any Marxist sense. It is merely an acknowledgement that voters do not intellectually masturbate any more on the allegation of Labour singlehandedly bankrupting the global economy.
The bankers are the baddies, like the energy companies. They have failed to regulate themselves, and have been the beneficiaries of ineffective regulation from the State. The Unions are rapidly no longer becoming “public enemy number one”, not because there has been a sudden conversion of a mindset to valuing employees’ rights but because votes find disgusting the idea of faceless hardnosed hedgies and venture capitalists determining public policy behind the scenes.
And there’s finally the rub. Ed Miliband has managed to shove the volume up, when he was perhaps so quiet that people were wondering if he ever had anything useful to say. And he somehow has managed to make his ‘One Nation Economy’, ‘One Nation Society’ and ‘One Nation Politics’ seem relevant to many people who had previously given up on politics.
This is actually no mean feat.
Thanks to @labourmatters for correcting a factual misstatement in an earlier version of this blogpost.
It's in his eyes. Not even David Cameron expects to win the 2015 election.
It’s in his eyes. Not even David Cameron expects to win the 2015 general election, to be held on May 7th, 2015 according to the fixed term legislation.
The contrast with Ed Miliband’s barnstorming speech last week could not have been greater. Miliband’s speech had a good attempt at intellectual gravitas and a coherent narrative on the abuse of markets in relation to the public good, but did admittedly suffer from a borderline use of clichés and standard rhetorical devices. Still, against the best efforts to discredit him through Damian McBride’s latest pissed-and-tell, Miliband delivered an output which both potential voters and the Unions could agree to agree on.
David Cameron delivered his package like a newsreader trying to make appropriate emotional gestures on reading a flat autocue script. The end result was lack-lustre, unimpressive and frankly unappealing.
It looked as if even he didn’t know what he was doing there. Whoever the script writer (sorry I meant speech writer) was, he or she should be sacked. David Cameron looked as if he was reading a boring an executive summary of an annual report of his organisation. He did not appear like a leader with a vision. He looked like a manager who had consulted with his Chief Finance Officer, George Osborne, that, even after staring the decimal points, he could give a confident projection to investors about future performance.
That bit I can’t blame Cameron for. He was reading out his Annual Report to his corporate investors, quite literally, the people who can make or break his party. Hard-nosed hedgies were there to check their investments would bear fruition. After all, many members of the audience were there to check that High Speed 2 would remain part of the business plan.
Cameron could not of course mention that Labour would definitely repeal the Health and Social Care Act (2012). Such a statement would, of course, send uncontrollable shockwaves to corporate investors, who wish to live long enough to witness their return-on-investment through a swathe of procurement contracts in due course.
The key ‘shared values’ were there like ‘aspiration’, ‘opportunity’, ‘wealth creation’, ‘low taxation’, and ‘strong communities’, in keeping with the Conservative Party corporate mission statement. However, they were delivered devoid of emotion, totally ignoring the plight of disabled citizens who had had their lives screwed up because of the benefits system, no reference to the closure of law centres, libraries or Sure Start, for example.
There wasn’t anything controversial there. No mention of ‘zero hour contracts’. No mention of the closure of law centres. No mention of the inequity of Workfare. No mention of the failures of the privatised utilities industries. It was a deadpan speech for an audience whose average age was close to retirement time.
There was no mention of the failure of how he had achieved ‘the Small State’. No mention of the outsourcing failures to the handful of companies, largely the same bunch who were bidding for the NHS procurement contracts, and many of whom have been involved in one fraud allegation or another.
The speech in a sense was quite representative of a totally uninspiring mob of Conservatives: overprivileged, inarticulate about basic macroeconomics, very pro-employer, and frankly delusional in places.
I would rather have had my testicles attached to the National Grid than to travel up to Manchester voluntarily to listen to that. No. I perhaps would have preferred to have all my teeth extracted without any anaesthetic. I am only glad that I have no interest in the performance of the Conservative Party, or I would have been distressed by today’s performance. It was less ‘Breaking Bad’, more like ‘Unbelievably Bad’. It was a performance that even a Carlton newsreader would have been embarrassed at.
It’s definitely in his eyes. He’s already making plans for his retirement.
Despite the inaccuracies, Cameron's pitch was sufficiently effective to be of concern
I think the main danger in misinterpreting David Cameron’s speech, written by Clare Foges and colleagues of the Conservative Party (including presumably David Cameron), is to do so without viewing it from the perspective of a potential Tory voter.
Individuals who are ardent Conservative voters, one assumes, are not distracted by factual inaccuracies in the narrative (such as how many people on housing benefit are unemployed, or how much borrowing this current government is doing). Certain things might have stuck in the minds of potential voters, such as the idea of an unemployed person in a bedsit queue-jumping in the housing ballot ahead of a person who’d dedicated his or her life for decades. To such people, the prevalence of benefit fraud is immaterial. Cameron tried to produce a narrative of the rich being punished for being successful, in his characteristically patronising explanation of how income tax works for Miliband’s benefit. A caller on Iain Dale’s show last night on lbc considered that he might vote for the Conservative Party, having voted for decades for Labour. He felt that his ambitions as a worker had not been recognised by the Labour Party, and was sick of it. Rather than blaming Cameron and his team for tapping into this ‘aspiration’, Labour runs a genuine risk of pursuing evidence-based politics while simultaneously failing to capture the sentiment and feelings of workers of this country.
How this situation has come about is interesting, but it is patently obvious that it has not come about overnight. Cameron indeed would be right in thinking that such a voter is not overly concerned about what Prof Michael Sandel or Prof Jim Hacker have to say about public good or predistribution particularly; the mental masturbation over intellectual sociological ideas might lead to an even greater disconnect between Labour and its missing voters. It is clearly of concern that there are millions of voters who cannot remember why they did not vote in the 2010 general election, but it is fair to say, probably, that not all of them produced a protest vote on account of the expenses scandal. While talk of whether Andrew Mitchell will survive is of immense interest to the Westminster village, it is curiously not the allegation that he may have said “fucking” or “pleb” that is the problem with the focus groups, but the fact that the Conservative Party do not consider themselves at one with the general public.
This is why Cameron’s pitch was effective, as it was ‘levelling’ with the public in a way that they largely comprehend. Labour has its own arguments why it increased public spending, but it seems that there is no appetite for such a technical debate; however much Labour wishes to debate it, the Labour Party are generally not trusted with the public finances. While ‘One Nation’ talk might be appealing, even after the forty-sixth repeat, if Labour cannot be trusted to be in control of the public purse, the most they can hope for is a Lib-Lab pact. The dynamics of a potential future Lib-Lab pact are interesting, in that the vast majority of Labour voters would not wish to enter into a pact with Nick Clegg still at the helm of the Liberal Democrat party. It becomes 50/50 if it’s any leader but Nick Clegg, and still most Labour voters stubbornly feel that Labour politicians are better at running the economy than the Liberal Democrats. It can be tempting for Labour members to think that the NHS is a ‘make or break’ issue, but this policy has been evolving for some time, especially under New Labour, with the emergence of NHS Foundation Trusts and clinical commissioning. Labour voters are not likely to get angry over the pay packets of private directors of healthcare companies at the ballot box, but are more likely to resent the Health and Social Care Act if quality is seen to suffer. While the NHS remains branded as an unitary NHS, this is unlikely to be the case, and the Conservatives can justifiably continue, perhaps, with their strategy of either not mentioning it, or describing it as a ‘modernisation strategy’.
The legal aid cuts might be a more productive way for Labour to reach out to the strivers. For example, due to the managed decline of law centres on the high street, access-to-justice for housing, immigration, asylum, welfare benefits, and employment advice, inter alia, is compromised. This is hardly in the best interests of strivers? Strivers are unlikely to be impressed by trading off their rights not to be unfairly dismissed for some shares in a company which cannot produce a dividend unless it has distributable profits. It might be that strivers do not particularly care whether the Human Rights Act is abolished or not, although its abolition might help to return a Conservative government. Individuals may be inclined to think that so long as he or she is not affected by torture, privacy, or freedom of expression issues, they are unlikely to be touched by the Human Rights Act, especially if legal aid for such matters is abolished. Cameron has also perhaps succeeded in painting the Conservative Party as firmly footed in the “real world”. There are two major issues for why Ed Miliband has trouble on this: the spending of Labour “even during the good times”, and the thirst by Miliband for the application of sociological theories which have yet to be tested in practice. The empirical evidence for ‘Nudge’ of course has never been compelling, but there is a sense that the standards that Conservatives apply for themselves are not the ones they apply to Labour.
So it comes to something when David Cameron calls trade union leaders “snobs”, but no amount of hatred for inverted snobbery will deliver Miliband a landslide for the 2015 general election. Practical problems emerge if Ed Balls signs up for an austerity agenda indistinguishable from the Conservatives, not least in the sense that workers will wonder why on earth they are still supporting Labour. Miliband does not want to be seen in the lap of ‘vested interests’ codeword for ‘trade unions’, but likewise he has not embraced a redistributive tax system targetting the very highest earners yet. Trade union members contribute up to 40% of the funding of the Labour Party, but, like the debate on public purse handling, Miliband is unlikely to sway the minds of voters on this. It is not improved aspiration from the middle class and centre that will win Miliband the 2015 general election, but it will be working class leaving Labour in droves in finding their aspirations unaddressed. One term oppositions are extremely rare, and Labour finds itself in a difficult position in perhaps having to rely on the Liberal Democrats to form a government having spent the last five years in slagging them off. Cameron’s speech yesterday was full of statements all good lefties would have found contemptible, but it was clever in that it was sufficiently practical (for example, not mentioning the ‘bash a burglar’ policy) that it did offer a course for government. As others have pointed out, this is not a speech that Cameron can ever give in future, if he fails to deliver. The starting gun for the 2015 general election has most definitely been fired, and the first ‘hurdle’ takes the form of the OBR assessment in a few weeks time about the UK deficit. Cameron has given himself in a sense a suspended sentence, but there are strict conditions for his future behaviour.
As Jeremy Hunt gives his Conservatives Party Conference speech today, the NHA Party goes live
To follow on Twitter, go here.
The statement from the NHA Party reads as follows:
As Conservative health secretary Jeremy Hunt prepares to give his conference speech today (9thOctober), we should reflect that for generations the National Health Service (NHS) has cared for everyone according to need. When NHS patients and staff took centre stage at the London Olympics opening ceremony it highlighted its treasured place at the heart of our society. But commercialisation and increasing privatisation – policies being pushed through ever more rapidly by the Conservative-led coalition – are threatening the very survival of our much-loved health service. We’re launching a new political party, National Health Action (NHA), to stop the destruction of the NHS.
NHA’s website went live this week (w/c 8th October), and we want people from a wide range of backgrounds to join our party, to reflect the diversity of all who use the NHS and work in it.
The website is here.
Founded by a group of health professionals, our party strongly opposes the Health and Social Care Act. We believe the Act is wrecking the NHS in England by allowing it to be broken up and sold off. We intend to put up around 50 candidates in carefully chosen general election constituencies, and we will urge the Labour party to repeal the Act. We’ll also field candidates in local council elections.
Party co-leader and cancer specialist Dr Clive Peedell said: “For generations we’ve trusted the NHS to be a safety net for everyone in times of need. Putting the values of business and the markets ahead of those of patients and communities will ruin the NHS. This destruction is being fast-tracked by Tory and coalition policies. We hope our new party will halt this process.”
NHA co-leader Dr Richard Taylor is the former Independent MP for Wyre Forest. His victory in 2001 was based on a campaign to reopen accident and emergency services at Kidderminster General Hospital. He said: “We know the NHS and its values represent much of what’s best about the people of the UK. They realise instinctively that it’s only by supporting each other, particularly the most vulnerable, that we can hold onto our shared values of compassion and fairness.”
National Health Action: www.nationalhealthaction.org.uk
The Annual Labour Conference Speech 2012 by Ed Miliband : 2 October 2012
Ed Miliband MP, Leader of the Labour Party, said the following in his speech to Labour Party conference in Manchester on 2 October 2012:
It is great to be in Labour Manchester. And you know Manchester has special memories for me because two years ago I was elected the leader of this party. I’m older. I feel a lot older actually. I hope I’m a bit wiser. But I am prouder than ever to be the Leader of the Labour Party.
You may have noticed that doing this job you get called some names, some of the nice, some of them not so nice. Let me tell you my favourite; it was when Mitt Romney came to Britain and called me ‘Mr Leader.’ I don’t know about you but I think it has a certain ring to it myself, it’s sort of half-way to North Korea. Mitt, thanks a lot for that.
Let me tell you a bit of insight in to Conference. I always look forward to Conference. But the Leader’s Speech, as previous leaders will attest, can be a bit of a trial. You get all kinds of advice from people. Say this, don’t say that. Smile here, don’t smile there. Stand there, don’t stand there. Thanks Tony, Gordon and Neil for that. But sometimes you get a bit fed up with it as the Leader. And so the other day, and this is an absolutely true story, I decided that to get away from it all, the speechwriting, all of that, I’d go for a walk with my three year old son, Daniel. It was an absolutely gorgeous late summer day. So we went out, I wanted to go to the park. Here’s the first thing he said to me: “Daddy, I can help you with your speech.” I was like not you as well! He is a Miliband after all. And he said to me: “Daddy, you can’t do it on your own.” This is absolutely true, and I said “well that’s a good Labour insight, you can’t do it all your own. Daniel what do you want in my speech?” He said “I want dinosaurs! I want dinosaurs, I want flying dinosaurs! I want dinosaurs that eat people daddy!” I said, “No Daniel. We tried predators last year.”
OK, look only one problem, where’s my speech? I want to do something different today. I want to tell you my story. I want to tell you who I am. What I believe. And why I have a deep conviction that together we can change this country. My conviction is rooted in my family’s story, a story that starts 1,000 miles from here, because the Miliband’s haven’t sat under the same oak tree for the last five hundred years.
Both of my parents’ came to Britain as immigrants, Jewish refugees from the Nazis. I know I would not be standing on this stage today without the compassion and tolerance of our great country. Great Britain.
And you know my parents saw Britain rebuilt after the Second World War. I was born in my local NHS hospital, the same hospital my two sons would later be born in. As you saw in the film I went to my local school. I went to my local comprehensive with people from all backgrounds. I still remember the amazing and inspiring teaching I got at that school, and one of my teachers, my English teacher, Chris Dunne, is here with us today. Thank you Chris and to all the teachers at Haverstock.
It was a really tough school, but order was kept by one of the scariest headmistress you could possibly imagine, Mrs Jenkins. And you know what? I learned at my school about a lot more than how to pass exams. I learned how to get on with people from all backgrounds, whoever they were.
I wouldn’t be standing on this stage today without my comprehensive school education.
So, Britain gave me, gave my family, a great gift that my parents never had. A safe and secure childhood. And you know my parents didn’t talk much about their early lives, it was too painful, it hurt too much. The pain of those they lost. The guilt of survivors. But I believe that their experience meant they brought up both David and myself differently as a result. Because having struggled for life itself, they instilled in us a sense of duty to ease the struggles of others. And this came not just from my parents’ wartime experience it came from the daily fabric of our childhood. You know there were toys and games, rows about homework. I was actually a Dallas fan, believe it or not, which didn’t go down well with my dad as you can imagine.
So of course there were the normal things, but every upbringing is special, and mine was special because of the place of politics within it. When I was twelve years old, I met a South African friend of my parents, her name was Ruth First. The image I remember is of somebody vivacious, full of life, full of laughter. And then I remember a few months later coming down to breakfast and seeing my mum in tears because Ruth First had been murdered by a letter bomb from the South African secret police. Murdered for being part of the anti-apartheid movement. Now I didn’t understand the ins and outs of it, but I was shocked. I was angry I knew that wasn’t the way the world was meant to be. I knew I had a duty to do something about it. It is this upbringing that has made me who I am. A person of faith, not a religious faith but a faith nonetheless. A faith, I believe, many religious people would recognise. So here is my faith. I believe we have a duty to leave the world a better pl ace than we found it. I believe we cannot shrug our shoulders at injustice, and just say that’s the way the world is. And I believe that we can overcome any odds if we come together as people.
That’s how my Mum survived the war. The kindness of strangers. Nuns in a convent who took her in and sheltered her from the Nazis, took in a Jewish girl at risk to themselves. It’s what my dad found when he came to these shores and joined the Royal Navy and was part of Britain winning the war.
Now of course my parents didn’t tell me what career to go into. My late father, as some of you know, wouldn’t agree with many of the things I stand for. He would’ve loved the idea of “Red Ed.” But he would have been a little bit disappointed that it isn’t true. My mum probably doesn’t agree with me either, but like most mums is too kind to say so. And look when I was younger I wasn’t certain I wanted to be a politician. But I do believe the best way me for to give back to Britain, the best way to be true to my faith, is through politics. Now that is not a fashionable view today. Because millions of people have given up on politics, they think we’re all the same. Well I guess you could say I am out to prove them wrong.
That is who I am. That is what I believe. That is my faith.
And I know who I need to serve in Britain with my faith. It’s the people I’ve met on my journey as Leader of the Opposition. The people who come up to me on trains, in the street, in shops who ask me about what the Labour Party is going to do for them and tell me the stories of their lives. It’s for them, the people I have met on my journey as Leader of the Opposition that today’s speech is for. You know I think of the young woman I met at a youth centre in London earlier this year. She was brimming with hopes and ambitions for the future. She was full of life. She was full of desire to get on and do the best for herself. And then she told me her story. She’d sent off her CV to 137 employers and she’d not had a reply from any of them. Many of you in this audience will know people in the same position. Just think how that crushes the hopes of a generation. I want to talk to her, to a whole generation of young people who feel that Britain under this Government is no t offering them a future.
I think back to the small businessman I met in July. A proud man called Alan Henderson, a small businessman. Let me tell you Alan Henderson’s story: He’d spent 40 years building up his sign making business, 40 years. He told me his story, he went to see his bank manager in 1972 at his local high street bank, he got a loan and he started his business. But something terrible happened to Alan Henderson and his family a few years back. He was ripped off by the bank he had been with all that time and Alan Henderson and his family have been living through a nightmare ever since. I want to talk to him, and all the people of Britain who feel they’re at the mercy of forces beyond their control.
I want to talk to all of the people of this country who always thought of themselves as comfortably off, but who now find themselves struggling to make ends meet. They ask: Why is it that when oil prices go up, the petrol price goes up. But when the oil price comes down, the petrol price just stays the same? They ask: Why is it that the gas and electricity bills just go up and up and up? And they ask: Why is it that the privatised train companies can make hundreds of millions of pounds in profit at the same time as train fares are going up by 10% a year? They think the system just doesn’t work for them. And you know what? They’re right. It doesn’t. It doesn’t work for them but for the cosy cartels and powerful interests that government hasn’t cut down to size. I want to talk to them and all the millions of people across our country who don’t think they get a fair crack of the whip.
And I want to say to them, yes our problems are deep. But they can be overcome. Deep problems about who Britain is run for and who prospers within it. One rule for those at the top, another rule for everybody else. Two nations, not one. I want to say to them today it’s not the Britain you believe in. It’s not the Britain I believe in. It’s not the Britain this party will ever be satisfied with. So friends we’re going to change it. And here’s how.
My faith that we can, starts with the inner strength of us as a country. You see the problem isn’t the British people, just think about the Olympics and Paralympic games. It was a triumph for Britain. And why did we succeed? We succeeded because of our outstanding athletes from, Zara Phillips the grand-daughter of a parachuting Queen, to a boy born in Somalia, called Mo Farah. Mo Farah. A true Brit. And a true hero for our country.
We succeeded because of the outstanding volunteers, the Games Makers who are here with us today, all 70,000 Games makers. They put a mirror up to Britain and showed us the best of ourselves. We succeeded because of our outstanding troops, our outstanding troops, many of whom were drafted in at the last minute. And let us today pay tribute to their bravery, their courage, their sacrifice in Afghanistan and all round the world. And let’s say to them, and let’s say to them, just as you do our duty by us in the most courageous way possible so we will always do our duty by you, both in military and in civilian life.
We succeeded because of our outstanding police and let us in this city of Manchester show our appreciation for what the extraordinary police men and women of our country do for our country.
And we succeeded and this is a real lesson, we succeeded because of a group of individuals, a group of individuals who saw the odds against London’s bid and thought, never mind the odds, we are going to fight for the bid for London, we are going to win the bid for London, from Seb Coe to our very own Dame Tessa Jowell.
And you know what friends, we succeeded, because of one reason more than any other, we succeeded because of us. We succeeded because of us, us the British people, us the British people who welcomed the athletes from abroad, who cheered them on. Who found ourselves talking to each other each morning about what had happened at the Olympics the night before, in a way that we hadn’t talked to each other before. We succeeded because we came together as a country we worked together as a country. We joined together as a country. That’s why we achieved more than we imagined possible.
You know, I’ll just tell you this. I can’t remember a time like it in the whole history of my lifetime. I can’t remember a time like it, that sense of a country united, that sense of a country that felt it was together. That is the spirit this Labour Party believes in.
But I may not remember that spirit, but that spirit has echoed through British history. You know one hundred and forty years ago, one hundred and forty years ago to the year. Another Leader of the Opposition gave a speech. It was in the Free Trade Hall that used to stand opposite this building. It’s the Radisson now by the way. His name was Benjamin Disraeli. He was a Tory. But don’t let that but you off, just for a minute. His speech took over three hours to deliver, don’t’ worry, don’t worry, and he drank two whole bottles of brandy while delivering it. That is absolutely true. Now look, I just want to say, I know a speech that long would probably kill you. And the brandy would definitely kill me. But let us remember what Disraeli was celebrated for.
It was a vision of Britain. A vision of a Britain where patriotism, loyalty, dedication to the common cause courses through the veins of all and nobody feels left out. It was a vision of Britain coming together to overcome the challenges we faced. Disraeli called it “One Nation”. “One Nation”. We heard the phrase again as the country came together to defeat fascism. And we heard it again as Clement Attlee’s Labour government rebuilt Britain after the war.
Friends, I didn’t become leader of the Labour Party to reinvent the world of Disraeli or Attlee. But I do believe in that spirit. That spirit of One Nation. One Nation: a country where everyone has a stake. One Nation: a country where prosperity is fairly shared. One Nation: where we have a shared destiny, a sense of shared endeavour and a common life that we lead together. That is my vision of One Nation. That is my vision of Britain. That is the Britain we must become.
And here is the genius of One Nation. It doesn’t just tell us the country we can be. It tells us how we must rebuild. We won the war because we were One Nation. We built the peace because Labour government’s and Conservative, governments understood we needed to be One Nation. Every time Britain has faced its gravest challenge, we have only come through the storm because we were One Nation. But too often governments have forgotten that lesson.
With one million young people out of work, we just can’t succeed as a country. With the gap between rich and poor growing wider and wider, we just can’t succeed as a country. With millions of people feeling that hard work and effort are not rewarded, we just can’t succeed as a country. And with so many people having been told for so long that the only way to get on is to be on your own, in it for yourself, we just can’t succeed as a country. Yes friends, to come through the storm, to overcome the challenges we face, we must rediscover that spirit. That spirit the British people never forgot. That spirit of One Nation. One Nation. A country where everyone plays their part. A country we rebuild together.
So here is the big question of today. Who can make us One Nation? Who can bring Britain together? What about the Tories? What about the Tories? I didn’t hear you, what about the Tories?
Let me explain why, let me explain why. I want to talk very directly to those who voted for David Cameron at the last general election. I understand why you voted for him. I understand why you turned away from the last Labour government. This Government took power in difficult economic times. It was a country still coming to terms with the financial crisis. A financial crisis that has afflicted every country round the world. I understand why you were willing to give David Cameron the benefit of the doubt.
But I think we’ve had long enough to make a judgement. Long enough to make a judgement because they turned a recovery into the longest double dip recession since the war. Because there are more people looking for work for longer than at any time since the last time there was a Conservative government.
And here is the other thing, what about borrowing? Borrowing. The thing they said was their number one priority. This year borrowing is rising not falling. Let me just say that again. Borrowing the thing they said was the most important priority, the reason they were elected. It is rising not falling.
Not because there hasn’t been pain and tax rises and cuts affecting every family in this country. Not because they didn’t want to cut it borrowing. They did. Not because your services aren’t getting worse. They are. But because if you stop an economy growing, then it leaves more people out of work claiming benefits, not paying taxes. Businesses struggle so they’re not paying taxes. And as a result borrowing goes up. Borrowing not to invest in schools, in hospitals, transport and education. But borrowing to keep people idle. So the next time you hear a Conservative say to you Labour would increase borrowing, just remember it is this government that is increasing borrowing this year.
So what have we seen? We’ve seen recession, higher unemployment, higher borrowing. I don’t think that’s what people were promised. Now look there will be some people who say, and this is an important argument, they’ll be some people who say: ‘Well there is short-term pain but it is worth it for the long-term gain.’ But I’m afraid the opposite is true.
You see that the longer you have low growth in our country the bigger the debt hole becomes for the future and the bigger our problems will be in the future. The longer a young person is out of work that is not just bad for their prospects now; it is bad for their prospects for the whole of the rest of their lives. And if a small business goes under during the recession, it can’t just get back up and running again during the recovery.
So when David Cameron says to you: ‘Well let’s just carry on as we are and wait for something to turn up.’ Don’t believe him. Don’t believe him. If the medicine’s not working you change the medicine. And friends, I’ll tell you what else you change. You change the doctor too. And that is what this country needs to do.
Now look around you, you know the problem is the British people are paying the price of this government’s failure. You’re going to the petrol station and not filling up your tank because you can’t afford it. Your tax credits are being cut because the Government says it can’t afford it. Your frail mum and dad are not getting the care they need because the Government says it can’t afford it.
But there are some things this Government can afford. The wrong things. What do they think at this most difficult economic time is going to get us out of our difficulties? What do they choose as their priority? A tax cut for millionaires. A tax cut for millionaires. Next April, David Cameron will be writing a cheque for £40,000 to each and every millionaire in Britain. Not just for one year. But each and every year. That is more than the average person earns in a whole year. At the same time as they’re imposing a tax on pensioners next April. Friends, we, the Labour Party, the country knows it is wrong. It is wrong what they’re doing. It shows their priorities.
And here’s the worse part. David Cameron isn’t just writing the cheques. He is receiving one. He’s going to be getting the millionaire’s tax cut. So next week maybe Mr Cameron can tell us how much is he awarding himself in a tax cut? How much is that tax cut he is awarding himself? For a job I guess he thinks is a job well done. How many of his other Cabinet colleagues have cheques in the post from the millionaire’s tax cut? And how can he justify this unfairness in Britain 2012.
And of course let’s not forget this tax cut wouldn’t be happening without Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats. Isn’t it shameful that the party that supported, that implemented the People’s Budget of 1909, Lloyd George’s budget, is supporting the millionaire’s budget of 2012.
So that’s the reality in Britain today. It is a rebate for the top. It’s rip-off for everybody else. It’s a recovery for the top. It’s a recession for everybody else. This Prime Minister said: ‘We are all in it together.’ Don’t let him ever tell us again we are all in this together.
And friends I say this. You can’t be a One Nation Prime Minister if you raise taxes on ordinary families and cut taxes for millionaires. You can’t be a One Nation Prime Minister if all you do is seek to divide the country. Divide the country between north and south. Public and private. Those who can work and those who can’t work. And you can’t be a One Nation Prime Minister if your Chief Whip insults the great police officers of our country by calling them plebs.
But there is one thing that this Government might have claimed to be good at, and that is competence. Because after all, they think they’re born to rule. So maybe they’d be good at it. Have you ever seen a more incompetent, hopeless, out of touch, u-turning, pledge-breaking, make it up as you go along, back of the envelope, miserable shower than this Prime Minister and this Government?
There’s more there’s more, not quite Disraeli but there is more. What have we had. We’ve had the caravan tax, we’ve had the churches tax, we’ve had the pasty tax, we’ve had the granny tax, we’ve had panic at the pumps, we’ve had dinners for donors, we’ve had country supers with Rebekah Brooks. He even rode the horse. He sent the texts, he sent the texts. Remember LOL.
And now what do we have. We have the Minister for Murdoch becoming the Minister for the National Health Service. We have an International Development Secretary; she says she doesn’t believe in international development. And get this, we’ve got a Party Chairman who writes books about how to beat the recession, under a false name. Really, I’m not making this up; I’m really not making this up. I mean I have to say if I was Chairman of the Conservative Party, I’d have a false name too.
But here is my favourite one of all. There’s one more, here’s my favourite one of all. There is even a bloke, and I think they call him Lord Hill who went to see the Prime Minister. He made an appointment during the last reshuffle in order to resign. But David Cameron was too incompetent to notice that he wanted to resign. So Lord Hill is still in the Government. This lot are so useless they can’t even resign properly.
So they’re not going to build One Nation, so it is up to us.
And let me say to you, One Nation is not a way of avoiding the difficult decisions, it is a way of making the difficult decisions. And I’ve just got to be very clear about this and about what we face as the next Labour government. You see I think it is incredibly important that to be One Nation we must show compassion and support for all those who cannot work. Particularly the disabled men and women of our country. But in order to do so, those who can work have a responsibility to do so. We can’t leave people languishing out of work, for one year, two years, three years. We’ve got a responsibility to help them and they’ve got a responsibility to take the work that is on offer.
To be One Nation, we have got to give much greater dignity to our elderly population because you know, we’re going to have to tackle the care crisis that faces so many families up and down this country. And look, living longer should be one of the great virtues of the 21st century. But friends, in order to be able to afford to do that, we are going to have to work longer; have a later retirement age than we do now.
To be One Nation, we have got to live within our means. And because borrowing is getting worse not better, it means there will be many cuts that this Government made that we won’t be able to reverse even though we would like to. And that’s why we’ve said in this Parliament that we’d put jobs before pay in the public sector. And in the next Parliament we will have tough settlements for the public services and that will make life harder for those who use them and harder for those who work in them.
But here is the big difference between a One Nation government led by me, and this Government. Those with the broadest shoulders will always bear the greatest burden. I would never cut taxes for millionaires and raise them on ordinary families. That is wrong, that is not being One Nation. And here is the other thing, I will never accept an economy where the gap between rich and poor just grows wider and wider. In One Nation, in my faith, inequality matters. It matters to our country.
Now what does it mean to the Labour Party to be One Nation? It means we can’t go back to Old Labour. We must be the party of the private sector just as much as the party of the public sector. As much the party of the small business struggling against the odds, as the home help struggling against the cuts. We must be the party of south just as much as the party of the north. And we must be the party as much of the squeezed middle as those in poverty. There is no future for this party as the party of one sectional interest of our country.
But so too it is right to move on from New Labour because New Labour, despite its great achievements, was too silent about the responsibilities of those at the top, and too timid about the accountability of those with power. In One Nation responsibility goes all the way to the top of society. The richest in society have the biggest responsibility to show responsibility to the rest of our country. And I’ve got news for the powerful interests in our country, in One Nation no interest, from Rupert Murdoch to the banks, is too powerful to be held to account.
So we must be a One Nation party to become a One Nation government, to build a One Nation Britain. And here’s how we are going to take these steps to do that.
We need a One Nation economy and the first big mission of the next Labour government is to sort out our banks. Sort them out once and for all. Not just to prevent another crisis but to do what hasn’t been done in decades. Necessary to enable us to pay our way in the world. We need banks that serve the country not a country that serves its banks.
Think about Alan Henderson, the small businessman I talked about earlier on. He wanted to be able to go into his bank, look his high street manager in the eye and know that he was working for him. Instead he found a bank more interested in playing the international money markets. That’s why he was ripped off.
Of course, this government promised change, but things aren’t really changing. So I have got a message for the banks, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. Either you fix it yourselves between now and the election or the next Labour government will once and for all ensure that the high street bank is no longer the arm of a casino operation and we will break you up by law.
Now look friends, there will be some people who say this is all too radical, let’s just carry in as we are. I say we can’t carry on as we are. We can’t carry on as we are, two nations not one. The banks and the rest of Britain. We must have a One Nation banking system as part of a One Nation economy.
Next, we need an education system that works for all young people. You see, to be a One Nation economy you have got to use all the talents of all of our young people. It’s not just that it’s socially right, it is absolutely essential for our economy for the future.
I remember when Chris and I were at Haverstock. I remember at Haverstock school, my comprehensive, the kids who were good at passing exams, who were academic, they could go to university and the world would just open up for them like it did for me. But think about all those kids who had talent and ability, great talent and ability. School just didn’t offer them enough. It was true twenty five years ago, and it is even more true today.
Just think in your minds eye about the 14 year old today. Today is a school day. Think about that 14 year old, not academic, already bored at school, maybe already starting that process of truanting, of not going to school. Now of course they need to get back to school and their parents need to get them back to school. They can’t afford to drift through life with no qualifications and Britain can’t afford for them to do it either. But we can’t just say to that 14 year old just put in the work, because we have been failing them too. You see for a long time our party has been focused on getting 50% of young people into university. I believe that was right. But now it’s time to put our focus on the forgotten 50% who do not go to university.
Here’s the choice that I want to offer to that 14 year old who is not academic. English and maths to 18 because rigour in the curriculum matters. But courses that engage them and are relevant to them. Work experience with employers. And then culminating at the age of 18 with a new gold standard qualification so they know when they are taking that exam they have a gold standard vocational qualification, a new Technical Baccalaureate. A qualification to be proud of. You know, we’ve got to change the culture of this country friends. We can’t be a country where vocational qualifications are seen as second class.
They are a real route to apprenticeships and jobs. They can be as valuable to our young people as a university degree. We need to make it so.
So we’ve got to change the culture in this country and there needs to be that real route to apprenticeships but let me tell you though, there is another problem. Only one in three large employers in Britain actually offers apprenticeships. And if anything, in the public sector the situation is far far worse. That is about a culture of a country. That’s about a culture of a country which hasn’t been dealt with for decades. It is the task of the next Labour government to do that. So the public sector is going to have to step up to the plate and understand we can’t be two nations. We can’t be two nations. And when the public sector offers contracts to the private sector the next Labour government will ensure that every private sector contract will only be awarded to a large company that trains the next generation with apprenticeships. Because when the public sector is having a contract with a private sector company, it is not just buying goods and services, it must be about building One Nation together. Public and private sectors joining together to do it.
And we need a new deal with British business. You get the money, you get control of the money for training, as you have long asked for, you set the standards, as you have long asked for. But you have a responsibility to make sure the training happens. In One Nation there is no place for free riding. Free riding where firms that don’t train poach workers from firms that do.
Now think about this vision of education. Education to the age of 18 with proper vocational qualifications, and then think about the vision on offer from the Conservatives. Michael Gove. Michael Gove, who wanted to bring back two-tier academic exams. I remember what that was like. O-levels and CSEs one whole group of young people written off. We are not going back to those days. Michael Gove who has contempt for vocational qualifications and has abolished some of the best vocational qualifications our country has. And Michael Gove who has nothing to say about education to 18.
So in education there really is a choice of two futures. Education for a narrower and narrower elite, with the Conservatives. Or a One Nation skills system as part of a One Nation economy with the next Labour government.
To be a One Nation economy we have to make life just that bit easier for the producers, and that bit harder for the predators. “Predators and producers”, I think one year on people know what I was talking about. You see businesses tell me that the pressure for the fast buck from City investors means they just can’t take the long view. They want to plan one year, two years, ten years ahead but they have to publish their accounts in Britain every 3 months. In line with the wishes of the best of British business, we will end that rule so companies in Britain can take the long term productive view for our country.
Companies in Britain are far more easily bought and sold than in many other countries. Do you know that when a takeover is launched the hedge funds and the speculators can swoop in for a quick profit. They are not acting in the interests of firms or the nation. They are just in it for the fast buck. It is wrong and we will change it.
And here is the thing, ladies and gentlemen, I invite British businesses – work with us in advance of the next Labour government. Let’s refound the rules of the game so we have a One Nation business model as part of a One Nation economy for our country.
So friends, in banks, in education in the rules of the game for companies –One Nation gives us an urgent call of change. But One Nation is not just about the things we need to change, it is about the things we need to conserve as well. Saying that doesn’t make me a Conservative. Our common way of life matters.
My vision of One Nation is an outward looking country. A country which engages with Europe and the rest of the world. I am incredibly proud to be the son of immigrant parents. I am incredibly proud of the multi-ethnic diverse Britain which won us the Olympic bid. The Olympics saw that kind of country here in Britain. But to make that Britain work. To make that vision work for our country, immigration must work for all and not just some. And friends, too often in the past we have overlooked those concerns, dismissed them too easily.
Here is how my approach is going to be different both from the last Labour government and this Conservative government. You see we need secure management of out borders, we need competent management of the system. But here is the big change, it is about the way our economy works. You see, immigration has really significant economic benefits but not when it is used to undercut workers already here and exploit people coming here.
The last Labour government didn’t do enough to address these concerns and the Tories never will. So the next Labour government will crack down on employers who don’t pay the minimum wage. We will stop recruitment agencies just saying they are only going to hire people from overseas. And we will end the shady practices, in the construction industry and elsewhere, of gang-masters. So we need a system of immigration that works for the whole country and not just for some.
You know there is no more important area of our common life than the United Kingdom itself. Now one of the four countries, Scotland, will be deciding in the next two years whether to stay or to go. I want to be quite clear about this, Scotland could leave the United Kingdom. But I believe we would be far worse off as a result. Not just in pounds and pence but in the soul of our nation. You see I don’t believe that solidarity stops at the border. I care as much about a young person unemployed in Motherwell as I do about a young person unemployed here in Manchester. We have common bonds, we have deep bonds with each other. The people of Scotland and the people of the rest of the United Kingdom. And by the way, if you think about the people of Scotland and the Olympic games, they weren’t cheering on just the Scottish athletes of Team GB, they were cheering on all the athletes of Team GB. That’s what the SNP don’t understand. And why would a party that claims to be left o f centre turn its back on the redistribution, the solidarity, the common bonds of the United Kingdom? Friends it is up to us. It is up to us, we the Labour Party must be the people who fight, defend and win the battle for the United Kingdom.
And after the United Kingdom itself there is no more important area of our common life than the NHS.
The magic of the NHS for me is that you don’t leave your credit card at the door. The NHS, it’s based on a whole different set of values, a whole different set of values that the people of Britain love. Not values of markets, money and exchange but values of compassion, care and co-operation. That is the magic of the NHS; that is why the British people love the NHS and I’m afraid the Tories have shown in government it’s something they just don’t understand.
Remember before the last election, remember those airbrushed posters? ‘I’ll protect the NHS’ with that picture of David Cameron. Remember those speeches? The three most important letters to me, he said, were N-H-S. It was a solemn contract with the British people. And then what did he do? He came along after the election and proposed a top-down reorganisation that nobody voted for, that nobody knew about and nobody wanted. And here’s the worst part. When it became unpopular he paused. Remember the pause? He said he wanted to listen, and what happened? The GPs said no. The nurses said no. The paediatricians said no. The radiologists said no. The patients said no. And the British people said no. And what did he do? He ploughed on regardless. He broke his solemn contract with the British people, a contract that can never be repaired.
Let me tell what I hate about this reorganisation; let me tell you what I hate. I hate the waste, I hate the waste of billions of pounds at a time the NHS has its worst settlement, its most difficult settlement for a generation. I hate the fact that there are 5,500 fewer nurses than when David Cameron came to power. Think of what he could have done if he hadn’t spent billions of pounds on that top-down reorganisation and had used the money to employ nurses, rather than sacking them. But here’s what I hate most of all. It’s that the whole way they designed this NHS reorganisation was based on the model of competition that there was in the privatised utility industry, gas, energy and water. What does that tell you about these Tories? What does that tell you about the way they don’t understand the values of the NHS? The NHS isn’t like the gas, electricity and water industries. The NHS is the pride of Britain. The NHS is based on a whole different set of values for our country. Friends, it just shows that the old adage is truer now than it ever was: You just can’t trust the Tories on the NHS.
So let me be clear, let me be clear, the next Labour government will end the free market experiment, it will put the right principles back at the heart of the NHS and it will repeal the NHS Bill.
So friends, this is where I stand. This is who I am. This is what I believe. This is my faith.
You know, I was talking to my mum this morning, as you do before a big speech, and she reminded me her mother was born in a small Polish village in 1909. I went back to that village with my mum about a decade ago. About 2,000 people live there and it’s quite an event having people from England coming over. It feels a long way from that village, and what my parents experienced, to this stage today. You see Britain has given my family everything. Britain has given my family everything. Britain and the spirit, the determination, the courage of the people who rebuilt Britain after the Second World War. And now the question is asked again: who in this generation will rebuild Britain for the future? Who can come up to the task of rebuilding Britain? Friends, it falls to us, it falls to us, the Labour Party. As it has fallen to previous generations of Labour Party pioneers to leave our country a better place than we found it. Never to shrug our shoulders at injustice and say that is the way the world is. To come together, to join together, to work together as a country.
It’s not some impossible dream. We’ve heard it, we’ve seen it, we’ve felt it. That is my faith.
One nation: a country for all, with everyone playing their part. A Britain we rebuild together.
Ed Miliband's Labour Conference Speech 2010
The actual speech can be watched in full on the home page of this blog.
Be in no doubt.
The new generation of Labour is different. Different attitudes, different ideas, different ways of doing politics.
Today I want to tell you who I am, what I believe and how we are going to do the most important thing we have to do – win back the trust of the country.
We all of us share a deep conviction which brought us into this party and into this hall.
But each of us has our own individual story.
And I want to tell you about mine.
In 1940, my grandfather, with my dad, climbed onto one of the last boats out of Belgium.
They had to make a heart breaking decision – to leave behind my grandmother and my father’s sister. They spent the war in hiding, in a village sheltered by a brave local farmer. Month after month, year upon year, they lived in fear of the knock at the door.
At the same time, on the other side of Europe, my mother, aged five, had seen Hitler’s army march into Poland.
She spent the war on the run sheltering in a convent and then with a Catholic family that took her in. Her sister, her mother and her.
My love for this country comes from this story. Two young people fled the darkness that had engulfed the Jews across Europe and in Britain they found the light of liberty.
They arrived with nothing. This country gave them everything.
It gave them life and the things that make life worth living: hope, friendship, opportunity and family.
And they took hope and opportunity. They worked hard; they got on.
My dad learnt English, paid his way moving furniture during the day, and studying at night at technical college. He joined the Navy to fight for our country and afterwards he wanted to go to university. He did.
My mum built a life here after the war, for all of us. I know nobody more generous, nobody more kind, nobody more loving and nobody more relieved that this contest is over, than my Mum.
The gift my parents gave to me and David are the things I want for every child in this country. A secure and loving home. Encouragement and the aspiration to succeed.
In those ways my family was just like every other. But in some ways it was different.
I suppose not everyone has a dad who wrote a book saying he didn’t believe in the Parliamentary road to socialism.
But you know, it wasn’t a cold house.
It was warm, full of the spirit of argument and conviction, the conviction that leads me to stand before you today, the conviction that people of courage and principle can make a huge difference to their world.
What my parents learnt in fear, they passed on to us in an environment of comfort and security.
And there was one more lesson that I learnt.
We do not have to accept the world as we find it. And we have a responsibility to leave our world a better place and never walk by on the other side of injustice.
Freedom and opportunity are precious gifts and the purpose of our politics is to expand them, for all our people.
That faith is not something I chose. It’s not something I learned from books, even from my Dad’s books.
It was something I was born into.
And that is why David and I have devoted our lives to politics.
And it is why I will commit to you here and now. My beliefs will run through everything I do. My beliefs, my values are my anchor and when people try to drag me, as I know they will, it is to that sense of right and wrong, that sense of who I am and what I believe, to which I will always hold.
Conference, I am so honoured that you chose me to lead your party and I know you share those values.
And I am proud that every day, day in and day out, in every village, and every town and city in the land, you work to put those values into practice.
Conference, can I thank you for the heroic work you did at the election.
The reason we denied the Conservative Party a majority was because of the incredible work of Labour and trade union members the length and breadth of our country.
From Birmingham Edgbaston to Westminster North and from Edinburgh South to the Vale of Clwyd, it was your dedication, your energy and your determination to fight for the communities you love that beat the Ashcroft millions.
And let me thank everyone, not just Labour Party members, but thousands of ordinary members of the public who drove the BNP out of Barking and Dagenham.
But let’s face facts.
We had a bad result.
We had a very bad result.
And we are out of government.
And let me tell you, there is nothing good about opposition.
Every day out of power, another day when this coalition can wreak damage on our communities, another day when we cannot change our country for the better.
And let us resolve today that this will be a one-term government. That is the purpose of my leadership of this party.
But to achieve that we must go on our own journey.
And that is why the most important word in politics for us is humility.
We need to learn some painful truths about where we went wrong and how we lost touch.
We must not blame the electorate for ending up with a government we don’t like, we should blame ourselves.
We have to understand why people felt they couldn’t support us.
We have to show we understand the problems people face today.
This will require strong leadership. It won’t always be easy. You might not always like what I have to say.
But you’ve elected me leader and lead I will.
This country faces some tough choices. And so do we. And we need to change.
You remember. We began as restless and radical. Remember the spirit of 1997, but by the end of our time in office we had lost our way.
The most important lesson of New Labour is this: Every time we made progress we did it by challenging the conventional wisdom.
Think of how we took on the idea that there was a public ownership solution to every problem our society faced.
We changed Clause 4. We were right to do so.
Think of how we emphasised being tough on crime was as important as being tough on the causes of crime. We were right to do so.
Think of how we challenged the impression that we taxed for its own sake and that we were hostile to business. We were right to change.
And think of how we challenged the idea of a male dominated Parliament with All-Women shortlists and made the cause of gender equality central to our government. We were right to do so.
And the reason Tony and Gordon took on conventional wisdom in our party was so they could change the country.
We forget too easily what a radical challenge their ideas were to established ways of thinking about Britain and how they reshaped the centre-ground of politics.
They were reforming, restless and radical.
The old way of thinking said that economic efficiency would always come at the price of social justice.
With the minimum wage, tax credits, the New Deal, they showed that was wrong.
I am proud that our government lifted hundreds of thousands of children out of poverty, hundreds of thousands of pensioners out of poverty, proud that we created the highest levels of employment in Britain’s history.
The old way of thinking said that public services would always be second-class. But we defied the conventional wisdom.
I come from a generation that suffered school lessons in Portakabins and crumbling hospitals. I tell you one thing, for the eighteen years they were in power the Tories did nothing to fix the roof when the sun was shining.
Our legacy is a generation for whom newly built schools and modernised hospitals are an everyday fact of life.
I am proud of the fact that because of what we did, yes we did save the National Health Service in this country.
The old way of thinking said that you couldn’t change attitudes towards gay men and lesbians.
Let me tell you that last month I was privileged to be in this great city, at Pride, to see not just thousands of people marching but thousands of people lining the street in support.
We should be proud that our commitment to equality means we have couples forming civil partnerships across the country and celebrating with their family and friends.
The old thinking told us that for 300 years, the choice was either the break up of the United Kingdom or Scotland and Wales run from London.
We should be proud that Labour established the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. And we should make sure that after next May’s elections we re-elect Carwyn Jones as the First Minister in Wales and we elect Iain Gray as the new First Minister in Scotland.
And I am so, so proud that, against all the odds, we helped deliver peace in Northern Ireland. And it will be one of Tony Blair’s great legacies to this country.
The old thinking told us that the challenges of the world were too big and our country too small to make a difference.
But thanks to our leadership around the world, development spending is now heading towards our goal, forty million more children are going to school each day, and two hundred million are protected from malaria. And that would never have happened without the leadership of Gordon Brown as Chancellor and then Prime Minister.
Tony and Gordon had the courage to take on established attitudes and institutions – and change Britain.
It is that courage that made us such a successful political force.
But our journey must also understand where it went wrong. I tell you, I believe that Britain is fairer and stronger than it was 13 years ago.
But we have to ask, how did a party with such achievements to its name end up losing five million votes between 1997 and 2010?
It didn’t happen by accident.
The hard truth for all of us in this hall is that a party that started out taking on old thinking became the prisoner of its own certainties.
The world was changing all around us – from global finance to immigration to terrorism – New Labour, a political force founded on its ability to adapt and change lost its ability to do so.
The reason was that we too often bought old, established ways of thinking and over time we just looked more and more like a new establishment.
Let me say to the country:
You saw the worst financial crisis in a generation, and I understand your anger that Labour hadn’t changed the old ways in the City which said deregulation was the answer.
You wanted your concerns about the impact of immigration on communities to be heard, and I understand your frustration that we didn’t seem to be on your side.
And when you wanted to make it possible for your kids to get on in life, I understand why you felt that we were stuck in old thinking about higher and higher levels of personal debt, including from tuition fees.
You saw jobs disappear and economic security undermined, I understand your anger at a Labour government that claimed it could end boom and bust.
And I understand also that the promise of new politics of 1997 came to look hollow after the scandal of MPs’ expenses. And we came to look like a new establishment in the company we kept, the style of our politics and our remoteness from people.
I stand before you, clear in my task: to once again make Labour a force that takes on established thinking, doesn’t succumb to it, speaks for the majority and shapes the centre ground of politics.
And I tell you this: if we are not this party, nobody will be.
This new generation that leads our party is humble about our past and idealistic about our future.
It is a generation that will always stand up for the mainstream majority.
It is a generation that will fight for the centre ground, not allow it to be dominated or defined by our opponents.
And it is a generation which thirsts for change.
This week we embark on the journey back to power.
It will be a long journey involving hard thinking for our party.
We do not start that journey by claiming we know all the answers now.
We do so by setting a direction of change.
Let me tell you what kind of country I want to see:
This generation wants to change our economy so that it works better for working people and doesn’t just serve the needs of the few at the top.
This generation wants to change our society so that it values community and family, not just work, because we understand there is more to life than the bottom line.
This generation wants to change the way government works because it understands the power of the state to change lives but also how frustrating it can be if not reformed.
This generation wants to change our foreign policy so that it’s always based on values, not just alliances.
And this generation knows very profoundly that to change Britain we need a new politics.
Above all, I lead a new generation not bound by the fear or the ghosts of the past.
As we emerge from the global economic crisis, we face a choice: we can return to business as usual or we can challenge old thinking to build the new economy we need.
Let me say, I believe strongly that we need to reduce the deficit.
There will be cuts and there would have been if we had been in government.
Some of them will be painful and would have been if we were in government.
I won’t oppose every cut the coalition proposes.
There will be some things the coalition does that we won’t like as a party but we will have to support.
And come the next election there will be some things they have done that I will not be able to reverse.
I say this because the fiscal credibility we earned before 1997 was hard won and we must win it back by the time of the next general election.
I am serious about reducing our deficit.
But I am also serious about doing it in a way that learns the basic lessons of economics, fairness and history.
Economics teaches us that at times of recession governments run up deficits.
We were too exposed to financial services as an economy so the impact of the crash on the public finances was deeper on us than on others.
We should take responsibility for not building a more resilient economy.
But what we should not do as a country is make a bad situation worse by embarking on deficit reduction at a pace and in a way that endangers our recovery.
The starting point for a responsible plan is to halve the deficit over four years, but growth is our priority and we must remain vigilant against a downturn.
You see when you cancel thousands of new school buildings at a stroke, it isn’t just bad for our kids, it’s bad for construction companies at a time when their order books are empty.
It’s not responsible, it’s irresponsible.
When you deprive Sheffield Forgemasters of a loan, a loan from government which would be paid back, you deprive Britain of the ability to lead the world in new technology.
It’s not responsible, it’s irresponsible.
And when you reduce your economic policy simply to deficit reduction alone you leave Britain without a plan for growth.
It’s not responsible, it’s irresponsible and we should say so.
No plan for growth means no credible plan for deficit reduction.
And nor should we reduce the deficit without learning the basic lessons of fairness.
We must protect those on middle and low incomes. They did nothing to cause the crisis but are suffering the consequences.
I say the people who caused the crisis and can afford to do more should do more: with a higher bank levy allowing us to do more to protect the services and entitlements on which families depend.
And we should learn the basic lessons of history.
After 1945, we had the biggest debt we have ever had.
That generation cut the deficit but they had a bigger vision: for a new economy and a good society.
True patriotism is about reducing the debt burden we pass on to our kids.
But Mr Cameron, true patriotism is also about building an economy and a society fit for our kids to work and live in.
You were the optimist once but now all you offer is a miserable, pessimistic view of what we can achieve. And you hide behind the deficit to justify it.
But I have a different ambition, to emerge from the global economic crisis tackling the deficit, but also learning the much deeper lessons that this generation must learn.
It is a huge challenge to change our economy for the future and the same old thinking will lead to the same old results: an economy too dependent on financial services, too many people stuck in low pay and dead-end jobs and growing inequality.
We need a plan for change. A plan to reform the banks, invest in the industries of the future and support the small businesses and entrepreneurs who can be the lifeblood of our economy.
The new generation in my party understands the fundamental New Labour lesson that we must build prosperity as well as redistributing it.
And it also knows that there are huge vested interests and huge barriers to the wealth creators in this country, particularly small businesses and the self-employed.
These must be tackled. I tell you this, I will make Labour the party of enterprise and also the party of small business.
And I want British businesses, large and small, to be able to make the most of the advantages of globalisation.
New Labour was right to be enthusiastic about the opportunities that come in a more connected world: the movement of goods and services, the chance to travel, the new markets for our companies.
But this new generation recognises that we did not do enough to address concerns about some of the consequences of globalisation, including migration.
All of us heard it. Like the man I met in my constituency who told me he had seen his mates’ wages driven down by the consequences of migration.
If we don’t understand why he would feel angry – and it wasn’t about prejudice – then we are failing to serve those who we are in politics to represent.
I am the son of immigrants. I believe that Britain has benefited economically, culturally, socially from those who come to this country.
I don’t believe either that we can turn back the clock on free movement of labour in Europe. But we should never have pretended it would not have consequences.
Consequences we should have dealt with.
We have to challenge the old thinking that flexible labour markets are always the answer.
Employers should not be allowed to exploit migrant labour in order to undercut wages.
And if we have free movement of labour across Europe we need proper labour standards in our economy, including real protection for agency workers.
And, as every democratic country recognises, it is vital that workers have a voice that speaks for them.
I remember during this campaign I met some school dinner ladies. They had to buy their own uniforms, their shift patterns were being changed at a moment’s notice, frankly conference they were being exploited.
So they looked to their union to help them. They weren’t interested in going on strike, they loved the kids they served and wanted to serve their schools. But they wanted someone to help them get basic standards of decency and fairness.
Responsible trade unions are part of a civilised society, every democratic country recognises that.
But all of us in this movement bear a heavy responsibility. We want to win an argument about the danger this coalition poses to our economy and our society.
To do so we must understand the lessons of history.
We need to win the public to our cause and what we must avoid at all costs is alienating them and adding to the book of historic union failures.
That is why I have no truck, and you should have no truck, with overblown rhetoric about waves of irresponsible strikes.
The public won’t support them. I won’t support them. And you shouldn’t support them either.
But it is not just from trade unions that I want to see responsibility.
This new generation demands responsibility from business too.
During this campaign, I have met some extraordinary people doing amazing service for our country.
I remember a care worker I met in Durham.
She worked hard and with dedication, looking after our mums, dads and grandparents when they couldn’t look after themselves anymore.
She is doing one of the most important jobs in our society, and if it was my mum or dad, I would want anyone who cared for them to be paid a decent wage.
But she was barely paid the minimum wage – and barely a few pence extra for higher skills.
She told me that she thought a fair wage would be £7 an hour because after all she would get that for stacking shelves at the local supermarket.
I believe in responsibility in every part of our society.
That’s why I believe in not just a minimum wage but the foundation of our economy in the future must be a living wage.
And we need a tax system for business that rewards responsibility: to pay a living wage, to provide high quality apprenticeships and family-friendly employment.
And we need responsibility at the top of society too. The gap between rich and poor does matter. It doesn’t just harm the poor it harms us all.
What does it say about the values of our society, what have we become, that a banker can earn in a day what the care worker can earn in a year?
I say: responsibility in this country shouldn’t just be about what you can get away with.
And that applies to every chief executive of every major company in this country.
And, just as businesses have responsibility to ensure fair pay, so those who can work have a responsibility to do so.
This is one of the hardest issues for our party because all of us know in our communities people who are in genuine need and who worry about the impact of new medical tests, or changes to rules on them.
At the same time, let’s be honest, we also know there are those for whom the benefits system has become a trap.
That is not in their interests or the interests of us, a society, and we are right when we say it must be challenged.
Reforming our benefits system is not about stereotyping everybody out of work, it’s about transforming their lives.
Real help matched with real responsibility.
That is why on welfare, I will look closely at whatever the government comes forward with: not arbitrary cuts to benefits but a genuine plan to make sure that those in need are protected and that those who can work have the help they need to ensure they do so.
Work is a central part of life. But it is not all that matters.
We all care about making a living but we don’t just care about that.
Here is our generation’s paradox: the biggest ever consumers of goods and services, but a generation that yearns so much for the things that business cannot provide.
Strong families.
Time with your children.
Green spaces.
Community life.
Love and compassion.
New Labour embraced markets in our economy and was right to do so.
But let’s be honest we became naive about them.
We must never again give the impression that we know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
We must be on the side of communities who want to save their local post office, not be the people trying to close it.
We must be on the side of people trying to protect their high street from looking like every other high street, not the people who say that’s just the forces of progress.
And we must be on the side of those who are dismayed by the undermining of the local pub with cut-price alcohol from supermarkets.
We must shed old thinking and stand up for those who believe there is more to life than the bottom line.
We stand for these things not because we are social conservatives but because we believe in community, belonging and solidarity.
And I tell you this: the good life is about the things we do in our community and the time we spend with family.
I feel this so deeply since the birth of my son sixteen months ago.
As we rebuild our economy, we must think how we protect families up and down this country.
Families can’t do the best job if they are stressed out, working 60 or 70 hours a week, can’t be there when the kids get home from school, doing two or three jobs.
We’ve got to change our culture on working time not just for the good of families, but because it is through family that we learn right from wrong, develop ambitions for ourselves and show kindness and respect for others that is the foundation of our society.
When I look at some of the challenges we face as a country – from gangs to teenage pregnancy – it is only a government that stands up for families that are trying their best to bring up their kids that can offer answers.
So as we rebuild our economy we must think about how we protect and nourish the things that matter to families and to family life.
This new generation also wants to challenge the way we think about the state and what it can achieve.
I believe profoundly that government must play its part in creating the good society.
But our new generation also knows that government can itself become just such a vested interest. That unless reformed, unless accountable, unless responsive, government can impede the good society.
Our new generation, hungry for change, is unwilling to see that happen.
Like millions of people around the country, I went to my local comprehensive. I know the value of a good school, a good teacher.
And I know there are many parents frustrated with a school that doesn’t suit your child or live up to your hopes.
There are amazing secondary schools in my constituency and amazing teachers and head teachers. But one of them was consistently failing its pupils.
And it pained me as an MP to see those kids being consistently let down. Now that school has been taken over, the kids’ life chances transformed.
That is what good public service reform is all about.
My generation recognises too that government can itself become a vested interest when it comes to civil liberties.
I believe too in a society where individual freedom and liberty matter and should never be given away lightly.
The first job of government is the protection of its citizens. As Prime Minister I would never forget that.
And that means working with all the legitimate means at our disposal to disrupt and destroy terrorist networks.
But we must always remember that British liberties were hard fought and hard won over hundreds of years.
We should always take the greatest care in protecting them.
And too often we seemed casual about them.
Like the idea of locking someone away for 90 days – nearly three months in prison – without charging them with a crime.
Or the broad use of anti-terrorism measures for purposes for which they were not intended.
They just undermined the important things we did like CCTV and DNA testing.
Protecting the public involves protecting all their freedoms.
I won’t let the Tories or the Liberals take ownership of the British tradition of liberty.
I want our party to reclaim that tradition.
So too in our foreign policy the new generation must challenge old thinking.
We are the generation that came of age at the end of the Cold War.
The generation that was taught that the end of history had arrived and then saw 9/11 shatter that illusion.
And we are the generation that recognises that we belong to a global community: we can’t insulate ourselves from the world’s problems.
For that reason, right now this country has troops engaged in Afghanistan.
They represent the very best of our country.
They and their families are making enormous sacrifices on our behalf and we should today acknowledge their service and their sacrifice.
Our troops are there to stabilise the country and enable a political settlement to be reached so that Afghanistan can be stable and we can be safe.
I will work in a bi-partisan way with the government to both support our mission and ensure Afghanistan is not a war without end.
But just as I support the mission in Afghanistan as a necessary response to terrorism, I’ve got to be honest with you about the lessons of Iraq.
Iraq was an issue that divided our party and our country. Many sincerely believed that the world faced a real threat. I criticise nobody faced with making the toughest of decisions and I honour our troops who fought and died there.
But I do believe that we were wrong. Wrong to take Britain to war and we need to be honest about that.
Wrong because that war was not a last resort, because we did not build sufficient alliances and because we undermined the United Nations.
America has drawn a line under Iraq and so must we.
Our alliance with America is incredibly important to us but we must always remember that our values must shape the alliances that we form and any military action that we take.
So many of the world’s problems need functioning international institutions. The days in which any country could achieve their goals on their own are over.
There can be no solution to the conflicts of the Middle East without international action, providing support where it is needed, and pressure where it is right to do so.
And let me say this, as Israel ends the moratorium on settlement building, I will always defend the right of Israel to exist in peace and security. But Israel must accept and recognise in its actions the Palestinian right to statehood.
That is why the attack on the Gaza Flotilla was so wrong.
And that is why the Gaza blockade must be lifted and we must strain every sinew to work to make that happen.
The government must step up and work with our partners in Europe and around the world to help bring a just and lasting peace to the Middle East.
But to achieve all these things – a different economy, a different society and reform of the state – we must change our politics too.
Let’s be honest, politics isn’t working.
People have lost faith in politicians and politics.
And trust is gone.
Politics is broken.
Its practice, its reputation and its institutions.
I’m in it and even I sometimes find it depressing.
This generation has a chance – and a huge responsibility – to change our politics. We must seize it and meet the challenge.
So we need to reform our House of Commons and I support changing our voting system and will vote Yes in the referendum on AV.
Yes we need to finally elect the House of Lords after talking about it for so long – about a hundred years.
Yes we need more decisions to be made locally, with local democracy free of the constraints we have placed on it in the past and free of an attitude which has looked down its nose at local government.
And I want to congratulate all our local councillors and tell you: I will be shoulder to shoulder with you at next May’s local elections.
And the following year, we will be proud not only of the Olympics in London, but proud too to see them presided over by the next Mayor of London. Ken Livingstone.
And let me also congratulate Oona on the campaign that she fought.
Let’s be honest, changing our institutions won’t be enough to restore trust on its own.
Look, in the end it’s politicians who have to change.
This generation must reject the old ways of doing politics. And must speak to the issues our generation knows it must confront.
The focus groups will tell you that there’s no votes in green issues.
Maybe not.
But taking the difficult steps to protect our planet for future generations is the greatest challenge our generation faces.
When I think about my son, I think what he will be asking me in twenty years’ time is whether I was part of the last generation not to get climate change or the first generation to get it.
And climate change, just like the ageing society, can’t be tackled by the politics we have.
They don’t lend themselves to the politics of now: instant results, instant votes, instant popularity. X-factor politics.
So we can’t be imprisoned by the focus groups.
Politics has to be about leadership or it is about nothing.
I also know something else. Wisdom is not the preserve of any one party. Some of the political figures in history who I admire most are Keynes, Lloyd George, Beveridge, who were not members of the Labour Party.
Frankly, the political establishment too often conducts debate in a way that insults the intelligence of the public.
We must change this for the good of the country.
I will be a responsible Leader of the Opposition.
What does that mean?
When I disagree with the government, as on the deficit, I will say so loud and clear and I will take the argument to them.
But when Ken Clarke says we need to look at short sentences in prison because of high re-offending rates, I’m not going to say he’s soft on crime.
When Theresa May says we should review stop and search laws to prevent excessive use of state power, I’m not going to say she is soft on terrorism.
I tell you this conference, this new generation must find a new way of conducting politics.
And that brings me to some of the names I’ve been called.
Wallace out of Wallace and Gromit… I can see the resemblance.
Forrest Gump… Not so much.
And what about Red Ed?
Come off it.
Let’s start to have a grown up debate in this country about who we are and where we want to go and what kind of country we want to leave for our kids.
A few days ago our contest came to an end and now the real contest has begun.
I relish the chance to take on David Cameron.
We may be of a similar age, but in my values and ideals I am of a different and new generation.
The new generation is not simply defined by age, but by attitudes and ideals.
And there is a defining difference between us and David Cameron and that is optimism.
We are the heirs to an extraordinary tradition, to great leaders who were above all the optimists of history.
The optimism of 1945 which built the National Health Service and the welfare state.
The optimism of Harold Wilson and the white heat of technology and the great social reforms of that government.
The optimism of Tony and Gordon who took on the established thinking and reshaped our country.
We are the optimists in politics today.
So let’s be humble about our past.
Let’s understand the need to change.
Let’s inspire people with our vision of the good society.
Let the message go out, a new generation has taken charge of Labour.
Optimistic about our country.
Optimistic about our world.
Optimistic about the power of politics.
We are the optimists and together we will change Britain.
