from a well wisher-bliar
along with a few thousand other Countryside Alliance supporters -
Blair made a speech around the time of that conference in which he made clear
his hatred of England and English tradition.
his hatred of England and English tradition.
He is without doubt one of the most evil men ever to have held power in Britain.
REMEMBER THE WORDS OF BLAIR - THE MOST EVIL MAN WHO EVER HELD POWER IN
THESE UNITED KINGDOMS. HERE HE DECLARED WAR ON US.
REMEMBER THE WORDS OF BLAIR - THE MOST EVIL MAN WHO EVER HELD POWER IN
THESE UNITED KINGDOMS. HERE HE DECLARED WAR ON US.
IT IS INSTRUCTIVE TO SEE HOW THE WAR WAS WAGED AND WON - AND HOW BADLY
HE FAILED ON EVERY SINGLE PROMISE WHICH EMITTED FROM HIS
IDIOTIC MOUTH.
AND THIS **** WANTS TO BE PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN
UNION. DRAW YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS.
Speech by Tony Blair MP, Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party
Bournemouth, Tuesday 28th September 1999
Today at the frontier of the new Millennium I set out for you how, as a
nation, we renew British strength and confidence for the 21st century;
and how, as a Party reborn, we make it a century of progressive politics
after one dominated by Conservatives.
A New Britain where the extraordinary talent of the British people is
liberated from the forces of conservatism that so long have held them
back, to create a model 21st century nation, based not on privilege,
class or background, but on the equal worth of all.
And New Labour, confident at having modernised itself, now the new
progressive force in British politics which can modernise the nation,
sweep away those forces of conservatism to set the people free.
100 years in existence, 22 in power, we have never, ever won a full
second term. That is our unfinished business. Let us now finish it and
with it finish the Tory Party's chances of doing as much damage in the
next century as they've done in this one.
Todays Tory party the party of fox hunting, Pinochet and hereditary
peers: the uneatable, the unspeakable and the unelectable.
Theres only one thing you need to know about todays Tory Party.
Clarke and Heseltine: outcasts.
Hague, Widdecombe, Redwood and Portillo in charge.
The only Party that spent two years in hibernation in search of a new
image and came back as the Addams family.
Under John Major, it was weak, weak, weak.
Under William Hague, its weird, weird, weird.
Far right, far out.
But not far enough for some. Like the letter I got last week from a man
who said did I know the Tories had been listening to Britain. They cant
have been listening too hard, he said. They're still here.
The more useless they get, the more extreme they get.
In the last few months alone, Ive been compared to Hitler, Mussolini and
Milosevic. Maybe they think I should be indicted for war crimes the
crime of leading the Labour Party into government, and disturbing the
natural order of things.
By convention, Prime Ministers start with all the good things their
Government has done. I want to start where the British people start:
with all we have still to do.
More than 1 million still unemployed.
Schools and hospitals still needing investment.
Pensioners still living in hardship.
People still petrified by crime and drugs.
3 million children still in poverty.
A century of decline, 20 years of Conservative Government still not put
to rights. Do you think I
dont feel this, in every fibre of my being?
The frustration, the impatience, the urgency, the anger at the waste of
lives unfulfilled, hopes never achieved, dreams never realised. And
whilst there is one child still in poverty in Britain today, one
pensioner in poverty, one person denied their chance in life, there is
one Prime Minister and one Party that will have no rest, no vanity in
achievement, no sense of mission completed, until they too
are free.
So I do not claim Britain is transformed. I do say the foundations of a
New Britain are being laid.
After decades of Tory boom and bust, it is New Labour which is the party
of economic competence today and for that we can be proud; and proud of
our Chancellor too.
Indeed, I can stand here today, leader of the Labour Party, Prime
Minister, and say to the British people: you have never had it so ..
prudent.
As we think back to 1985, and to Neil Kinnock, wasnt it brilliant
yesterday, in this hall of all places, to see a Labour Chancellor,
"scuttling" back from Washington to hand out the best economic news in a
generation, to his own partys Conference.
650,000 more jobs in the economy, long-term youth unemployment halved
and heres one for us to put back down a few Tory throats fewer days
lost in strikes than any of the 18 years of Tory Government. Who says
Labours not working now?
All employees with the right to a paid holiday.
Leave for parents to take time off work for a family crisis.
And after 100 years of trying, the right for union members to have their
union recognised, not on the whim of an employer, but as a democratic
right in a fair and free society.
Maternity grant doubled.
7 million families with the largest ever rise in Child Benefit Britain
has seen.
And I say to Britain's pensioners: I know when you get an extra 100 for
every pensioner household this November - not just those on benefits,
everyone - its not the end of your worries, but its 100 more than you
got under any Conservative Government; and theyd take the 100 back off
you if
they were ever elected again.
Half-way through one Parliament. Nothing like half-way towards meeting
all our goals.
And all around us the challenge of change.
A spectre haunts the world: technological revolution.
10 years ago, a fifteen year old probably couldnt work a computer.
Now hes in danger of living on it.
Over a trillion dollars traded every day in currency markets and with
them the fate of nations.
Global finance and Communications and Media. Electronic commerce. The
Internet. The science of genetics. Every year a new revolution
scattering in its wake, security, and ways of living for millions of people.
These forces of change driving the future:
Don't stop at national boundaries.
Don't respect tradition.
They wait for no-one and no nation.
They are universal.
We know what a 21st century nation needs.
A knowledge-based economy. A strong civic society. A confident place in
the world.
Do that and a nation masters the future. Fail and it is the futures victim.
The challenge is how?
The answer is people.
The future is people.
The liberation of human potential not just as workers but as citizens.
Not power to the people but power to each person to make the most of
what is within them.
People are born with talent and everywhere it is in chains.
Look at Britain. Great strengths. Great history. English, the language
of the new technology. The national creative genius of the British
people. But wasted.
The country run for far too long on the talents of the few, when the
genius of the many lies uncared for, and ignored.
Fail to develop the talents of any one person, we fail Britain. Talent
is 21st century wealth.
Every person liberated to fulfil their potential adds to our wealth.
Every person denied opportunity takes our wealth away.
In the 18th century land was our resource.
In the 19th and 20th century it was plant and capital.
Today it is people.
The cause we have fought for, these 100 years, is no longer simply our
cause of social justice.
It is the nations only hope of salvation.
For how do you develop the talent of all, unless in a society that
treats us all equally, where the closed doors of snobbery and prejudice,
ignorance and poverty, fear and injustice no longer bar our way to
fulfillment.
Not equal incomes. Not uniform lifestyles or taste or culture.
But true equality: equal worth, an equal chance of fulfilment, equal
access to knowledge and opportunity.
Equal rights. Equal responsibilities.
The class war is over.
But the struggle for true equality has only just begun.
To the child who goes to school hungry for food, but thirsting for
knowledge, I know the talent you were born with, and the frustration you
feel that its trapped inside. We will set your potential free.
To the women free to work, but because they are also mothers, carers,
helpers barely know how to get through the day, we will give you the
support to set your potential free.
To the 45 year old who came to my surgery a few months ago, scared hell
never work again, I say: "you didn't become useless at 45. You deserve
the chance to start afresh and we will set your potential free."
And to those who have wealth, but who say that none of it means anything
if my children cant play in the park, and my mother darent go out at
night. We share your belief in a strong community. We will set your
potential free.
And it is us, the new radicals, the Labour Party modernised, that must
undertake this historic mission. To liberate Britain from the old class
divisions, old structures, old prejudices, old ways of working and of
doing things, that will not do in this world of change.
To be the progressive force that defeats the forces of conservatism.
For the 21st century will not be about the battle between capitalism and
socialism but between the forces of progress and the forces of conservatism.
They are what hold our nation back. Not just in the Conservative Party
but within us, within our nation.
The forces that do not understand that creating a new Britain of true
equality is no more a betrayal of Britain's history than New Labour is
of Labours values.
The old prejudices, where foreign means bad.
Where multi-culturalism is not something to celebrate, but a left-wing
conspiracy to destroy their way of life.
Where women shouldn't work and those who do are responsible for the
breakdown of the family.
The old elites, establishments that have run our professions and our
country too long. Who havekept women and black and Asian talent out of
our top jobs and senior parts of Government and the Services. Who keep
our bright inner city kids from our best universities. And who still
think the House of Lords should be run by hereditary peers in the
interests of the Tory Party.
The old order, those forces of conservatism, for all their language
about promoting the individual, and freedom and liberty, they held
people back. They kept people down. They stunted people's potential.
Year after year. Decade after decade.
Think back on some of the great achievements of this century.
To us today, it almost defies belief that people had to die to win the
fight for the vote for women. But they did. That battle was a massive,
heroic struggle. But why did it need such a fight? Because Tory MPs
stood up in the House of Commons and said: "voting is a mans business".
And that is why we can be so proud that it is this Labour Party that has
more women MPs and more women
Ministers than any Government before us until our record is bettered by
a future Labour Government.
Look at this Party's greatest achievement. The forces of conservatism,
and the force of the Conservative Party, pulled every trick in the book
voting 51 times, yes 51 times, against the creation of the NHS. One
leading Tory, Mr Henry Willink, said at the time that the NHS "will
destroy so much in this country that we value", when we knew human
potential can never be realised when whether you are well or ill depends
on wealth not need.
The forces of conservatism allied to racism are why one of the heroes of
the 20th Century, Martin Luther King, is dead.
It's why another, Nelson Mandela, spent the best years of his life in a
cell the size of a bed. And though the fact that Mandela is alive, free
and became President, is a sign of the progress we have made: the fact
that Stephen Lawrence is dead, for no other reason than he was born
black, is a sign of how far we still have to go.
And they still keep opposing progress and justice.
What did they say about the minimum wage? The same as they said right
through this century.
They tried the employment argument it would cost jobs.
They tried the business argument it would make them bankrupt.
They then used the economic argument it would cause inflation.
They then resorted to the selfish argument businesses wouldn't want to
pay it.
Well, businesses are paying it. Inflation is low. Unemployment is
falling. There are one million job vacancies in the country.
And two million people have had a pay rise because we believe they are
worth more than poverty pay.
These forces of conservatism chain us not only to an outdated view of
our peoples potential but of our nations potential. What threatens the
nation-state today is not change, but the refusal to change in a world
opening up, becoming ever more interdependent.
The old air of superiority based on past glory must give way to the
ambition to succeed, based on the merit of what Britain stands for today.
For the last half century, we have been torn between Europe and the
United States, searching for our identity in the post-Empire world.
I pose this simple question: is our destiny with Europe or not?
If the answer is no, then we should leave. But we would leave an
economic union in which 50 per cent of our trade is done, on which
millions of British jobs depend. Our economic future would be uncertain.
But what is certain is that we would not be a power.
Britain would no longer play a determining part in the future of the
continent to which we belong. That would be the real end of one thousand
years of history.
We can choose this destiny. But we should do it with our eyes open and
our senses alert, not blindfold and dulled by the incessant propaganda
of Europhobes.
The single currency is, of course, a decision that must be dependent on
the economic conditions; and on the consent of the British people in a
referendum.
If we believe our destiny is with Europe, then let us leave behind the
muddling through, the hesitation, the half-heartedness which has
characterised British relations with Europe for forty years and play our
part with confidence and pride giving us the chance to defeat the forces
of conservatism, economic and political, that hold Europe back too.
There is no choice between Europe and America.
Britain is stronger with the US today because we are strong in Europe.
Britain has the potential to be the bridge between Europe and America
and for the 21st century the narrow-minded isolationism of right-wing
Tories should not block our path to fulfilling it.
The nation-state is changing.
The Tory policy on devolution left them without a single seat anywhere
in Scotland and Wales. Delivering our promise of a Scottish Parliament
and Welsh Assembly has strengthened the UK not weakened it, and now
having defeated the force of conservatism in granting devolution, let us
continue to defeat the separatism which is just the forces of
conservatism by another name.
And don't let the forces of conservatism stop devolution in Northern
Ireland too.
Those who are addicted to violence. Those who confuse any progress with
selling out. They shouldn't determine Northern Ireland's future.
Walk through Belfast. No armed soldiers.
Drive through it. No road blocks.
In the last year, the first time in 30 years, not a single member of the
security forces killed. 1996,
8,000 plastic bullets fired. This year 99.
Yes, there is violence and any violence is unacceptable.
But dont throw away all that has been achieved.
And I ask the Conservative Party: we supported you when you were in
Government; don't make our task harder now because that would be the
real betrayal of the children of Northern Ireland.
It would be comforting to think the forces of conservatism were only
Tories. But wrong.
There were forces of conservatism who said changing Clause 4 would
destroy the Labour Party, when in truth it was critical to our renewal.
Who said a referendum on devolution was a ploy to stop it happening,
when I knew it was the only way to make it happen.
Who said that making young people take a job that was offered to them
was a denial of social justice, when our attack on youth unemployment is
the route to social justice.
The Third Way is not a new way between progressive and conservative
politics.
It is progressive politics distinguishing itself from conservatism of
left or right.
New Labour must be the new radicals who take on both of them, not just
on election day but every day.
People say in our first two years we ran a Tory economic policy.
Nonsense. If we had run a Tory economic policy Britain would be in
recession by now which is no doubt why they predicted it.
We gave the Bank of England independence.
We cut the borrowing.
We cut unemployment. We are at long last reforming welfare, making work
pay more than benefit for hard-working families through the Working
Families Tax Credit.
They would scrap each and every one of these reforms.
Slowly the Tory general election strategy is emerging.
To 2 million people given a pay rise through the minimum wage. Tory
pledge 1: well cut it.
To 1.5 million families helped by the working families tax credit. Tory
pledge 2: well scrap it.
To 250,000 young people getting through the New Deal, Tory pledge 3:
youll go back on the dole.
I say: roll on the next General Election.
Our reforms are why we are spending 4bn less on interest payments this year.
Saving 2bn by cutting unemployment.
Why, thanks to economic growth, billions of pounds of wealth has been
created, not lost in Tory boom and bust.
And as a result, the next three years show the biggest ever investment
in schools and hospitals. Not just one year. But the year after and the
year after that.
And, if we carry on running this New Labour economic policy I can tell
you today we will continue to get more money into schools and hospitals
in a way we can sustain year on year on year. We are rewriting some of
the traditional rules of politics.
Now after a century of antagonism, economic efficiency and social
justice are finally working in partnership together. We are
demonstrating that it is possible to cut poverty and run the economy
well. At last our historic reputation for compassion is being matched
with a hard won reputation for economic competence. From now on people
will vote Labour with their head as well as their heart.
The political landscape of Britain has changed forever.
Thats why Prudences chastity belt stays on, even for the Liberal Democrats.
And then we open up the UK economy.
Open it up to electronic commerce, so we cut the cost of buying and selling.
Open it up to competition so we can stop the consumer being ripped off.
And private capital alongside public investment. In transport, to read
some of the papers you would think John Prescott had created Britains
transport problems. Thanks to him, and the new Strategic Rail Authority,
the next 10 years will see the largest investment in the railways for
100 years. Let's be honest. When it comes to transport we are all the
forces of conservatism. But the real anti-car
policy is staying as we are.
Let us take on the forces of conservatism in education, too, the
greatest liberator of human potential there is.
No more nursery vouchers.
No return to 11+.
No freeze on student numbers in our universities.
No more Assisted Places Scheme.
Not the right. But not the old Left either: no tolerance of failing LEAs.
No truce on failing schools.
No pupils condemned to failure.
We owe it to every child to unleash their potential. They are of equal
worth. They deserve an equal chance.
A failed education is a life sentence on a child.
If we are to succeed in the knowledge economy, we need as parents, as
teachers, as a country to get a whole new attitude to learning.
What other country in the world sees being "too clever by half" as a fault?
In todays world, there is no such thing as too clever. The more you
know, the further you'll go.
The forces of conservatism, the elite, have held us back for too long.
Why is it only now that we are getting nursery places for all three and
four year olds?
Why has it taken this government to realise that 5, 6 and 7 year olds
need that extra attention that smaller classes give them?
Why, when we have known all our lives the importance of the 3 Rs, is it
only now that we have put in place the literacy and numeracy strategies
to get those basics taught properly? And look at the results for 11 year
olds: maths up 10 per cent, reading up five per cent, a tribute to our
children, to their teachers and to David Blunkett.
Why has it taken this government to set about ending the culture of
failure in our inner city comprehensives? Doubling the number of
specialist schools; creating 1,000 beacon schools; every run down school
getting help with buildings, equipment, facilities from the 5bn
modernisation programme: LEAs with a track record of failure taken over
and run by people with a track record of
success.
Why is it only now, we have lifted the cap on student numbers and
100,000 more will go to university in the next 2 years, 700,000 more to
further education. So today I set a target of 50 per cent of young
adults going into higher education in the next century.
Why if education is the key to success do we allow so many children to
leave school at 16 when we should be doing all we can to get them to
stay on. Today we are announcing a smartcard to offer all 16-18 year
olds who stay in education cut price deals at shops, in theatres and
cinemas and on trains and buses.
Only now can this happen because there is a Labour Government that cares
about educating the many and a Labour Party with the courage to reform
the system to do it.
And critical to reform are our teachers. I appeal to them.
You do a great job in our schools. We know how important it is for you
to work as a team. But if we are to get the real step change in your pay
you and we both want, we have to link it to performance. We have to
raise standards, and we have to remove those who really cannot do the job.
And if a Head Teacher transforms a school and so transforms the life
chances of our children, aren't they worth as much as a good doctor,
banker or lawyer?
In 10 years we will have transformed our schools. And our NHS too.
And I know the impatience here is at its highest. After all, we created
the NHS. It has to be us that rebuilds it.
And yes it needs money. And yes, the first two years were tough.
But the money is now starting. And money is not all it needs.
A predecessor of mine famously said she wanted to be able to go into the
hospital of her choice, "on the day I want, at the time I want, with the
doctor I want".
That was Margaret Thatchers argument for going private.
I want to go to the hospital of my choice, on the day I want, at the
time I want. And I want it on the NHS.
I say in all frankness to the BMA. You want our reforms to slow down. I
want them to speed up.
Already: 4,000 more student nurses and midwives.
4,000 more nurses returning to nursing.
27 new hospitals being built.
20 million people now covered by NHS Direct.
And the dreaded Tory internal market finally banished for good.
And over the next 3 years:
There will be 7000 more doctors 15,000 more nurses 37 hospitals built
The whole country covered by NHS Direct.
Every casualty department that needs it refurbished.
And waiting times and waiting lists lower at the end of our time in
Government than at the beginning.
And will that be enough?
No. But in time, if we are returned to power:
We will have booked appointments for everyone.
Walk-in NHS centres in all our major towns and cities.
Primary care surgeries that offer you all services on one site.
And everyone with the chance to go back on the NHS to see their dentist.
And just to show you its not impossible. Today I can tell you: we will
start next year with booked appointments for cancer and cataract patients.
And working with the British Dental Association, everyone within the
next 2 years will be able once again to see an NHS dentist just by
phoning NHS Direct.
So much more to do. But it will be done.
We arent just workers. We are citizens proud to say there is such a
thing as society and proud to be part of it.
Yet, today, we feel our social fabric torn.
Respect for law and order broken.
My grandfathers generation was strong on values. Respect for people.
Good manners. Horror of crime. But it was a generation also of deference
and of prejudices: racial, sexual, social.
The modern world is different. There is less prejudice, less deference,
but also less respect.
It is time to move beyond the social indifference of right and left,
libertarian nonsense masquerading as freedom.
This generation wants a society free from prejudice, but not from rules,
from order.
A common duty to provide opportunity for all.
An individual duty to be responsible towards all.
There will be a new Crime Bill in The Queens Speech.
With the new DNA technology we have the chance to match any DNA at any
scene of crime with those on police records. Already thousands of
criminals are being caught that way. But less than a fifth are on record.
I can announce we will provide the extra resources for a database where
every known offender will have their DNA recorded, and evidence from any
scene of crime will be matched with it.
And I saw that we said on drugs and new powers was attacked by civil
liberties groups.
I believe in civil liberties too:
The liberty of parents to drop their kids off at school, without
worrying theyre dropping them straight into the arms of drug dealers.
The liberty of pensioners to live without fear of getting their door
kicked in by someone thieving to pay for their habit.
The liberty of young people to live a full life, not die young, the
victim of the most chilling, evil industry the world has to confront.
Civil liberty to me means just that: the liberty to live in a civil
society founded on rights and responsibilities, and in dealing with the
drugs menace, that is the society we can help to build.
So when I speak of the need for a new moral purpose and some on the
right and left rise up and
say this is nothing to do with politics, leave it all to the bishops, I
tell you these people know exactly what I'm talking about.
Thats what I mean by fulfilling our potential as citizens as well as
workers.
We don't live by material goods alone.
Thats why today we set out more plans to boost arts, culture,
competitive sports in schools. Its why John Prescott puts his heart and
soul in the battle to protect our environment, so we leave to our
children a safer, healthier planet than the one into which they were born.
Yes we are three times richer than our grandparents. But are we three
times happier?
Ours is a moral cause, best expressed through how we see our families
and our children.
To our children, we are irreplaceable.
If anything happened to me, youd soon find a new leader. But my kids
wouldnt find a new Dad.
There is no more powerful symbol of our politics than the experience of
being on a maternity ward.
Seeing two babies side by side. Delivered by the same doctors and
midwives. Yet two totally different lives ahead of them.
One returns with his mother to a bed and breakfast that is cold, damp,
cramped. A mother who has no job, no family to support her, sadder still
no-one to share the joy and triumph of the new baby a father nowhere to
be seen. That mother loves her child like any other mother. But her life
and her baby's life is a long, hard struggle. For this child, individual
potential hangs by a thread.
The second child returns to a prosperous home, grandparents desperate to
share the caring, and a father with a decent income and an even larger
sense of pride. They're already thinking about schools, friends she can
make, new toys they can buy. Expectations are sky high, opportunities
truly limitless.
A child is a vulnerable witness on life.
A child sees her father hit her mother.
A child runs away from home. A child takes drugs. A child gives birth at
12.
If we are in politics for one thing it is to make sure that all
children are given the best chance in life. That the moment they are
born, their potential and individuality can sparkle.
That every child can grow up with high hopes, certainty, love, security
and the attention of their parents.
Strong families cherished by a strong community.
That is our national moral purpose. So when I pledge to end child
poverty in 20 years, I do so not just as a politician, but as a father.
Can I tell you something? And there are only four other people alive who
know this it's actually a bit odd being Prime Minister.
Everyone has views about you, and no hesitation giving them to you.
You read things about yourself, on a daily basis, that are a complete
mystery.
And you find that a lot of strange new people want to be your friend,
and lots of other strange people want to be your enemy.
We're only flesh and blood in the end. Sometimes can't sleep. Worry
about the job. Worry about the kids. Worry about growing old. Worry
about interest rates going up. Worry about Newcastle going down.
Then you've got these big worries when's the health money really going
to make a difference? Why are there still people sleeping in doorways?
Cant we turn round failing schools more quickly? How many of our
pensioners will go cold this winter?
It's a big job. A lonely job. The red boxes really do come at you day
and night, papers to read, decisions to make. Sometimes life and death
decisions. Often decisions, after all the advice and the consultation,
that only the Prime Minister can make.
So it's a pressure. But it's a privilege too. There is no greater
privilege than serving your country. And there is no greater purpose
than realising your potential.
I was lucky. A good education, a loving home, a great family, strong
beliefs, a great Party in which to give them expression.
Everyone has talent. Everyone has something to offer. And this country
needs everyone to make a contribution.
You'll see me on the TV, getting on and off planes, meeting Presidents
and Prime Ministers, Kings and Queens.
Its all part of the job. But the part that matters most to me is getting
my sleeves rolled up and pushing through the changes to our country that
will give to others by right, what I achieved by good fortune.
Let me read to you the words of someone else who thought ours was a
moral purpose, and said this about the people in our Party.
"The men and women who are in it are not working for themselves; they
know perfectly well that all they can do is but to create the beginning
of a condition of things which will one day bring peace and happiness
and freedom and a fuller life for those who are to come after us."
Our very first leader, Keir Hardie.
But 100 years ago, the circumstances of our birth and our political
childhood was such we never realised our potential.
Born in separation from other progressive forces in British politics,
out of the visceral need to represent the interests of an exploited
workforce, our base, our appeal, our ideology was too narrow.
People were made to feel we wanted to hold them back, limit their
aspirations, when in truth the very opposite was our goal.
We were chained by our ideology.
We thought we had eternal doctrines.
When they are in truth eternal values.
Solidarity, social justice, the belief not that society comes before
individual fulfillment but that it is only in a strong society of others
that the individual will be fulfilled. That it is these bonds of
connection that make us not citizens of one nation but members of one
human race.
And wouldn't Keir Hardie have been proud when under Britain's
leadership, this week we canceled the debt of those African nations deep
in poverty so that their people too can realise their potential, have
the hopes and dreams for their children we want for ours?
And wouldn't Clem Attlee and Ernie Bevin have applauded when in Kosovo,
faced with racial genocide in Europe for the first time since they
fought fascism in the Second World War, it was Britain and this
Government that helped defeat it and set one million people free back to
their homeland?
And wouldn't it bring a smile to the faces of all Labour leaders to see
how confident our Party is today?
Today we stand here, more confident than at any time during our 100
years, more confident because we are winning the battle of ideas; we are
putting our values into practice; we are the only political force
capable of liberating the potential of our people.
Knowing what we have to do and knowing how to do it.
Arrayed against us: the forces of conservatism, the cynics, the elites,
the establishment. Those who will live with decline.
Those who yearn for yesteryear.
Those who just can't be bothered.
Those who prefer to criticise rather than do.
On our side, the forces of modernity and justice. Those who believe in a
Britain for all the people. Those who fight social injustice, because
they know it harms our nation.
Those who believe in a society of equality, of opportunity and
responsibility. Those who have the courage to change. Those who have
confidence in the future.
The battleground, the new Millennium.
Our values are our guide.
Our job is to serve.
Our workplace, the future.
Let us step up the pace. Be confident. Be radical.
To every nation a purpose.
To every Party a cause.
And now, at last, Party and nation joined in the same cause for the same
purpose: to set our people free.
IF YOU HAVE NOT VOMITED YET I SALUTE YOU.
UNION. DRAW YOUR OWN CONCLUSIONS.
Speech by Tony Blair MP, Prime Minister and leader of the Labour Party
Bournemouth, Tuesday 28th September 1999
Today at the frontier of the new Millennium I set out for you how, as a
nation, we renew British strength and confidence for the 21st century;
and how, as a Party reborn, we make it a century of progressive politics
after one dominated by Conservatives.
A New Britain where the extraordinary talent of the British people is
liberated from the forces of conservatism that so long have held them
back, to create a model 21st century nation, based not on privilege,
class or background, but on the equal worth of all.
And New Labour, confident at having modernised itself, now the new
progressive force in British politics which can modernise the nation,
sweep away those forces of conservatism to set the people free.
100 years in existence, 22 in power, we have never, ever won a full
second term. That is our unfinished business. Let us now finish it and
with it finish the Tory Party's chances of doing as much damage in the
next century as they've done in this one.
Todays Tory party the party of fox hunting, Pinochet and hereditary
peers: the uneatable, the unspeakable and the unelectable.
Theres only one thing you need to know about todays Tory Party.
Clarke and Heseltine: outcasts.
Hague, Widdecombe, Redwood and Portillo in charge.
The only Party that spent two years in hibernation in search of a new
image and came back as the Addams family.
Under John Major, it was weak, weak, weak.
Under William Hague, its weird, weird, weird.
Far right, far out.
But not far enough for some. Like the letter I got last week from a man
who said did I know the Tories had been listening to Britain. They cant
have been listening too hard, he said. They're still here.
The more useless they get, the more extreme they get.
In the last few months alone, Ive been compared to Hitler, Mussolini and
Milosevic. Maybe they think I should be indicted for war crimes the
crime of leading the Labour Party into government, and disturbing the
natural order of things.
By convention, Prime Ministers start with all the good things their
Government has done. I want to start where the British people start:
with all we have still to do.
More than 1 million still unemployed.
Schools and hospitals still needing investment.
Pensioners still living in hardship.
People still petrified by crime and drugs.
3 million children still in poverty.
A century of decline, 20 years of Conservative Government still not put
to rights. Do you think I
dont feel this, in every fibre of my being?
The frustration, the impatience, the urgency, the anger at the waste of
lives unfulfilled, hopes never achieved, dreams never realised. And
whilst there is one child still in poverty in Britain today, one
pensioner in poverty, one person denied their chance in life, there is
one Prime Minister and one Party that will have no rest, no vanity in
achievement, no sense of mission completed, until they too
are free.
So I do not claim Britain is transformed. I do say the foundations of a
New Britain are being laid.
After decades of Tory boom and bust, it is New Labour which is the party
of economic competence today and for that we can be proud; and proud of
our Chancellor too.
Indeed, I can stand here today, leader of the Labour Party, Prime
Minister, and say to the British people: you have never had it so ..
prudent.
As we think back to 1985, and to Neil Kinnock, wasnt it brilliant
yesterday, in this hall of all places, to see a Labour Chancellor,
"scuttling" back from Washington to hand out the best economic news in a
generation, to his own partys Conference.
650,000 more jobs in the economy, long-term youth unemployment halved
and heres one for us to put back down a few Tory throats fewer days
lost in strikes than any of the 18 years of Tory Government. Who says
Labours not working now?
All employees with the right to a paid holiday.
Leave for parents to take time off work for a family crisis.
And after 100 years of trying, the right for union members to have their
union recognised, not on the whim of an employer, but as a democratic
right in a fair and free society.
Maternity grant doubled.
7 million families with the largest ever rise in Child Benefit Britain
has seen.
And I say to Britain's pensioners: I know when you get an extra 100 for
every pensioner household this November - not just those on benefits,
everyone - its not the end of your worries, but its 100 more than you
got under any Conservative Government; and theyd take the 100 back off
you if
they were ever elected again.
Half-way through one Parliament. Nothing like half-way towards meeting
all our goals.
And all around us the challenge of change.
A spectre haunts the world: technological revolution.
10 years ago, a fifteen year old probably couldnt work a computer.
Now hes in danger of living on it.
Over a trillion dollars traded every day in currency markets and with
them the fate of nations.
Global finance and Communications and Media. Electronic commerce. The
Internet. The science of genetics. Every year a new revolution
scattering in its wake, security, and ways of living for millions of people.
These forces of change driving the future:
Don't stop at national boundaries.
Don't respect tradition.
They wait for no-one and no nation.
They are universal.
We know what a 21st century nation needs.
A knowledge-based economy. A strong civic society. A confident place in
the world.
Do that and a nation masters the future. Fail and it is the futures victim.
The challenge is how?
The answer is people.
The future is people.
The liberation of human potential not just as workers but as citizens.
Not power to the people but power to each person to make the most of
what is within them.
People are born with talent and everywhere it is in chains.
Look at Britain. Great strengths. Great history. English, the language
of the new technology. The national creative genius of the British
people. But wasted.
The country run for far too long on the talents of the few, when the
genius of the many lies uncared for, and ignored.
Fail to develop the talents of any one person, we fail Britain. Talent
is 21st century wealth.
Every person liberated to fulfil their potential adds to our wealth.
Every person denied opportunity takes our wealth away.
In the 18th century land was our resource.
In the 19th and 20th century it was plant and capital.
Today it is people.
The cause we have fought for, these 100 years, is no longer simply our
cause of social justice.
It is the nations only hope of salvation.
For how do you develop the talent of all, unless in a society that
treats us all equally, where the closed doors of snobbery and prejudice,
ignorance and poverty, fear and injustice no longer bar our way to
fulfillment.
Not equal incomes. Not uniform lifestyles or taste or culture.
But true equality: equal worth, an equal chance of fulfilment, equal
access to knowledge and opportunity.
Equal rights. Equal responsibilities.
The class war is over.
But the struggle for true equality has only just begun.
To the child who goes to school hungry for food, but thirsting for
knowledge, I know the talent you were born with, and the frustration you
feel that its trapped inside. We will set your potential free.
To the women free to work, but because they are also mothers, carers,
helpers barely know how to get through the day, we will give you the
support to set your potential free.
To the 45 year old who came to my surgery a few months ago, scared hell
never work again, I say: "you didn't become useless at 45. You deserve
the chance to start afresh and we will set your potential free."
And to those who have wealth, but who say that none of it means anything
if my children cant play in the park, and my mother darent go out at
night. We share your belief in a strong community. We will set your
potential free.
And it is us, the new radicals, the Labour Party modernised, that must
undertake this historic mission. To liberate Britain from the old class
divisions, old structures, old prejudices, old ways of working and of
doing things, that will not do in this world of change.
To be the progressive force that defeats the forces of conservatism.
For the 21st century will not be about the battle between capitalism and
socialism but between the forces of progress and the forces of conservatism.
They are what hold our nation back. Not just in the Conservative Party
but within us, within our nation.
The forces that do not understand that creating a new Britain of true
equality is no more a betrayal of Britain's history than New Labour is
of Labours values.
The old prejudices, where foreign means bad.
Where multi-culturalism is not something to celebrate, but a left-wing
conspiracy to destroy their way of life.
Where women shouldn't work and those who do are responsible for the
breakdown of the family.
The old elites, establishments that have run our professions and our
country too long. Who havekept women and black and Asian talent out of
our top jobs and senior parts of Government and the Services. Who keep
our bright inner city kids from our best universities. And who still
think the House of Lords should be run by hereditary peers in the
interests of the Tory Party.
The old order, those forces of conservatism, for all their language
about promoting the individual, and freedom and liberty, they held
people back. They kept people down. They stunted people's potential.
Year after year. Decade after decade.
Think back on some of the great achievements of this century.
To us today, it almost defies belief that people had to die to win the
fight for the vote for women. But they did. That battle was a massive,
heroic struggle. But why did it need such a fight? Because Tory MPs
stood up in the House of Commons and said: "voting is a mans business".
And that is why we can be so proud that it is this Labour Party that has
more women MPs and more women
Ministers than any Government before us until our record is bettered by
a future Labour Government.
Look at this Party's greatest achievement. The forces of conservatism,
and the force of the Conservative Party, pulled every trick in the book
voting 51 times, yes 51 times, against the creation of the NHS. One
leading Tory, Mr Henry Willink, said at the time that the NHS "will
destroy so much in this country that we value", when we knew human
potential can never be realised when whether you are well or ill depends
on wealth not need.
The forces of conservatism allied to racism are why one of the heroes of
the 20th Century, Martin Luther King, is dead.
It's why another, Nelson Mandela, spent the best years of his life in a
cell the size of a bed. And though the fact that Mandela is alive, free
and became President, is a sign of the progress we have made: the fact
that Stephen Lawrence is dead, for no other reason than he was born
black, is a sign of how far we still have to go.
And they still keep opposing progress and justice.
What did they say about the minimum wage? The same as they said right
through this century.
They tried the employment argument it would cost jobs.
They tried the business argument it would make them bankrupt.
They then used the economic argument it would cause inflation.
They then resorted to the selfish argument businesses wouldn't want to
pay it.
Well, businesses are paying it. Inflation is low. Unemployment is
falling. There are one million job vacancies in the country.
And two million people have had a pay rise because we believe they are
worth more than poverty pay.
These forces of conservatism chain us not only to an outdated view of
our peoples potential but of our nations potential. What threatens the
nation-state today is not change, but the refusal to change in a world
opening up, becoming ever more interdependent.
The old air of superiority based on past glory must give way to the
ambition to succeed, based on the merit of what Britain stands for today.
For the last half century, we have been torn between Europe and the
United States, searching for our identity in the post-Empire world.
I pose this simple question: is our destiny with Europe or not?
If the answer is no, then we should leave. But we would leave an
economic union in which 50 per cent of our trade is done, on which
millions of British jobs depend. Our economic future would be uncertain.
But what is certain is that we would not be a power.
Britain would no longer play a determining part in the future of the
continent to which we belong. That would be the real end of one thousand
years of history.
We can choose this destiny. But we should do it with our eyes open and
our senses alert, not blindfold and dulled by the incessant propaganda
of Europhobes.
The single currency is, of course, a decision that must be dependent on
the economic conditions; and on the consent of the British people in a
referendum.
If we believe our destiny is with Europe, then let us leave behind the
muddling through, the hesitation, the half-heartedness which has
characterised British relations with Europe for forty years and play our
part with confidence and pride giving us the chance to defeat the forces
of conservatism, economic and political, that hold Europe back too.
There is no choice between Europe and America.
Britain is stronger with the US today because we are strong in Europe.
Britain has the potential to be the bridge between Europe and America
and for the 21st century the narrow-minded isolationism of right-wing
Tories should not block our path to fulfilling it.
The nation-state is changing.
The Tory policy on devolution left them without a single seat anywhere
in Scotland and Wales. Delivering our promise of a Scottish Parliament
and Welsh Assembly has strengthened the UK not weakened it, and now
having defeated the force of conservatism in granting devolution, let us
continue to defeat the separatism which is just the forces of
conservatism by another name.
And don't let the forces of conservatism stop devolution in Northern
Ireland too.
Those who are addicted to violence. Those who confuse any progress with
selling out. They shouldn't determine Northern Ireland's future.
Walk through Belfast. No armed soldiers.
Drive through it. No road blocks.
In the last year, the first time in 30 years, not a single member of the
security forces killed. 1996,
8,000 plastic bullets fired. This year 99.
Yes, there is violence and any violence is unacceptable.
But dont throw away all that has been achieved.
And I ask the Conservative Party: we supported you when you were in
Government; don't make our task harder now because that would be the
real betrayal of the children of Northern Ireland.
It would be comforting to think the forces of conservatism were only
Tories. But wrong.
There were forces of conservatism who said changing Clause 4 would
destroy the Labour Party, when in truth it was critical to our renewal.
Who said a referendum on devolution was a ploy to stop it happening,
when I knew it was the only way to make it happen.
Who said that making young people take a job that was offered to them
was a denial of social justice, when our attack on youth unemployment is
the route to social justice.
The Third Way is not a new way between progressive and conservative
politics.
It is progressive politics distinguishing itself from conservatism of
left or right.
New Labour must be the new radicals who take on both of them, not just
on election day but every day.
People say in our first two years we ran a Tory economic policy.
Nonsense. If we had run a Tory economic policy Britain would be in
recession by now which is no doubt why they predicted it.
We gave the Bank of England independence.
We cut the borrowing.
We cut unemployment. We are at long last reforming welfare, making work
pay more than benefit for hard-working families through the Working
Families Tax Credit.
They would scrap each and every one of these reforms.
Slowly the Tory general election strategy is emerging.
To 2 million people given a pay rise through the minimum wage. Tory
pledge 1: well cut it.
To 1.5 million families helped by the working families tax credit. Tory
pledge 2: well scrap it.
To 250,000 young people getting through the New Deal, Tory pledge 3:
youll go back on the dole.
I say: roll on the next General Election.
Our reforms are why we are spending 4bn less on interest payments this year.
Saving 2bn by cutting unemployment.
Why, thanks to economic growth, billions of pounds of wealth has been
created, not lost in Tory boom and bust.
And as a result, the next three years show the biggest ever investment
in schools and hospitals. Not just one year. But the year after and the
year after that.
And, if we carry on running this New Labour economic policy I can tell
you today we will continue to get more money into schools and hospitals
in a way we can sustain year on year on year. We are rewriting some of
the traditional rules of politics.
Now after a century of antagonism, economic efficiency and social
justice are finally working in partnership together. We are
demonstrating that it is possible to cut poverty and run the economy
well. At last our historic reputation for compassion is being matched
with a hard won reputation for economic competence. From now on people
will vote Labour with their head as well as their heart.
The political landscape of Britain has changed forever.
Thats why Prudences chastity belt stays on, even for the Liberal Democrats.
And then we open up the UK economy.
Open it up to electronic commerce, so we cut the cost of buying and selling.
Open it up to competition so we can stop the consumer being ripped off.
And private capital alongside public investment. In transport, to read
some of the papers you would think John Prescott had created Britains
transport problems. Thanks to him, and the new Strategic Rail Authority,
the next 10 years will see the largest investment in the railways for
100 years. Let's be honest. When it comes to transport we are all the
forces of conservatism. But the real anti-car
policy is staying as we are.
Let us take on the forces of conservatism in education, too, the
greatest liberator of human potential there is.
No more nursery vouchers.
No return to 11+.
No freeze on student numbers in our universities.
No more Assisted Places Scheme.
Not the right. But not the old Left either: no tolerance of failing LEAs.
No truce on failing schools.
No pupils condemned to failure.
We owe it to every child to unleash their potential. They are of equal
worth. They deserve an equal chance.
A failed education is a life sentence on a child.
If we are to succeed in the knowledge economy, we need as parents, as
teachers, as a country to get a whole new attitude to learning.
What other country in the world sees being "too clever by half" as a fault?
In todays world, there is no such thing as too clever. The more you
know, the further you'll go.
The forces of conservatism, the elite, have held us back for too long.
Why is it only now that we are getting nursery places for all three and
four year olds?
Why has it taken this government to realise that 5, 6 and 7 year olds
need that extra attention that smaller classes give them?
Why, when we have known all our lives the importance of the 3 Rs, is it
only now that we have put in place the literacy and numeracy strategies
to get those basics taught properly? And look at the results for 11 year
olds: maths up 10 per cent, reading up five per cent, a tribute to our
children, to their teachers and to David Blunkett.
Why has it taken this government to set about ending the culture of
failure in our inner city comprehensives? Doubling the number of
specialist schools; creating 1,000 beacon schools; every run down school
getting help with buildings, equipment, facilities from the 5bn
modernisation programme: LEAs with a track record of failure taken over
and run by people with a track record of
success.
Why is it only now, we have lifted the cap on student numbers and
100,000 more will go to university in the next 2 years, 700,000 more to
further education. So today I set a target of 50 per cent of young
adults going into higher education in the next century.
Why if education is the key to success do we allow so many children to
leave school at 16 when we should be doing all we can to get them to
stay on. Today we are announcing a smartcard to offer all 16-18 year
olds who stay in education cut price deals at shops, in theatres and
cinemas and on trains and buses.
Only now can this happen because there is a Labour Government that cares
about educating the many and a Labour Party with the courage to reform
the system to do it.
And critical to reform are our teachers. I appeal to them.
You do a great job in our schools. We know how important it is for you
to work as a team. But if we are to get the real step change in your pay
you and we both want, we have to link it to performance. We have to
raise standards, and we have to remove those who really cannot do the job.
And if a Head Teacher transforms a school and so transforms the life
chances of our children, aren't they worth as much as a good doctor,
banker or lawyer?
In 10 years we will have transformed our schools. And our NHS too.
And I know the impatience here is at its highest. After all, we created
the NHS. It has to be us that rebuilds it.
And yes it needs money. And yes, the first two years were tough.
But the money is now starting. And money is not all it needs.
A predecessor of mine famously said she wanted to be able to go into the
hospital of her choice, "on the day I want, at the time I want, with the
doctor I want".
That was Margaret Thatchers argument for going private.
I want to go to the hospital of my choice, on the day I want, at the
time I want. And I want it on the NHS.
I say in all frankness to the BMA. You want our reforms to slow down. I
want them to speed up.
Already: 4,000 more student nurses and midwives.
4,000 more nurses returning to nursing.
27 new hospitals being built.
20 million people now covered by NHS Direct.
And the dreaded Tory internal market finally banished for good.
And over the next 3 years:
There will be 7000 more doctors 15,000 more nurses 37 hospitals built
The whole country covered by NHS Direct.
Every casualty department that needs it refurbished.
And waiting times and waiting lists lower at the end of our time in
Government than at the beginning.
And will that be enough?
No. But in time, if we are returned to power:
We will have booked appointments for everyone.
Walk-in NHS centres in all our major towns and cities.
Primary care surgeries that offer you all services on one site.
And everyone with the chance to go back on the NHS to see their dentist.
And just to show you its not impossible. Today I can tell you: we will
start next year with booked appointments for cancer and cataract patients.
And working with the British Dental Association, everyone within the
next 2 years will be able once again to see an NHS dentist just by
phoning NHS Direct.
So much more to do. But it will be done.
We arent just workers. We are citizens proud to say there is such a
thing as society and proud to be part of it.
Yet, today, we feel our social fabric torn.
Respect for law and order broken.
My grandfathers generation was strong on values. Respect for people.
Good manners. Horror of crime. But it was a generation also of deference
and of prejudices: racial, sexual, social.
The modern world is different. There is less prejudice, less deference,
but also less respect.
It is time to move beyond the social indifference of right and left,
libertarian nonsense masquerading as freedom.
This generation wants a society free from prejudice, but not from rules,
from order.
A common duty to provide opportunity for all.
An individual duty to be responsible towards all.
There will be a new Crime Bill in The Queens Speech.
With the new DNA technology we have the chance to match any DNA at any
scene of crime with those on police records. Already thousands of
criminals are being caught that way. But less than a fifth are on record.
I can announce we will provide the extra resources for a database where
every known offender will have their DNA recorded, and evidence from any
scene of crime will be matched with it.
And I saw that we said on drugs and new powers was attacked by civil
liberties groups.
I believe in civil liberties too:
The liberty of parents to drop their kids off at school, without
worrying theyre dropping them straight into the arms of drug dealers.
The liberty of pensioners to live without fear of getting their door
kicked in by someone thieving to pay for their habit.
The liberty of young people to live a full life, not die young, the
victim of the most chilling, evil industry the world has to confront.
Civil liberty to me means just that: the liberty to live in a civil
society founded on rights and responsibilities, and in dealing with the
drugs menace, that is the society we can help to build.
So when I speak of the need for a new moral purpose and some on the
right and left rise up and
say this is nothing to do with politics, leave it all to the bishops, I
tell you these people know exactly what I'm talking about.
Thats what I mean by fulfilling our potential as citizens as well as
workers.
We don't live by material goods alone.
Thats why today we set out more plans to boost arts, culture,
competitive sports in schools. Its why John Prescott puts his heart and
soul in the battle to protect our environment, so we leave to our
children a safer, healthier planet than the one into which they were born.
Yes we are three times richer than our grandparents. But are we three
times happier?
Ours is a moral cause, best expressed through how we see our families
and our children.
To our children, we are irreplaceable.
If anything happened to me, youd soon find a new leader. But my kids
wouldnt find a new Dad.
There is no more powerful symbol of our politics than the experience of
being on a maternity ward.
Seeing two babies side by side. Delivered by the same doctors and
midwives. Yet two totally different lives ahead of them.
One returns with his mother to a bed and breakfast that is cold, damp,
cramped. A mother who has no job, no family to support her, sadder still
no-one to share the joy and triumph of the new baby a father nowhere to
be seen. That mother loves her child like any other mother. But her life
and her baby's life is a long, hard struggle. For this child, individual
potential hangs by a thread.
The second child returns to a prosperous home, grandparents desperate to
share the caring, and a father with a decent income and an even larger
sense of pride. They're already thinking about schools, friends she can
make, new toys they can buy. Expectations are sky high, opportunities
truly limitless.
A child is a vulnerable witness on life.
A child sees her father hit her mother.
A child runs away from home. A child takes drugs. A child gives birth at
12.
If we are in politics for one thing it is to make sure that all
children are given the best chance in life. That the moment they are
born, their potential and individuality can sparkle.
That every child can grow up with high hopes, certainty, love, security
and the attention of their parents.
Strong families cherished by a strong community.
That is our national moral purpose. So when I pledge to end child
poverty in 20 years, I do so not just as a politician, but as a father.
Can I tell you something? And there are only four other people alive who
know this it's actually a bit odd being Prime Minister.
Everyone has views about you, and no hesitation giving them to you.
You read things about yourself, on a daily basis, that are a complete
mystery.
And you find that a lot of strange new people want to be your friend,
and lots of other strange people want to be your enemy.
We're only flesh and blood in the end. Sometimes can't sleep. Worry
about the job. Worry about the kids. Worry about growing old. Worry
about interest rates going up. Worry about Newcastle going down.
Then you've got these big worries when's the health money really going
to make a difference? Why are there still people sleeping in doorways?
Cant we turn round failing schools more quickly? How many of our
pensioners will go cold this winter?
It's a big job. A lonely job. The red boxes really do come at you day
and night, papers to read, decisions to make. Sometimes life and death
decisions. Often decisions, after all the advice and the consultation,
that only the Prime Minister can make.
So it's a pressure. But it's a privilege too. There is no greater
privilege than serving your country. And there is no greater purpose
than realising your potential.
I was lucky. A good education, a loving home, a great family, strong
beliefs, a great Party in which to give them expression.
Everyone has talent. Everyone has something to offer. And this country
needs everyone to make a contribution.
You'll see me on the TV, getting on and off planes, meeting Presidents
and Prime Ministers, Kings and Queens.
Its all part of the job. But the part that matters most to me is getting
my sleeves rolled up and pushing through the changes to our country that
will give to others by right, what I achieved by good fortune.
Let me read to you the words of someone else who thought ours was a
moral purpose, and said this about the people in our Party.
"The men and women who are in it are not working for themselves; they
know perfectly well that all they can do is but to create the beginning
of a condition of things which will one day bring peace and happiness
and freedom and a fuller life for those who are to come after us."
Our very first leader, Keir Hardie.
But 100 years ago, the circumstances of our birth and our political
childhood was such we never realised our potential.
Born in separation from other progressive forces in British politics,
out of the visceral need to represent the interests of an exploited
workforce, our base, our appeal, our ideology was too narrow.
People were made to feel we wanted to hold them back, limit their
aspirations, when in truth the very opposite was our goal.
We were chained by our ideology.
We thought we had eternal doctrines.
When they are in truth eternal values.
Solidarity, social justice, the belief not that society comes before
individual fulfillment but that it is only in a strong society of others
that the individual will be fulfilled. That it is these bonds of
connection that make us not citizens of one nation but members of one
human race.
And wouldn't Keir Hardie have been proud when under Britain's
leadership, this week we canceled the debt of those African nations deep
in poverty so that their people too can realise their potential, have
the hopes and dreams for their children we want for ours?
And wouldn't Clem Attlee and Ernie Bevin have applauded when in Kosovo,
faced with racial genocide in Europe for the first time since they
fought fascism in the Second World War, it was Britain and this
Government that helped defeat it and set one million people free back to
their homeland?
And wouldn't it bring a smile to the faces of all Labour leaders to see
how confident our Party is today?
Today we stand here, more confident than at any time during our 100
years, more confident because we are winning the battle of ideas; we are
putting our values into practice; we are the only political force
capable of liberating the potential of our people.
Knowing what we have to do and knowing how to do it.
Arrayed against us: the forces of conservatism, the cynics, the elites,
the establishment. Those who will live with decline.
Those who yearn for yesteryear.
Those who just can't be bothered.
Those who prefer to criticise rather than do.
On our side, the forces of modernity and justice. Those who believe in a
Britain for all the people. Those who fight social injustice, because
they know it harms our nation.
Those who believe in a society of equality, of opportunity and
responsibility. Those who have the courage to change. Those who have
confidence in the future.
The battleground, the new Millennium.
Our values are our guide.
Our job is to serve.
Our workplace, the future.
Let us step up the pace. Be confident. Be radical.
To every nation a purpose.
To every Party a cause.
And now, at last, Party and nation joined in the same cause for the same
purpose: to set our people free.
IF YOU HAVE NOT VOMITED YET I SALUTE YOU.
I HAVE. IF YOU THINK THAT EMPEROR CALIGULA WAS MAD FOR MAKING HIS HORSE A CONSUL,
I SUGGEST THAT THE BRITISH PEOPLE WERE MADDER FOR MAKING THIS HOON PRIME MINISTER.
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