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Morning, folks. Welcome to our final Daily Politics conference special. | :00:35. | :00:41. | |
Praise the Lord. The setting, Manchester. The occasion, the Tory | :00:41. | :00:46. | |
Party conference. Today's big event, David Cameron's speech to the party | :00:46. | :00:57. | |
faithful. The prime minister is expected to take to the stage in | :00:57. | :01:00. | |
about half an hour's time. We'll have his speech live and | :01:00. | :01:03. | |
uninterupted. Expect clear battle lines to be drawn between the Tories | :01:03. | :01:06. | |
and Labour ahead of the general election. Mr Cameron's theme: Labour | :01:06. | :01:10. | |
has tacked to the left, the Tories now occupy the centre right. Profit, | :01:10. | :01:14. | |
Mr Cameron will say, is not a dirty word. | :01:14. | :01:15. | |
The Education Secretary's been getting fit at an Austrian fat farm! | :01:15. | :01:19. | |
And he's ready for a fight - with the teaching unions. We'll be | :01:19. | :01:22. | |
getting Michael Gove's reaction to the Prime Minister's speech. And | :01:22. | :01:27. | |
conference just wouldn't be conference without the thoughts of | :01:28. | :01:35. | |
sketchwriter Quentin Letts. You have got the big, blue banners sorted, | :01:35. | :01:39. | |
the nipples, the invitations have been sent out. Then someone has to | :01:39. | :01:46. | |
go and spoil it. All that in the next two hours of public service | :01:46. | :01:49. | |
broadcasting at its finest, and with us for the duration, a Tory grandee. | :01:49. | :01:55. | |
In fact, it doesn't get much grander than this. Someone who likes to lord | :01:55. | :02:01. | |
it over the political jungle, Michael Heseltine, no less. Now, if | :02:01. | :02:11. | |
like me, you've been up since six reading the newspapers, you'll know | :02:11. | :02:14. | |
that Mr Cameron doesn't dream of deficits and decimal points. Which | :02:14. | :02:18. | |
is a bit of a relief to know. He dreams instead of helping people get | :02:18. | :02:28. | |
on in life. Mr Cameron will say today that "it's businesses that get | :02:28. | :02:31. | |
wages in people's pockets, food on their tables, hope for their | :02:31. | :02:34. | |
families and success for the country". "Profit, wealth creation, | :02:34. | :02:36. | |
tax cuts, and enterprise are not dirty, elitist words". Where have I | :02:36. | :02:40. | |
heard all that before? In every one of your conference speeches. And | :02:40. | :02:46. | |
every Tory's throughout history. Land of opportunity. It is deja vu | :02:46. | :02:54. | |
all over again. But that is because it works. It is the great driving | :02:54. | :02:58. | |
motivation of society. Couldn't he come up with something new? If you | :02:59. | :03:04. | |
have got something better, change it. If it ain't bust, don't fix it. | :03:04. | :03:09. | |
Ken Clarke said in today's Guardian in his usual help away that it will | :03:09. | :03:14. | |
be a tall order for David Cameron to win the next election. It will be a | :03:14. | :03:19. | |
tall order, because the Lib Dems scuppered the boundary distribution, | :03:19. | :03:24. | |
but it is possible. And on balance, it is likely. But you always say | :03:24. | :03:30. | |
that about elections. You told me that in 1997, when it was clear you | :03:30. | :03:38. | |
were going to get dumped. It was a private conversation. You and I | :03:38. | :03:43. | |
never have private conversations! But I think in the next election, | :03:43. | :03:46. | |
the battle lines have been predictable for the three years. | :03:46. | :03:50. | |
They are working out extremely well. They are the same battle lines that | :03:50. | :03:54. | |
are always the essence of an election. If things are going well, | :03:54. | :03:58. | |
don't let the other guy remit. If things are going badly, time for a | :03:58. | :04:04. | |
change. There is Mr Cameron, hand-in-hand with Samantha Cameron, | :04:04. | :04:08. | |
walking from one of the conference hotels. Looks like maybe he has come | :04:08. | :04:13. | |
out of the Midland, the main conference hotel, right in the heart | :04:13. | :04:20. | |
of Manchester. She has had an incredible revival in the centre of | :04:20. | :04:23. | |
the city and is generally regarded by people who go to these | :04:23. | :04:28. | |
conferences that Manchester is the top city to host these conferences. | :04:28. | :04:33. | |
There are also Birmingham and Liverpool, but I only report what | :04:33. | :04:37. | |
people tell me. And they are crossing what people call the | :04:37. | :04:40. | |
piazza. Maybe you didn't know that Manchester has a piazza, but it | :04:40. | :04:47. | |
does. There is a huge railway station in the centre of town which | :04:48. | :04:52. | |
has now been converted into this magnificent new conference centre. | :04:52. | :04:58. | |
"Hard-working people", but not hard-working at grammar, since they | :04:58. | :05:07. | |
managed to miss out the hyphen. But expensive public schools, you don't | :05:07. | :05:09. | |
learn to spell properly. Do you expensive public schools, you don't | :05:09. | :05:12. | |
think ordinary people have yet to feel the benefits of this economic | :05:12. | :05:23. | |
recovery? No. For a very obvious reason. So you agree with Mr Clark | :05:23. | :05:30. | |
that they are not yet feeling it? They are not yet feeling it, because | :05:30. | :05:33. | |
the recovery has been slower than anybody wanted. When the economy | :05:33. | :05:38. | |
becomes more buoyant, the number of jobs will rise, and then wages will | :05:38. | :05:48. | |
rise following demand. By the next election, unless something goes | :05:48. | :05:50. | |
wrong with the international markets, like oil, people will find | :05:50. | :05:55. | |
their wages have increased in real terms. But you have seen so many | :05:55. | :06:01. | |
elections where this has been important, particularly for the | :06:01. | :06:04. | |
Conservatives to do well. People will have to feel that their living | :06:04. | :06:09. | |
standards are rising once more by 2015. Yes, but they will. Sitting | :06:09. | :06:14. | |
governments don't win elections if people feel they are getting poorer. | :06:14. | :06:20. | |
As I was saying, time for change is when the economy is not delivering | :06:20. | :06:23. | |
what people want. Don't let the other guy ruin it is when you have | :06:23. | :06:28. | |
been delivering rising living standards for 18 months before the | :06:28. | :06:32. | |
election. It has to start happening now, and it is, particularly for | :06:32. | :06:39. | |
those who are finding jobs. But in the growth and recruitment | :06:39. | :06:40. | |
those who are finding jobs. But in advertising going on, which is now | :06:40. | :06:45. | |
rising, I can see that we will have rising employment. As the market | :06:45. | :06:50. | |
tightens, wages will improve and living standards will follow. What | :06:50. | :06:54. | |
do you think of the politics of journalists asking politicians, do | :06:54. | :06:59. | |
they know the price of a loaf of bread? They have always done that. | :06:59. | :07:09. | |
Does it matter? Not at all. It might matter a flick of a finger on | :07:09. | :07:14. | |
polling day, or the day before. But what is the price of a loaf red? | :07:14. | :07:18. | |
There is not a thing called red any more. And we don't buy pints of | :07:19. | :07:27. | |
milk. I like bread. I see in the papers that supermarkets are talking | :07:27. | :07:31. | |
about 47p for the cheap stuff. But you can go up to three or £4 for a | :07:31. | :07:37. | |
loaf of bread, and everything in between. I remember when there were | :07:37. | :07:46. | |
no choices. There was a white loaf. Then you could ask the question. But | :07:46. | :07:53. | |
that was so long ago. Before my time. But not before my time. Not | :07:53. | :07:57. | |
that was so long ago. Before my long to go before the prime minister | :07:57. | :08:02. | |
takes to his feet. Probably around 20 minutes, so let's get a sense of | :08:02. | :08:06. | |
the mood in Manchester with James Astill from the Economist and Times | :08:06. | :08:11. | |
columnist and Grazia litter glad to Gaby Hinsliff. James, has it been a | :08:11. | :08:16. | |
good week for the Tories? It has been a reasonably good week for | :08:16. | :08:22. | |
them. Mr Cameron does not have the questions against his authority that | :08:22. | :08:29. | |
he had last year. The mood is resigned, or quietly contented with | :08:29. | :08:33. | |
his leadership. People are watching the economy, of course. But they are | :08:33. | :08:40. | |
generally hopeful that the economy recovery will get stronger. His | :08:40. | :08:46. | |
speech is following that context, it is not as good as it should be, but | :08:46. | :08:51. | |
not as bad as it might be. Gabby, Ed Miliband's speech last week changed | :08:51. | :08:56. | |
the direction of conferences and laid down a challenge for the | :08:56. | :08:59. | |
Conservatives. Do you think they have and said that this week? That | :08:59. | :09:04. | |
is what we will see today. If Ed Miliband was talking last week | :09:04. | :09:08. | |
breadline Britain, people who are desperate, then Cameron is talking | :09:08. | :09:12. | |
to what you might call the bread-maker owning classes, or at | :09:12. | :09:16. | |
least people who aspire to have a bread-maker, a more comfortable, but | :09:16. | :09:20. | |
still anxious class of people. This conference is surrounded by Thatcher | :09:20. | :09:23. | |
memorabilia will stop it is the first one since she died. He will be | :09:24. | :09:29. | |
trying to recapture that sense of aspiring people who work hard, but | :09:29. | :09:33. | |
also to recapture some of the excitement around politics. I was | :09:33. | :09:36. | |
listening to in Duncan Smith last night and missing about how exciting | :09:36. | :09:42. | |
it was to be a Tory under Thatcher. People are not carried away here. | :09:42. | :09:47. | |
There is a sense of that in the extracts we have seen, because David | :09:47. | :09:51. | |
Cameron is obviously keen not to focus on things like deficit | :09:51. | :09:55. | |
reduction, or not only that anyway, because he needs to offer something | :09:55. | :09:59. | |
more and be more optimistic. You get that sense? That is certainly the | :09:59. | :10:06. | |
sense of the extracts we have seen, but he needs to convince us. We know | :10:06. | :10:11. | |
he can do a good rhetorical turn . We know he can make a set piece | :10:11. | :10:15. | |
speech and make an argument, but we need something more urgent and | :10:15. | :10:21. | |
interesting. The challenge of David Cameron's careerist to make ordinary | :10:21. | :10:26. | |
people believe he cares about their problems and understands them. At | :10:26. | :10:34. | |
the same time, he needs the support from his party. Those are two urgent | :10:34. | :10:39. | |
things. Understanding is something we have not really seen from him | :10:39. | :10:43. | |
yet. What about UKIP? How have they dealt with the challenge from the | :10:43. | :10:48. | |
right, and what does he need to do in the speech to answer that | :10:48. | :10:55. | |
challenge? I would not say he has to address that challenge. Nigel Farage | :10:55. | :11:00. | |
has been a bigger draw here on the fringe. That is what many Tory MPs | :11:00. | :11:07. | |
would like to hear about from David Cameron today, something that makes | :11:07. | :11:10. | |
them feel that UKIP will not eat into their votes. That is not about | :11:10. | :11:14. | |
Europe, it is about all the issues of disaffection that UKIP are | :11:14. | :11:19. | |
picking up on. UKIP seem to have adopted the Tory manifesto from 30 | :11:19. | :11:21. | |
years ago wholesale, which appeals to a lot of older Tories. Do you | :11:21. | :11:27. | |
think Boris mania has deflected a bit? Yes. It clearly has. Cameron | :11:27. | :11:35. | |
set the tone yesterday himself by saying that he would welcome Boris | :11:35. | :11:42. | |
back to Parliament. It shows that Cameron feels more secure than he | :11:42. | :11:51. | |
has done. I suspect it also shows that he knows that the enormous | :11:51. | :11:56. | |
excitement about Boris last year after the Olympics has dissipated a | :11:56. | :12:02. | |
bit. We are going to talk now about something that has dominated the | :12:02. | :12:05. | |
last few days, which is the row between the Daily Mail and the | :12:05. | :12:09. | |
Labour leader Ed Miliband over the paper's article claiming that Ed | :12:09. | :12:13. | |
Miliband's father Ralph Miliband hated Britain. Last night, the | :12:13. | :12:17. | |
paper's deputy editor clashed on Newsnight with Labour's Alastair | :12:17. | :12:23. | |
Campbell. We will hear and excerpt of that interview, starting with the | :12:23. | :12:26. | |
deputy editor admitting it was perhaps a mistake to have a picture | :12:26. | :12:31. | |
of Ralph Miliband's grave next to the headline, grave socialist. It | :12:31. | :12:35. | |
may be that the publication of that picture was an error of judgement on | :12:35. | :12:39. | |
our website. When Ed Miliband complained about that on Saturday | :12:39. | :12:43. | |
evening, he spoke to me personally and I arranged that picked Joe to be | :12:43. | :12:51. | |
rude. I think using that picture was an arrow of judgement. -- I arranged | :12:51. | :12:56. | |
for the picture to be removed. Can you justify that headline? Did Ralph | :12:57. | :13:02. | |
Miliband hate Britain, having fought in the war for them? Yes or no? | :13:03. | :13:11. | |
Ralph Miliband's values... You don't support what the piece said, do you? | :13:11. | :13:19. | |
His views were anti-static to many peoples views... Fairly explosive | :13:19. | :13:24. | |
clash on Newsnight. Gaby Hinsliff, your thoughts on the fact that the | :13:24. | :13:26. | |
Daily Mail felt dead did have to put your thoughts on the fact that the | :13:26. | :13:32. | |
somebody up to defend the original article? That is unusual. The Daily | :13:32. | :13:36. | |
Mail does not usually put senior executives on air will stop it was | :13:36. | :13:40. | |
interesting that it was not Paul Baker who went up. The Daily Mail | :13:40. | :13:44. | |
have published a selection of readers' letters, and a large number | :13:44. | :13:48. | |
of them feel it was wrong to go after someone's father, rather than | :13:48. | :13:55. | |
after them. They do recognise that Ralph Miliband fought in the war. He | :13:55. | :13:58. | |
was a Holocaust survivor. You don't take things like that lightly. The | :13:58. | :14:04. | |
Daily Mail is explaining itself to its readers, if not Alastair | :14:04. | :14:09. | |
Campbell. What about Ed Miliband? Even David Cameron said he | :14:09. | :14:12. | |
understood somebody wanted to defend their own father, even if it was as | :14:12. | :14:19. | |
public as Ed Miliband made it. I think this will prove helpful for Ed | :14:19. | :14:25. | |
Miliband. His televised explanation of what he was doing, showing how | :14:25. | :14:34. | |
incensed he was, I thought he was impressive. People will sympathise | :14:34. | :14:40. | |
with and admire him. This could be a significant change in the way the | :14:40. | :14:49. | |
country views him. Michael Heseltine, did you feel sympathy for | :14:49. | :14:54. | |
Ed Miliband? Yes, I did. First of all, this arose from a diary entry | :14:54. | :14:59. | |
when the guy was 17. It was written at a time when the big political | :14:59. | :15:03. | |
issue was Communist, on the one hand, fascist on the other. And it | :15:03. | :15:07. | |
is a quite different climate to the one we know today. But I have to | :15:07. | :15:13. | |
say, Alistair Campbell's point was fair, nothing happens in the Daily | :15:13. | :15:19. | |
Mail which Paul Dacre does not determine personally. He has done a | :15:19. | :15:22. | |
profile both of Nick Clegg and of Ed Miliband, through one of his | :15:22. | :15:28. | |
supporting journalists, which are hatchet jobs. There is no way you | :15:28. | :15:31. | |
can describe it in any other way. And that is during the period of | :15:31. | :15:37. | |
their conferences. I personally felt this was carrying politics to an | :15:37. | :15:41. | |
extent which is just demeaning, frankly. The headline was not | :15:42. | :15:46. | |
justified? Bootle it was not justified, and it is completely out | :15:46. | :15:50. | |
of context. As everybody knows, the guy fought for this country, and we | :15:50. | :15:55. | |
now live in a totally different world to those times, when it was | :15:55. | :15:57. | |
all about the clash between coming is and fascism. Let's be frank, | :15:58. | :16:03. | |
Stalin did some most appalling things, but the Russians turned the | :16:03. | :16:07. | |
Second World War. So, it has been a year to remember. | :16:07. | :16:16. | |
The Prime Minister has had to tread a difficult path, keeping everybody | :16:16. | :16:19. | |
happy, including his coalition partners and the right of his party. | :16:19. | :16:23. | |
Not an easy task. What would Margaret Thatcher make of it all? We | :16:23. | :16:27. | |
have been to a former Conservative club to find out some opinions on Mr | :16:28. | :16:33. | |
Cameron's year. This report contains some flash photography. | :16:33. | :16:44. | |
Margaret Thatcher was a political giant, the most successful | :16:44. | :16:50. | |
Conservative leader in modern times. She won three elections in a row, | :16:50. | :16:54. | |
and this April, she passed away, but even in death, Lady Thatcher towers | :16:55. | :17:01. | |
over her successors. Today, we lost a great leader, a great Prime | :17:01. | :17:08. | |
Minister and a Great Britain. Margaret Thatcher did not just lead | :17:08. | :17:12. | |
our country, she saved our country. Margaret Thatcher was a proven | :17:12. | :17:15. | |
winner, but is David Cameron? After all, he did not win in 2010, and he | :17:15. | :17:23. | |
may not in 2015, either. Now, there are three main reasons why this is | :17:24. | :17:29. | |
the case, so, what are they, and how can he convince Conservative MPs and | :17:29. | :17:34. | |
Tory members in the Conservative clubs and associations that he has | :17:34. | :17:42. | |
got a plan to deliver victory? The first problem for Cameron is the | :17:42. | :17:46. | |
grip of the Liberal Democrats on the seats they hold. In February, Nick | :17:46. | :17:50. | |
Clegg's party held the marginal seat seats they hold. In February, Nick | :17:50. | :17:56. | |
of Eastleigh in a by-election. Cameron's second problem is | :17:56. | :18:01. | |
Labour's resilience. In November, Labour took a four Conservatives | :18:01. | :18:08. | |
seat in Corby, in a by-election, a reminder that Labour is uniting the | :18:08. | :18:11. | |
left by picking up the support of left-wing people who used to vote | :18:11. | :18:15. | |
Liberal Democrat. It is also a reminder that the electoral battle | :18:15. | :18:21. | |
ground favours Labour. But while the left is uniting, the right is | :18:21. | :18:25. | |
divided. They did Cameron faces the new threat of UKIP. They did not | :18:25. | :18:31. | |
just beat him in Eastleigh, but in the Rotherham and Middlesbrough | :18:31. | :18:35. | |
by-elections as well. UKIP is David Cameron's the problem. In May, Nigel | :18:35. | :18:41. | |
Farage and UKIP won more than 150 council seats in the local | :18:41. | :18:46. | |
elections. Nigel Farage, of course, celebrated in the pub. This is | :18:46. | :18:52. | |
absolutely marvellous. Nonetheless, Cameron is fighting back. Tory | :18:52. | :18:55. | |
backbenchers have cheered up, buoyed by Labour's falling polls, by the | :18:55. | :19:02. | |
benefits, where the deportation of the terror suspect Abu Qatada, and | :19:02. | :19:07. | |
by the Prime Minister's backing for a private member's bills brought in | :19:07. | :19:11. | |
by James Wharton, a Conservative backbencher, to bring about a | :19:11. | :19:17. | |
referendum on Britain's EU membership, which Cameron had | :19:17. | :19:23. | |
promised. I am delighted to be taking this bill forward. It means a | :19:23. | :19:26. | |
lot to a lot of people across the country. It is a big issue and a | :19:26. | :19:28. | |
significant one, which deserves to be debated. | :19:28. | :19:36. | |
The Same Sex Marriage Bill became law, but not before more Tory MPs | :19:36. | :19:43. | |
voted against it than for it. Many were very unhappy. Some claimed | :19:43. | :19:49. | |
party members were leaving in droves. And then, just when things | :19:49. | :19:54. | |
were looking up, and Tory MPs were getting more cheerful, came Syria. | :19:54. | :20:00. | |
Parliament spoke, and I think Parliament made clear its view, | :20:00. | :20:05. | |
which was that it does not want a British involvement in military | :20:05. | :20:09. | |
action, so we will proceed on that basis. But I think that is right, to | :20:09. | :20:13. | |
have a strong view, put forward a strong case, and then to listen to | :20:13. | :20:16. | |
Parliament. David Cameron lost the Syria vote not just because of the | :20:16. | :20:22. | |
votes of Labour MPs, but because enough Conservative MPs did so, too. | :20:22. | :20:24. | |
Their bottom line was that they enough Conservative MPs did so, too. | :20:24. | :20:28. | |
simply did not trust him not to get Britain entangled in another Iraq | :20:28. | :20:32. | |
war. That sums up David Cameron's problems with his party - it is all | :20:32. | :20:37. | |
a matter of trust. You see, those MPs just did not trust him on the EU | :20:37. | :20:43. | |
Referendum Bill that is why he is backing the James Wharton bill. The | :20:43. | :20:47. | |
Europe issue, which proved so difficult for Mrs Thatcher, is | :20:47. | :20:53. | |
proving no easier for her successor. Is there any growth in that box, | :20:53. | :20:59. | |
Chancellor? But if there is one area where the Conservatives have a lead, | :20:59. | :21:03. | |
it is the economy. As those elusive green shoots begin to show through, | :21:03. | :21:08. | |
voters feel safer with George Osborne's hand Mattila, than that of | :21:08. | :21:13. | |
Ed Balls. The economy is not in full recovery mode, but if it is by 2015, | :21:13. | :21:16. | |
that will surely give David Cameron recovery mode, but if it is by 2015, | :21:16. | :21:21. | |
his best chance of winning. A weak opposition and an improving economy | :21:21. | :21:25. | |
- the Conservatives have got reasons to be cheerful. But can David | :21:25. | :21:29. | |
Cameron really overcome the problems I have described? If he can't, will | :21:29. | :21:34. | |
he try to form another coalition with Nick Clegg after the next | :21:34. | :21:37. | |
general election? I cannot help wondering, if that happens, what | :21:38. | :21:43. | |
Margaret Thatcher would have thought about it. | :21:43. | :21:45. | |
Let's get the thoughts of two prominent Tory backbenchers are in | :21:45. | :21:53. | |
Manchester, Harriet Baldwin and Peter bone. Baldwin and bone, it | :21:53. | :21:59. | |
sounds like provincial lawyers, or a musical act, or maybe both. If Mr | :21:59. | :22:05. | |
Cameron could not win in 2010, what makes you think he could win in | :22:05. | :22:10. | |
2015? Well, I think what we have got to focus on is continuing to rescue | :22:10. | :22:15. | |
the economy from Labour's recession and build on the early signs that we | :22:16. | :22:20. | |
are seeing, make sure that jobs are continuing to be created by private | :22:20. | :22:27. | |
sector firms. We have seen 1.4 million private sector jobs created | :22:27. | :22:30. | |
since the election, so make sure that those jobs are ones where | :22:30. | :22:34. | |
people can continue to increase their skills and their wages in due | :22:34. | :22:38. | |
course. Jobs where people can save for pensions, and where... All | :22:38. | :22:46. | |
right, do not go through the whole list! None of that may win you the | :22:46. | :22:49. | |
election, even if it all comes to pass. Can you tell me, who is the | :22:49. | :22:52. | |
last sitting Prime Minister who increased his share of the vote? If | :22:52. | :22:56. | |
you look back in UK history, the increased his share of the vote? If | :22:56. | :23:00. | |
answer is Harold Wilson, but if you look abroad, and you look at the | :23:00. | :23:04. | |
advance of centre-right parties around the world, you can see | :23:04. | :23:09. | |
examples in New Zealand, in Canada, and recently we have seen the | :23:09. | :23:12. | |
Australians vote for a centre-right party, Norway... These were all | :23:12. | :23:17. | |
getting rid of incumbents, they were not vetting rid of the left, they | :23:17. | :23:21. | |
were just getting rid of incumbents, and you are the incumbents. Peter | :23:21. | :23:27. | |
Bone, you have a particular problem, because for the first time, you go | :23:27. | :23:34. | |
into an election where the right is seriously split tween the | :23:34. | :23:38. | |
Conservatives and UKIP - how big a threat is UKIP to the Conservatives | :23:38. | :23:43. | |
losing marginal seats? I take that as a different point of view. I | :23:43. | :23:48. | |
think it is a great opportunity. If our problem was that all of the | :23:48. | :23:51. | |
voters were looking at centre-left parties, we would have no chance at | :23:52. | :23:56. | |
the next election. But the voters are looking at centre-right parties. | :23:56. | :24:00. | |
So if anyone should be worrying, it is Ed Miliband. He has not got a | :24:00. | :24:09. | |
pond to fish in. But they are well ahead but you know, Andrew, at this | :24:09. | :24:14. | |
stage in the Parliament, that has no import whatsoever. So, Lord | :24:14. | :24:24. | |
Ashcroft's poll of the Tory marginals, which shows you losing | :24:24. | :24:27. | |
Ashcroft's poll of the Tory these marginals because a chunk of | :24:27. | :24:29. | |
your vote goes to UKIP, that is not going to happen? You know, Andrew, | :24:29. | :24:37. | |
that is if there was a general election tomorrow, and it will not | :24:37. | :24:40. | |
be tomorrow, it will be in 18 months time. I then, we will have won over | :24:40. | :24:46. | |
the centre-right vote, which is what I guess David Cameron will start to | :24:46. | :24:49. | |
do with his speech in a few minutes' time. Harriett Baldwin, do you think | :24:49. | :24:54. | |
there should be an electoral pact with UKIP at a constituency level? | :24:54. | :25:00. | |
No, I think the Conservatives will field candidates in every | :25:00. | :25:03. | |
constituency, as Conservatives. But I am sure that the sensible voters | :25:03. | :25:06. | |
in Wellingborough, where Peter will be standing as a Conservative | :25:06. | :25:10. | |
candidate, will recognise what a great MP he has been and back him | :25:10. | :25:14. | |
again. Well, that is very controversial to say that! Peter | :25:14. | :25:18. | |
bone, would you like to have a pact with UKIP in your constituency? I am | :25:18. | :25:24. | |
a Conservative and always will be, and I will be on the ballot paper as | :25:24. | :25:31. | |
a Conservative. I will answer your question - I would like UKIP to | :25:31. | :25:34. | |
endorse me, I would like the Liberals to endorse me, I would like | :25:34. | :25:38. | |
Labour to endorse me, if they see common sense. Well, what is the | :25:39. | :25:42. | |
difference between you and UKIP? You have even got a UKIP Thai jig on, | :25:42. | :25:49. | |
almost. You know this tie, it is one the Australians gave us when we | :25:49. | :25:54. | |
allowed them to beat us at cricket. That is a long time ago! So, what is | :25:54. | :25:59. | |
the difference between you and UKIP? This is the point I made at | :25:59. | :26:04. | |
the beginning, there is this huge centre-right vote, and we need to | :26:04. | :26:08. | |
unite it. Whether that is done by a pact, or by an understanding, or | :26:08. | :26:12. | |
whether we just get those people who are thinking of voting UKIP back to | :26:12. | :26:16. | |
us, it is a huge opportunity. If we do not do that, we have a problem | :26:16. | :26:20. | |
electorally. But this is the challenge the next 18 months. You | :26:20. | :26:24. | |
are not on the centre-right, Tech, you are on the right! Thank you, I | :26:24. | :26:32. | |
am glad you corrected me on that. --. Peter Bone Thank you for that | :26:32. | :26:41. | |
plug, but the actual situation is, we are a broad church, and anyone to | :26:41. | :26:44. | |
the centre-right should vote Conservative, but we have to | :26:44. | :26:47. | |
persuade people were thinking of voting UKIP that we have a | :26:47. | :26:50. | |
centre-right vision. And that is what I think the Prime Minister will | :26:50. | :26:55. | |
start doing today. And the alternative is a very Socialist | :26:55. | :27:00. | |
Labour Party, that it has been reported that there has been a | :27:00. | :27:04. | |
record trade in Manchester during your conference in lobsters at | :27:04. | :27:11. | |
expensive restaurants - lobsters the food of hard-working people? I have | :27:11. | :27:15. | |
not seen a single one myself. But I am very proud that we have put £25 | :27:15. | :27:19. | |
million into the Manchester economy this week, and created a look was | :27:19. | :27:25. | |
that your own money? I would like to thank the police also... All right, | :27:25. | :27:29. | |
all right, you have plenty of time to do that. Peter Bone, is lobster | :27:29. | :27:37. | |
the food of hard-working people? I hate lobster, my money went in the | :27:37. | :27:43. | |
local Subway. I did not know Manchester had a tech subway. The | :27:43. | :27:53. | |
restaurant chain! Though you are, Baldwin and Bone, you got the part. | :27:53. | :27:59. | |
Thanks for joining us. Moving away from the type of food which has been | :27:59. | :28:05. | |
on offer in Manchester... In the 17th century, the peasants went on | :28:06. | :28:09. | |
strike because they had too much salmon to eat. That's true. There | :28:09. | :28:14. | |
was a lot of salmon in the rivers, and they got it a after day. Who | :28:14. | :28:19. | |
knows, with artificial breeding, what might happen with lobsters? We | :28:19. | :28:24. | |
will worry about that on another occasion. Could I just ask you | :28:24. | :28:27. | |
briefly about UKIP? The line is going to be, to Tories who are | :28:27. | :28:33. | |
thinking that they might put their cross next to the UKIP candidate in | :28:33. | :28:37. | |
2015, if you vote UKIP, you will get labour, that will be the Tory line, | :28:37. | :28:42. | |
won't it? It is true. How else do you persuade people not to vote for | :28:42. | :28:48. | |
UKIP? I think you very clearly articulate what you believe in, and | :28:48. | :28:52. | |
you have a vision based on what you believe in, but the basic, that | :28:52. | :28:59. | |
issue is that there is no room for a protest vote without a price. The | :28:59. | :29:09. | |
price is Ed Miliband. What about policies which people like Peter | :29:09. | :29:13. | |
Bone and others in his party who agree with him on issues like Europe | :29:13. | :29:19. | |
might believe in, are those sorts of things, like the marriage tax break, | :29:19. | :29:23. | |
which might persuade people to stay within the Tory fold? I think Europe | :29:23. | :29:26. | |
which might persuade people to stay is somewhere down about ninth in the | :29:26. | :29:29. | |
list of issues that people care about. The election next year will | :29:29. | :29:33. | |
attract a lot political attraction, it will have a derisory turnout. | :29:33. | :29:37. | |
People just are not that interested. It is a sort of media hype type | :29:37. | :29:44. | |
issue. And the marriage tax break, a good policy? It is a fine policy, it | :29:44. | :29:48. | |
is not going to make a great deal of difference, but it is important in | :29:48. | :29:51. | |
is not going to make a great deal of one respect - Cameron promised it | :29:51. | :29:54. | |
and he has delivered it. That is an important credibility issue, as is | :29:54. | :29:59. | |
his gay marriage proposal. Very controversial, particularly in the | :29:59. | :30:02. | |
Tory party, but to a section of the electorate, a promise kept. There | :30:02. | :30:07. | |
are some Tory MPs who are synthetic to the idea of deals done with UKIP | :30:07. | :30:12. | |
locally, at a constituency level, there is some confusion on the UKIP | :30:12. | :30:14. | |
side as to whether they would sanction that or not - what do you | :30:14. | :30:20. | |
say? Beware of what happens to your pivotal vote in the centre ground. | :30:20. | :30:31. | |
We have seen UKIP's before, with all of its representatives on the | :30:31. | :30:34. | |
continent, they are even daring Germany now, on a small-scale, they | :30:34. | :30:38. | |
are there in Holland. You always have these right-wing, racist | :30:38. | :30:42. | |
operations, pandering to the lowest, and eliminate in politics. | :30:42. | :30:47. | |
And that is what is happening. But when it comes to a general | :30:47. | :30:51. | |
election, the choice will be very simple, and this is where the | :30:51. | :30:56. | |
strength of Cameron lies - do you want Ed Miliband Prime Minister, or | :30:56. | :31:01. | |
do you want David Cameron? Are you saying UKIP is racist? Of course it | :31:01. | :31:06. | |
is racist. Who doubts that? The language, the rhetoric, the | :31:06. | :31:11. | |
membership, who doubts it? Mr Farage is a racist? I did not say that, I | :31:11. | :31:15. | |
said his party is very attractive to a racist agenda. Everybody knows | :31:15. | :31:26. | |
that. Let's not pretend there is an agenda for that. I lived through | :31:26. | :31:31. | |
Enoch Powell's era, and the emotion his speech aroused at that time with | :31:31. | :31:36. | |
certain elements not just in the Conservative Party, but the dockers | :31:36. | :31:40. | |
and the Smithfield Porters, that a gender is there in every society, | :31:40. | :31:45. | |
all the time. At your peril do you stoke it up. Just like Powell's | :31:45. | :31:52. | |
speech, it was misleading. It gave the impression that you could change | :31:52. | :31:55. | |
the fortunes of society, that they could go home, preferably with | :31:55. | :32:02. | |
someone pushing them home. That is inconceivable. Boris Johnson won | :32:02. | :32:07. | |
London with a 50% ethnic electorate. Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield, | :32:07. | :32:12. | |
they are now approaching 30%, some areas higher. That is the | :32:12. | :32:17. | |
constituency which the Conservatives have got to fight in and win in, and | :32:17. | :32:24. | |
if they think they can peel off to a sectoral, narrow south-east of | :32:24. | :32:28. | |
England, there is a high electoral price to pay, and it will be paid | :32:28. | :32:32. | |
why those who will not stomach any association with UKIP and will move | :32:32. | :32:38. | |
out into the middle ground. Let me into rock. The prime minister will | :32:38. | :32:44. | |
be speaking shortly. Let's go to Manchester and our political editor | :32:44. | :32:47. | |
Nick Robinson. I get the impression that the specific prominence that Mr | :32:47. | :32:50. | |
Miliband gave last week to freeze energy prices and a couple of other | :32:50. | :32:56. | |
promises will be met not by the equivalent, but by more general | :32:56. | :33:01. | |
rhetoric about recovery from Mr Cameron? Today, that is true. In the | :33:01. | :33:06. | |
long-term, leading up to the Chancellor's Autumn statement, his | :33:06. | :33:08. | |
long-term, leading up to the mini Budget, you will see other | :33:08. | :33:12. | |
measures on the coalition government designed to deal with the so-called | :33:12. | :33:17. | |
standards of living Rob. They may try to bring down train fares. In | :33:17. | :33:21. | |
the longer term, they may try and do something about the energy market, | :33:21. | :33:27. | |
too. There are suggestions that the government is considering getting | :33:27. | :33:32. | |
the taxpayer to pay for the green part of peoples energy rather than | :33:32. | :33:36. | |
the consumer. But today, you will get no Lizzie promises of that sort. | :33:36. | :33:40. | |
You will get a rhetorical assault on aid and band and Ed Balls. The prime | :33:40. | :33:45. | |
minister will claim there were wrong about land A and plan B. He will say | :33:45. | :33:49. | |
they are trying to -- trying to change the subject about standards | :33:49. | :33:55. | |
of living. He will say they are making an attack on the idea of | :33:55. | :33:56. | |
business profit and enterprise, making an attack on the idea of | :33:56. | :34:00. | |
which will be deeply damaging to the economy and in the long-term, make | :34:00. | :34:05. | |
us all poorer. We have briefed about phrases like" land of opportunity" | :34:05. | :34:12. | |
and so on. Sounds like he is recycling one of Michael | :34:12. | :34:20. | |
Heseltine's old conference speeches. It did well for you over a long | :34:20. | :34:23. | |
time! He used give the same speech every year as well. Are you asking | :34:23. | :34:32. | |
him or me? I am speaking to you, Nick. The truth is, there is that | :34:32. | :34:38. | |
sense of Back To The Future at this conference season. For a while, when | :34:38. | :34:44. | |
parties were so converged in the centre ground, some of the public | :34:44. | :34:48. | |
said, we can't distinguish them. It is striking to see how the Labour | :34:48. | :34:53. | |
Party, desperate to get more definition for Ed Miliband, | :34:53. | :34:57. | |
desperate to show that he is strong, ended up with a position in which, | :34:57. | :35:01. | |
on the one hand, they work revealing popular policies to deal with the | :35:01. | :35:04. | |
cost of living problem, but at the same time, allowed their enemies to | :35:04. | :35:09. | |
portray them as opposed to business. The Tories see a huge | :35:09. | :35:13. | |
opportunity in that. There is a sense of reassurance in the | :35:13. | :35:16. | |
Conservative Party after a pretty uncomfortable year in which this | :35:16. | :35:21. | |
party began to look at its leader and think, you are not really one of | :35:21. | :35:25. | |
us, and Nigel Farage sounds like one of us. They are now beginning to | :35:25. | :35:29. | |
find their Mojo a bit again, in part because they see Ed Miliband and | :35:29. | :35:34. | |
say, that is the enemy. We understand him. When they arrived, | :35:34. | :35:36. | |
say, that is the enemy. We there was a massive march here. | :35:36. | :35:40. | |
About 50,000 people were protesting against cuts and reforms to the | :35:40. | :35:45. | |
NHS. There was a sense almost among some Conservatives of, oh, yeah, we | :35:45. | :35:50. | |
remember those days, when people shouted at us. We like that, it | :35:50. | :35:54. | |
means we stand for something. And there were also memories of Margaret | :35:54. | :35:58. | |
Thatcher, who died this year. So there is a sense in which his party | :35:58. | :36:02. | |
was very edgy just a few months ago, and feels slightly better about | :36:02. | :36:07. | |
itself than it did. There is a sense that he is being pulled in two | :36:07. | :36:11. | |
different directions. If the Tories think Labour have moved to the left, | :36:11. | :36:15. | |
his natural instinct would be to say, we will occupy the centre | :36:15. | :36:19. | |
ground. On the other hand, people will say, we have got UKIP out there | :36:19. | :36:23. | |
and we need some red meat for the right. You will see an attempt to | :36:23. | :36:29. | |
give both. It is up to others to judge whether it is possible to do | :36:29. | :36:35. | |
both. Unlike Michael has little time -- Michael Heseltine, who said to | :36:35. | :36:38. | |
you that UKIP were pandering to racism, you have not seen that sort | :36:38. | :36:43. | |
of attack from the Tory front bench. They rarely use the name UKIP. I am | :36:43. | :36:48. | |
certain that David Cameron will not mention UKIP or Nigel Farage. He | :36:48. | :36:52. | |
will not attack those tendencies within his party. Their conclusion | :36:52. | :36:57. | |
in the Conservative Party has been that the only way to win back | :36:57. | :37:00. | |
people, many of whom they regard as naturally their own, is with some | :37:00. | :37:05. | |
blunt statements. You have seen the rather Orwellian slogans outside the | :37:05. | :37:12. | |
conference. " Crime down, welfare cuts" . They have to say to these | :37:12. | :37:17. | |
people, you might not like David Cameron. You might not like the | :37:17. | :37:20. | |
trend Britain is going in, but there are things you say you care about, | :37:20. | :37:26. | |
and they are being delivered. On the other hand, David Cameron tries to | :37:26. | :37:30. | |
occupy the centre ground with the emphasis in his speech not on the | :37:30. | :37:34. | |
economy bit, but also on welfare and education. He will make great play | :37:34. | :37:38. | |
of the fact that Ed Miliband had remarkably little to say about | :37:38. | :37:41. | |
education in his speech last week. On welfare, the Tory claim is that | :37:41. | :37:46. | |
the main thing he has to say is that he would reverse cuts rather than | :37:46. | :37:50. | |
tackle the problems of welfare dependency. Whether this attempt to | :37:50. | :37:54. | |
straddle a move to the right and a move to the centre at the same time | :37:54. | :37:58. | |
as possible, we will see. The telegraph's Ben Brogan, in his news | :37:59. | :38:03. | |
letter this morning, he says this conference season has changed the | :38:03. | :38:06. | |
terms of the political debate, largely thanks to Mr Miliband. It | :38:06. | :38:11. | |
has ended the kind of new Labour, centrist Conservative, Lib Dem cosy | :38:11. | :38:15. | |
consensus where the arguments were on the head of a pin. There is now | :38:15. | :38:20. | |
clear water between the parties over what they are arguing about. It is | :38:20. | :38:23. | |
almost back more to the discourse of the 60s and 70s. Is he right? Well, | :38:24. | :38:32. | |
it suits both of the big two parties to argue that. It suits Labour to | :38:32. | :38:39. | |
say they are proposing a very different economic settlement. It | :38:39. | :38:42. | |
suits the Conservatives to say that, too. My note of caution is | :38:42. | :38:45. | |
that when you get below the rhetoric, as I was trying to do in | :38:46. | :38:49. | |
an interview with the prime minister yesterday, I said to him, do you | :38:49. | :38:53. | |
attack Ed Miliband because he is interfering with the market when he | :38:53. | :38:58. | |
says he would freeze elections depresses? No, says David Cameron. | :38:58. | :39:02. | |
He says, we are interested in lower electricity prices. So the attack | :39:02. | :39:07. | |
the Tories make is that it is just a practical thing. They say this is a | :39:07. | :39:12. | |
short-term fix that will not work, rather than an ideological fix. If | :39:12. | :39:16. | |
you look at Labour and what they are saying on the economy, for all the | :39:16. | :39:21. | |
suggestions that can be summed up as left-wing, you still see a party | :39:21. | :39:25. | |
saying that if it came to power in 2015, it would match the Tories' | :39:25. | :39:29. | |
spending plan, at least for the first election year. It would not | :39:29. | :39:33. | |
borrow to increase today spending. So rhetorically, yes, there is a big | :39:33. | :39:38. | |
gap. But be wary of suggesting that there is a vast gulf in what these | :39:38. | :39:46. | |
parties would do or talk about. Thanks. We will let you get into the | :39:46. | :39:51. | |
hall for Mr Cameron's arrival in a minute or so. Mr Heseltine, the big | :39:51. | :39:57. | |
conference speech, is it quite what it was? I remember in the Winter | :39:57. | :40:03. | |
Gardens in Blackpool, an amazing, huge room for 5000 people, tiered so | :40:03. | :40:10. | |
you get a great atmosphere, that was the place to give a conference | :40:10. | :40:18. | |
speech. It was a privilege. That was where I did my 1981 speech about | :40:18. | :40:26. | |
blacks in Britain. They were born here, they live here, they vote | :40:26. | :40:33. | |
here. And the Tory party cheered it. Did you expect them to? No. I was | :40:33. | :40:38. | |
apprehensive, but I knew it had to be said, and I have never been so | :40:38. | :40:43. | |
proud of the Tory party. Let's now go through as the Tory faithful get | :40:43. | :40:48. | |
to their feet as the prime minister arrives on the platform of this | :40:48. | :40:55. | |
cover must Manchester -- Kavanagh 's Manchester conference centre. | :40:55. | :41:00. | |
Samantha Cameron, a little in the shade their, applauding her | :41:00. | :41:04. | |
husband. Let's now go to Manchester and listen to the Conservative | :41:04. | :41:09. | |
leader addressed the Conservative Party conference. Thank you. | :41:09. | :41:16. | |
This week in Manchester, we've shown this Party is on the side of | :41:16. | :41:19. | |
hardworking people. Helping young people buy their own home. Getting | :41:19. | :41:22. | |
the long-term unemployed back to work. Freezing fuel duty. Backing | :41:22. | :41:26. | |
marriage. Cutting the deficit. Creating jobs. Creating wealth. Make | :41:26. | :41:32. | |
no mistake: it is this Party with the verve, energy and ideas to take | :41:32. | :41:34. | |
our country forward. And I want to the verve, energy and ideas to take | :41:34. | :41:39. | |
thank everyone here for the great week we've had. When we came to | :41:39. | :41:50. | |
office, we faced a clear and daunting task: to turn our country | :41:50. | :41:59. | |
around. In May 2010, the needle on the gauge was at crisis point. | :41:59. | :42:03. | |
People were talking about this country in a way they had not done | :42:03. | :42:09. | |
for decades. But three and a half years later, we are beginning to | :42:09. | :42:13. | |
turn the corner. The deficit is falling. Our economy is growing. The | :42:13. | :42:18. | |
numbers of our fellow countrymen and women in work are rising. We are not | :42:18. | :42:25. | |
there yet, not by a long way. But, my friends, we are on our way. I | :42:25. | :42:31. | |
want to thank the people who have done the most to get us this far. | :42:31. | :42:36. | |
You. The British people. Never giving up. Working those extra | :42:36. | :42:39. | |
hours. Coping with those necessary cuts. You. British business. You | :42:40. | :42:50. | |
kept people on in the hard times. You iInvested before you knew for | :42:50. | :42:53. | |
certain that things were getting better. Together, we are clearing up | :42:53. | :43:07. | |
the mess that Labour left. But I have a simple question, to the | :43:07. | :43:11. | |
people in this hall and beyond it. Is that enough? Is it enough that we | :43:11. | :43:15. | |
just clear up Labour's mess and think "job done"? Is it enough to | :43:15. | :43:22. | |
just fix what went wrong? I say - no. Not for me. This isn't job done. | :43:22. | :43:30. | |
It is job begun. I didn't come into politics just to fix what went | :43:30. | :43:34. | |
wrong, but to build something right. We in this party: we don't dream of | :43:34. | :43:38. | |
deficits and decimal points and dry fiscal plans. Our dreams are about | :43:38. | :43:44. | |
helping people get on in life. Aspiration, opportunity. These are | :43:44. | :43:51. | |
our words, our dreams. So today, I want to talk about our one, abiding | :43:51. | :43:57. | |
mission. I believe it is the great Conservative mission that as our | :43:58. | :44:01. | |
economy starts to recover, we build a land of opportunity in our country | :44:01. | :44:20. | |
today. Now, I know it'll be tough. People were asked, have we got what | :44:20. | :44:26. | |
it takes? If you saw the pictures of me on the beach in Cornwall, you | :44:26. | :44:30. | |
will know one thing - I have got the stomach for the fight! In his speech | :44:30. | :44:38. | |
last week, Ed Miliband promised that he would never be photographed with | :44:38. | :44:44. | |
his shirt off in public. Ed, after hearing that speech, here is the | :44:44. | :44:49. | |
deal. You keep your shirt on, I will keep the lights on. I know we've got | :44:49. | :45:01. | |
what it takes in this Party. Some people say "can't be done". | :45:01. | :45:04. | |
Conservatives say "what's to stop us?". They said we couldn't get | :45:04. | :45:20. | |
terrorists out of our own country. Well, Theresa knew otherwise, and | :45:20. | :45:23. | |
that's why Abu Qatada had his very own May Day this year, and didn't it | :45:23. | :45:27. | |
feel good seeing him get on that plane? Some people said the NHS | :45:27. | :45:30. | |
wasn't safe in our hands. We knew otherwise. Who protected spending on | :45:30. | :45:37. | |
the NHS? Not Labour - us. Who started the Cancer Drugs Fund? Not | :45:37. | :45:39. | |
Labour - us. And by the way - who started the Cancer Drugs Fund? Not | :45:39. | :45:52. | |
presided over Mid Staffs, patients left for so long without water, they | :45:52. | :45:57. | |
were drinking out of dirty vase? People's grandparents lying filthy | :45:57. | :45:59. | |
and unwashed for days? Who allowed that to happen? Yes, it was Labour, | :45:59. | :46:04. | |
and don't you dare lecture anyone on the NHS again. | :46:04. | :46:18. | |
and of course, people say a lot of things about Europe. You will never | :46:18. | :46:24. | |
be able to veto an EU treaty. You will never cut the EU budget. And if | :46:24. | :46:28. | |
you did any of these things, you would have absolutely no allies in | :46:28. | :46:32. | |
Europe. Well, we proved them wrong. I vetoed that treaty, I got Britain | :46:32. | :46:37. | |
out of the EU bailout scheme, and yes, I cut that budget. In doing all | :46:37. | :46:43. | |
of this, we have not lost respect, we have won allies to get powers | :46:43. | :46:46. | |
back from Europe. And that is what we will do. And at the end of it, | :46:46. | :46:51. | |
yes, we will give the British people their say in a referendum. That is | :46:51. | :46:55. | |
our pledge - it will be your choice, in or out. | :46:55. | :47:08. | |
And of course, we know what one person said about us recently. You | :47:08. | :47:16. | |
just heard the Russian official, who said, Britain is just a small island | :47:16. | :47:19. | |
that no one pays attention to. Really? Let me just get this off my | :47:19. | :47:27. | |
chest one more time. When the world wanted rights, who wrote Magna | :47:27. | :47:30. | |
Carta? When they wanted representation, who built the first | :47:30. | :47:34. | |
Parliament? When they looked for compassion, who led the abolition of | :47:34. | :47:38. | |
slavery? When they searched for equality, who gave when their | :47:38. | :47:42. | |
freedom was in peril, who offered blood, toil, tears and sweat. Today, | :47:42. | :47:49. | |
whose music do they dance to, whose universities do they go to, whose | :47:49. | :47:54. | |
football do they watch? People of every religion, young and old, | :47:54. | :47:58. | |
straight and gay, whose example do they aspire to? I have not even got | :47:58. | :48:02. | |
onto the fact that this small island beat Russia in the Olympics last | :48:02. | :48:14. | |
year, or, wait for it... Or of course, that the biggest selling | :48:14. | :48:18. | |
vodka brand in the world is not Russian, it is British, Smirnoff, | :48:18. | :48:30. | |
made in Fife. So, yes, we may be a small island, but I tell you what, | :48:30. | :48:39. | |
we are a great country. Obviously, having said all that, do not expect | :48:39. | :48:44. | |
me to go an rustling with Vladimir, next time I see him. But I do want | :48:44. | :48:50. | |
to make this area 's point about our place in the world. Following that | :48:50. | :48:54. | |
vote on Syria in the House of Commons, some people said it was | :48:54. | :48:56. | |
vote on Syria in the House of time for Britain to rethink our | :48:56. | :49:01. | |
role. I am sorry, but I know God -- I do not agree. If we shrunk from | :49:01. | :49:07. | |
the world, we would be less safe and less prosperous here in the United | :49:07. | :49:11. | |
Kingdom. The role we play, the organisations that we belong to, and | :49:11. | :49:15. | |
yes, fact that our defence budget remains the fourth largest in the | :49:15. | :49:19. | |
world, all of this, it is not about national vanity, it is about our | :49:19. | :49:22. | |
national interest. When British citizens, our fathers, mothers, | :49:22. | :49:26. | |
daughters, when they are in danger, whether it is in the deserts of | :49:26. | :49:32. | |
Algeria or the city of Nairobi, then combating international terrorism, | :49:33. | :49:38. | |
it matters to us here. When five of the world's fastest-growing | :49:38. | :49:40. | |
economies are in Africa, then trading with Africa, helping Africa | :49:40. | :49:45. | |
to develop, with aid, that matters to us, right here. At the heart of | :49:45. | :49:50. | |
all of this work, the finest Foreign Secretary I could possibly have, | :49:50. | :49:51. | |
William Hague. As you heard in that great speech | :49:51. | :50:10. | |
just now, around the world, we really do matter, as a United | :50:10. | :50:13. | |
Kingdom - England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Now, the date | :50:13. | :50:19. | |
for the referendum has been set, the decision is for Scotland to make. | :50:19. | :50:23. | |
All the arguments, about the economy, about the currency, I | :50:23. | :50:28. | |
believe they make an unanswerable case for the United Kingdom. But | :50:28. | :50:32. | |
today, I want a more simple message to go out to the people of | :50:32. | :50:37. | |
Scotland, from us here, in this hall, from this party, from this | :50:37. | :50:43. | |
country, from England, and yes, from Wales and Northern Ireland as well, | :50:43. | :50:47. | |
and it is this - we want you to stay. We want us to stick together. | :50:47. | :50:52. | |
Think of all the things we have achieved together, all the things we | :50:52. | :50:57. | |
could do together, the nations as one, our Kingdom united. | :50:57. | :51:12. | |
For 12 years now, men and women from all parts of these islands have been | :51:12. | :51:18. | |
serving their country in Afghanistan. Next year, the last of | :51:18. | :51:22. | |
our combat troops will be coming home, having trained up the Afghans | :51:22. | :51:26. | |
to look after their own country. More than a decade of war, a | :51:26. | :51:33. | |
sacrifice beyond measure, from the finest and bravest Armed Forces in | :51:33. | :51:36. | |
the world, and I want us today to stand, to raise the roof, right | :51:36. | :51:42. | |
here, right now, to show just how proud of those men and women all of | :51:42. | :51:43. | |
us are. So, we in this room, we are a team, | :51:43. | :52:59. | |
and this year, we said goodbye to one of our team. Margaret Thatcher | :52:59. | :53:03. | |
made our country stand tall again, at home and abroad, rescuing our | :53:03. | :53:08. | |
economy, giving power to our people, spreading homeownership, | :53:08. | :53:13. | |
creating work, saving the Falklands, winning the Cold War, an amazing | :53:13. | :53:27. | |
record. I was sitting next to her at a dinner once, and as ever, she was | :53:27. | :53:31. | |
totally charming, and she put me at ease. After awhile, I said to her, | :53:31. | :53:35. | |
Margaret, if you had your time in government again, is there anything | :53:35. | :53:39. | |
you would do differently? Quick as flash, she looked at me and said, | :53:39. | :53:43. | |
you know what, I think I did pretty well the first time around. But I | :53:43. | :53:51. | |
think we can all agree on that, and we can all agree on this - she was | :53:51. | :53:55. | |
the greatest peacetime Prime Minister our country has ever had. | :53:55. | :54:10. | |
Margaret Thatcher had an almighty mess to clear up when she came to | :54:10. | :54:16. | |
office, and so did we. And we must never forget what we found - the | :54:16. | :54:19. | |
biggest budget deficit in our peacetime history, the deepest | :54:19. | :54:23. | |
recession since the Second World War, but it was not just the debt | :54:23. | :54:26. | |
and the deficit that Labour left, it was who got hurt. Millions coming | :54:26. | :54:32. | |
here from overseas, while millions of British people were left on | :54:32. | :54:35. | |
welfare, the richest paying lower tax rates than their cleaners, | :54:35. | :54:43. | |
unsustainable, debt fuelled banks booming, while manufacturing with | :54:43. | :54:47. | |
underweight. The north falling further behind, towns where a | :54:47. | :54:50. | |
quarter of people lived on benefits. Schools where eight out of ten | :54:50. | :54:54. | |
children did not get five decent GCSEs. Yes, they were famously | :54:54. | :54:58. | |
intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich, but | :54:58. | :55:00. | |
tragically, they were also intensely getting filthy rich, but | :55:00. | :55:04. | |
relaxed about people saying stuck on welfare year after year, intensely | :55:04. | :55:08. | |
relaxed about children leaving school without proper | :55:08. | :55:10. | |
qualifications, so they could not get a job at the end of it. That was | :55:10. | :55:15. | |
it, that was what they left, the casino economy meets the welfare | :55:15. | :55:18. | |
Society meets the broken education system, a country for the few, built | :55:18. | :55:24. | |
by the so-called party of the many. And Labour, we will never let you | :55:24. | :55:25. | |
forget it. These past few years have been a | :55:26. | :55:44. | |
real struggle, but what people want to know is this aspect was the | :55:44. | :55:51. | |
struggle worth it? And here is the honest answer - the struggle will | :55:51. | :55:56. | |
only be worth it if we as a country finish the job we have started. In | :55:56. | :56:02. | |
finishing the job means understanding this - our economy may | :56:02. | :56:05. | |
be turning the corner, and of course, that is great, and we still | :56:05. | :56:08. | |
have not finished paying for Labour's debt crisis. If anyone | :56:08. | :56:12. | |
thinks that is over, done and dealt with, they are living in a fantasy | :56:12. | :56:19. | |
land. The country's debt crisis, created by Labour, is not over. | :56:19. | :56:23. | |
After three years of cuts, we still have one of the biggest budget | :56:23. | :56:28. | |
deficits anywhere in the world. We are still spending more than we | :56:28. | :56:34. | |
earn. We still need to earn more, and yes, our government still needs | :56:34. | :56:40. | |
to spend less. I see that Labour have stopped talking about the debt | :56:40. | :56:44. | |
crisis, and now they talk about the cost of living crisis, as if one was | :56:44. | :56:49. | |
not directly related to the other. And if you want to know what happens | :56:49. | :56:53. | |
if you do not deal with the debt crisis, and how it affects the cost | :56:53. | :56:56. | |
of living, just go and ask the Greeks. So, finishing the job means | :56:56. | :57:02. | |
sticking to our course until we have paid off all of Labour's deficit, | :57:02. | :57:07. | |
not just some of it. And yes, let us run a surplus, and this time, we fix | :57:07. | :57:10. | |
the roof when the sun is shining, as run a surplus, and this time, we fix | :57:10. | :57:13. | |
George said in that brilliant speech on Monday. | :57:14. | :57:26. | |
To abandon deficit reduction now would throw away all the progress | :57:26. | :57:30. | |
that we have made. It would put us back to square one. And | :57:30. | :57:34. | |
unbelievably, that is what Labour now want to do. How did they get it | :57:34. | :57:39. | |
into this mess? Too much spending, too much borrowing, too much debt. | :57:39. | :57:42. | |
And what did they propose last week? More spending, more borrowing, | :57:42. | :57:48. | |
more debt. They have learned nothing, literally nothing, from the | :57:48. | :57:54. | |
crisis they created. But finishing the job is about more than clearing | :57:54. | :57:57. | |
up the mess we were left. It means building something better in its | :57:57. | :58:02. | |
place. In place of the casino economy, one where people who work | :58:02. | :58:04. | |
hard can really get on, in place of economy, one where people who work | :58:04. | :58:09. | |
the welfare Society, one where no individual is written off, and in | :58:09. | :58:13. | |
place of the broken education system, one that gives every child | :58:13. | :58:19. | |
the chance to rise up and succeed, our economy, our society, welfare, | :58:19. | :58:24. | |
schools, all reformed, all rebuilt, with one aim, one mission in mind - | :58:24. | :58:30. | |
to make this country, at long last and for the first time ever, a land | :58:30. | :58:35. | |
of opportunity for all. For all. So, it makes no difference whether | :58:35. | :58:39. | |
you live in the North for the South, whether you are black or white, a | :58:39. | :58:42. | |
man or a woman, the school you went to, the background you have, who | :58:42. | :58:46. | |
your parents were, what matters is the effort you put in. And if you | :58:46. | :58:53. | |
put in the effort, you will have the chance to make it. That is what the | :58:53. | :58:56. | |
land of opportunity means, that is what finishing the job means. | :58:57. | :59:12. | |
Of course, I know that in politics, there are others talking about these | :59:12. | :59:19. | |
things, but wishing for something, caring for something, that is not | :59:19. | :59:23. | |
enough. You cannot conjure up a dynamic economy, a strong society or | :59:23. | :59:27. | |
fantastic schools, with a stroke of the Minister's pen. It takes a | :59:27. | :59:32. | |
mixture of hard work, common-sense, and above all, the right values. | :59:32. | :59:37. | |
When the left say, you cannot expect too much from the poorest kids, do | :59:37. | :59:41. | |
not ask too much from people on welfare, business is the problem, | :59:41. | :59:45. | |
not the solution, here in this party, we must say, that is just | :59:45. | :59:50. | |
plain wrong. If you expect nothing of people, that does nothing for | :59:50. | :59:54. | |
them. Yes, you must help people, but you help people by putting up | :59:54. | :59:57. | |
ladders that they can climb through their own efforts. You do not help | :59:57. | :00:01. | |
children by dumbing down education, you help them by pushing them hard. | :00:01. | :00:07. | |
Good education is not about equality of outcomes, but bringing out the | :00:07. | :00:11. | |
best in every child. You do not help people by leaving them stuck on | :00:11. | :00:14. | |
welfare, but by helping them stand on their own two feet just why? | :00:14. | :00:19. | |
Because the best way out of poverty is work, and the dignity that | :00:19. | :00:24. | |
brings. We know that profit, wealth creation, tax cuts, enterprise, | :00:24. | :00:30. | |
these are not dirty, elitist words. They are not the problem. They are | :00:30. | :00:34. | |
the solution, because it is not government that creates jobs, it is | :00:34. | :00:38. | |
businesses. It is businesses which get wages in people's pockets, food | :00:38. | :00:42. | |
on the tables, and yes, success for our country. There is no short cut. | :00:42. | :00:55. | |
There is no short cut to a land of opportunity, no quick fix, no easy | :00:55. | :01:02. | |
way to do it. You build it, business by business, school by school, | :01:02. | :01:06. | |
person by person Tom patiently, practically, painstakingly, and | :01:06. | :01:12. | |
underpinning it all is that deep, instinctive belief that if you trust | :01:12. | :01:15. | |
people and give them the tools, they will succeed. This party at its | :01:15. | :01:21. | |
heart is about big people, strong communities, responsible businesses, | :01:21. | :01:24. | |
a bigger society, not a bigger state. It's how we've been clearing | :01:24. | :01:28. | |
up the mess. And it's how we're going to build something better in | :01:28. | :01:29. | |
its place. So let's stick with it going to build something better in | :01:29. | :01:45. | |
and finish the job we've started. A land of opportunity starts in our | :01:45. | :01:48. | |
economy. The chance to get a decent job. To start a business. To own a | :01:48. | :01:55. | |
home. And at the end of it all - more money in your pocket. To get | :01:55. | :01:59. | |
decent jobs for people, you've got to recognise some fundamental | :01:59. | :02:01. | |
economic facts. We are in a global race today. No one owes us a living. | :02:01. | :02:14. | |
Last week, our ambition to compete in the global race was airily | :02:14. | :02:18. | |
dismissed as a race to the bottom - that it means competing with China | :02:18. | :02:21. | |
on sweatshops and India on low wages. No - those countries are | :02:21. | :02:29. | |
becoming our customers, and we've got to compete with California on | :02:29. | :02:32. | |
innovation, Germany on high-end manufacturing, Asia on finance and | :02:32. | :02:34. | |
technology. And here's something else you need to recognise about | :02:34. | :02:38. | |
this race. The plain fact is this. All those global companies that | :02:38. | :02:41. | |
employ lots of people - they can set up anywhere in the world. They could | :02:41. | :02:45. | |
go to Silicon Valley. To Berlin. And yes, here in Manchester. And these | :02:45. | :02:50. | |
companies base their decisions on some simple things: like the tax | :02:50. | :02:55. | |
rates in each country. So if those taxes are higher here than | :02:55. | :02:58. | |
elsewhere, they don't come here. And if they don't come here, we don't | :02:58. | :03:03. | |
get those jobs. Do you get that, Labour? British people don't get | :03:03. | :03:11. | |
those jobs. Last week, Labour proposed to put up corporation tax | :03:11. | :03:14. | |
on our biggest and most successful employers. That is just about the | :03:14. | :03:17. | |
most damaging, nonsensical, twisted economic policy you could possibly | :03:17. | :03:24. | |
come up with. We will fight it every step of the way. I get to visit some | :03:24. | :03:50. | |
amazing factories in my job. One of my favourites is Jaguar Land Rover, | :03:50. | :03:53. | |
not just because they actually let me get in a car and drive it around | :03:53. | :03:57. | |
on my own. Quite dangerously, actually. I drove a mini off the | :03:57. | :03:59. | |
production line. It was a huge treat, but when I got to the end, I | :03:59. | :04:03. | |
turned the wrong way, although you will be relieved to know on this | :04:03. | :04:07. | |
occasion, I turned right, rather than left. But the reason I find | :04:07. | :04:14. | |
these places so fulfilling its because I meet people who are so | :04:14. | :04:19. | |
proud of their work and aircraft Manship, the fact that what they are | :04:19. | :04:23. | |
making cells around the world, that it is the best of British design and | :04:23. | :04:29. | |
engineering. So when Ed Miliband talks about the face of big | :04:29. | :04:32. | |
business, I think about the faces of these hardworking people. Labour is | :04:33. | :04:38. | |
saying to their employers: "We want to put up your taxes, don't come | :04:38. | :04:42. | |
here - stick your jobs and take them elsewhere". I know that bashing | :04:42. | :04:45. | |
business might play to a Labour audience. But it's crazy for our | :04:45. | :04:59. | |
country. So if Labour's plan for jobs is to attack business, ours is | :04:59. | :05:02. | |
to back business. Regulation - down. Taxes - cut for businesses large and | :05:02. | :05:09. | |
small. A new industrial policy that looks to the future - green jobs, | :05:09. | :05:12. | |
aerospace jobs, life science jobs. We've made a good start: 1.4 million | :05:13. | :05:23. | |
new jobs created in our private sector since we came to office, and | :05:23. | :05:26. | |
that is 1.4 million reasons to finish the job we've started. In a | :05:26. | :05:31. | |
land of opportunity, it must be easier to start your own business. | :05:31. | :05:35. | |
You heard from Jermaine, and incredibly inspiring story this | :05:35. | :05:46. | |
morning. To all those people who strike out on their own, who sit | :05:46. | :05:50. | |
there night after night, checking and double checking whether the | :05:50. | :05:53. | |
numbers stack up, I say I have so much respect for you - you are | :05:53. | :05:56. | |
national heroes. I'll never forget watching Samantha do just that - | :05:56. | :05:59. | |
winning her first customer, sorting out the cash flow, that magic moment | :05:59. | :06:03. | |
when she got her first business cards printed. I was incredibly | :06:03. | :06:08. | |
proud of her then, and I am incredibly proud of you now. People | :06:08. | :06:19. | |
setting up new businesses need finance. That's why we've brought in | :06:19. | :06:23. | |
start-up loans. They need their taxes cut - and we're doing it - up | :06:23. | :06:27. | |
to £2000 off your National Insurance bill for every small business. And | :06:27. | :06:33. | |
it's working. Let me tell you how many businesses have started up in | :06:33. | :06:36. | |
Britain since the election: over 300,000. That is 300,000 more | :06:36. | :06:44. | |
reasons to finish the work we've started. In a land of opportunity, | :06:45. | :06:52. | |
more people must be able to own a home of their own. You know that old | :06:52. | :06:56. | |
saying, your home is your castle? Well, for most young people today, | :06:56. | :07:02. | |
their home is their landlord's. Generation Y is starting to become | :07:03. | :07:07. | |
Generation Why Do We Bother? Millions of them stuck renting when | :07:07. | :07:11. | |
they're desperate to buy. I met a couple on Sunday - Emily and James. | :07:11. | :07:17. | |
They both had decent jobs, but because they didn't have rich | :07:17. | :07:20. | |
parents, they couldn't get a big enough deposit to buy a house. And | :07:20. | :07:24. | |
let me tell you where I met them. In their new home, bought with our Help | :07:24. | :07:29. | |
to Buy mortgage scheme. It was still half built, but they showed me where | :07:29. | :07:36. | |
the kitchen would be. Outside, there was rubble all over the ground, but | :07:36. | :07:40. | |
they'd already bought a lawn-mower. And they talked about how excited | :07:40. | :07:43. | |
they were to be spending a first Christmas in a home of their own. | :07:43. | :07:55. | |
That is what we're about, and this, the party of aspiration, is going to | :07:55. | :07:59. | |
finish the job on home ownership that we've started. In a land of | :07:59. | :08:11. | |
opportunity, there's another thing people need, the most important | :08:11. | :08:14. | |
thing of all, more money in their pockets. These have been difficult | :08:14. | :08:17. | |
years. People have found it hard to make ends meet. That's why we've | :08:17. | :08:21. | |
frozen council tax, and why we are freezing fuel duty. But we need to | :08:21. | :08:25. | |
do more. I know that. We've heard Labour's ideas to help with the cost | :08:25. | :08:33. | |
of living. Taxes on banks they want to spend ten times over. Promising | :08:33. | :08:38. | |
free childcare - then saying that actually, you've got to pay for it. | :08:38. | :08:43. | |
And an energy promise they admitted 24 hours later they might not be | :08:43. | :08:47. | |
able to keep. It's all sticking plasters and quick fixes, cobbled | :08:47. | :08:50. | |
together for the TV cameras. Red Ed and his Blue Peter economy. Britain | :08:50. | :09:10. | |
can do better than that lot. To raise living standards in the long | :09:10. | :09:13. | |
term, you need to do some major things. You need to cut the deficit | :09:13. | :09:23. | |
to keep mortgage rates low. You need to grow your economy, get people | :09:23. | :09:29. | |
jobs, and yes - cut people's taxes. I want people to keep more of their | :09:29. | :09:37. | |
money to spend as they choose. We've already cut the taxes of 25 million | :09:37. | :09:41. | |
hardworking people, and yes - that is 25 million more reasons to finish | :09:41. | :09:44. | |
the job we've started. And while we are on taxes, let me get one thing | :09:44. | :09:47. | |
straight. I don't know whether you caught the Lib Dem conference a | :09:47. | :09:53. | |
couple of weeks ago. No? I missed a bit, too. But they were tried to | :09:53. | :09:57. | |
take all the credit for these tax cuts, as though they had been | :09:57. | :10:00. | |
twisting our armed to do it. Well, memo to the Lib Dems. You lecturing | :10:00. | :10:06. | |
us on low taxes is like us lecturing you on pointless constitutional | :10:06. | :10:08. | |
tinkering. We're Tories. We believe in low taxes. And believe me - we | :10:09. | :10:13. | |
will keep on cutting the taxes of hardworking people. And here in | :10:13. | :10:37. | |
Manchester, let me say this. When I say a land of opportunity for all, I | :10:37. | :10:41. | |
mean everyone, north and south. This country has been too London-centric | :10:41. | :10:45. | |
for far too long. That's why we need a new North-South railway line. The | :10:45. | :10:48. | |
fact is this. The West Coast mainline is almost full. We have to | :10:48. | :10:57. | |
build a new railway, and the choice is between another old-style, | :10:57. | :11:00. | |
Victorian one or a high speed one. Just imagine if someone had said, | :11:00. | :11:04. | |
no, we can't build the M1, or the Severn Bridge, imagine how that | :11:04. | :11:07. | |
would be hobbling our economy today. HS2 is about bringing North and | :11:07. | :11:10. | |
South together in our national endeavour. Because think of what | :11:10. | :11:13. | |
more we could do with the pistons firing in all parts of our country. | :11:13. | :11:17. | |
With its wind and wave power, let's make the Humber the centre of clean | :11:17. | :11:21. | |
energy. With its resources under the ground, let's make Blackpool the | :11:21. | :11:24. | |
centre of Europe for the shale gas industry. With its brains and | :11:24. | :11:30. | |
research centres, let's make here in Manchester the world leader in | :11:30. | :11:33. | |
advanced materials. We're building an economy for the North and South, | :11:33. | :11:35. | |
embracing new technologies, producing things and selling them to | :11:36. | :11:39. | |
the world. So make no mistake who's looking forward in British politics. | :11:39. | :11:45. | |
We'll leave the 1970s-style socialism to others. We are the | :11:45. | :12:00. | |
party of the future. We're making progress. You know how I know that? | :12:00. | :12:05. | |
It's every week, at Prime Minister's Questions. There was a time when I'd | :12:05. | :12:25. | |
look across to Ed Balls, and there he was, shouting his head off, doing | :12:25. | :12:29. | |
this with his hands, screaming that the economy was flat-lining, ,and | :12:29. | :12:32. | |
all with such glee. But recently, it's gone a bit quiet. Could it be | :12:32. | :12:36. | |
because there was no double dip and the economy's now growing? Well, | :12:36. | :12:39. | |
I've got a gesture of my own for Ed Balls. And don't worry - it's not a | :12:39. | :13:00. | |
rude one. Jobs are up, construction is up, manufacturing is up, inward | :13:00. | :13:03. | |
investment, retail sales, home-building, business confidence, | :13:03. | :13:05. | |
consumer confidence - all these things are up. And to anyone who | :13:05. | :13:08. | |
wants to talk our economy down, let me tell you this. Since this | :13:09. | :13:11. | |
conference began, over 100,000 jet planes have soared into the sky on | :13:11. | :13:15. | |
wings made in Britain. Every single day in this country, over 4,000 cars | :13:15. | :13:19. | |
are coming off the production line - ready to be exported around the | :13:19. | :13:22. | |
globe. Last year, Britain overtook France as Germany's top trading | :13:22. | :13:25. | |
partner, not bad for a nation of shop-keepers. And that's the point. | :13:25. | :13:28. | |
Exports to China are up, eExports to Brazil are up, exports to India, | :13:28. | :13:31. | |
Russia, Thailand, South Korea, Australia - all up. So let us never | :13:31. | :13:35. | |
forget the cast-iron law of British politics. Yes - the oceans can rise, | :13:35. | :13:42. | |
and empires can fall, but one thing will never, ever change. It's Labour | :13:42. | :13:45. | |
who wreck our economy and it's we Conservatives who clear it up. | :13:46. | :13:59. | |
A land of opportunity means educating our children, and I mean | :13:59. | :14:08. | |
all our children. It's OK for the children who have parents reading | :14:08. | :14:13. | |
them stories every night. And that's great, but what about the ones at | :14:13. | :14:17. | |
the back of the class, in the chaotic home, in the home of the | :14:17. | :14:21. | |
drug addict or alcoholic? We need these children - and frankly, they | :14:21. | :14:25. | |
need us. That's why three and a half years ago, one man came into the | :14:25. | :14:28. | |
Department of Education, ,Michael Gove. There he is. He has this huge | :14:28. | :14:45. | |
belief in excellence and massive energy, like a cross between Mr | :14:45. | :14:48. | |
Chips and the Duracell bunny. Let's look at the results. Let's see what | :14:48. | :14:52. | |
Chips and the Duracell bunny. Let's the bunnies achieved. More students | :14:52. | :14:56. | |
studying proper science. More children learning a foreign | :14:56. | :15:00. | |
language. He's ended the dumbing down in exams. For the first time, | :15:00. | :15:07. | |
children in our schools will learn the new language of computer coding. | :15:07. | :15:11. | |
And we're sending a clear message to children: if you fail English and | :15:11. | :15:14. | |
maths GCSE, you're going to have to take and retake them again until you | :15:14. | :15:18. | |
pass. Because as I tell my own children, there's not a job in the | :15:18. | :15:22. | |
world where you don't need to spell and add up properly. Unless you want | :15:22. | :15:27. | |
to join Labour's front bench economic team, of course. And It is | :15:27. | :15:40. | |
not a career I would recommend. Ultimately, and Michael understands | :15:40. | :15:48. | |
this, really raising standards means innovation, it means choice, it | :15:48. | :15:52. | |
means giving passionate people the freedom to run our schools. Heard | :15:52. | :15:58. | |
about it this morning. And that is what free schools are all about. I | :15:58. | :16:06. | |
will never forget sitting in the classroom, the next school that this | :16:06. | :16:11. | |
brilliant chain has set up, and I met a mother there who said to me, | :16:11. | :16:15. | |
this is what I have dreamt of for my child's - proper uniforms, high | :16:15. | :16:19. | |
standards, really high expectations. This is going to give my child a | :16:19. | :16:23. | |
great start in life. When Michael Howard asked me what job I would | :16:23. | :16:26. | |
like in the shadow cabinet, I said education, because what Michael is | :16:26. | :16:34. | |
doing now, these are the kinds of things I came into politics to bring | :16:34. | :16:38. | |
about. They are magnificent, these schools, it is great what we are | :16:38. | :16:42. | |
doing, we must keep it up. And do you know what is extraordinary about | :16:42. | :16:46. | |
these free schools? Label's official policy is to be against them. But | :16:46. | :16:52. | |
get this, there are Labour MPs who are backing them in their own local | :16:52. | :16:56. | |
areas. And not just any Labour MPs. I promise I am not making this up - | :16:56. | :17:02. | |
the shadow Education Secretary, Stephen Twigg, has backed a free | :17:02. | :17:07. | |
school in his own city. But me give you a day in the life of Stephen | :17:07. | :17:12. | |
Twigg. At 8am, I am on national radio, saying, free schools are | :17:12. | :17:15. | |
terrible. But come the afternoon, I am back home with my placard, | :17:15. | :17:21. | |
shouting, what do we want? A free school. When do we wanted? Now. | :17:21. | :17:26. | |
Isn't it unbelievable? But isn't it always the way with the left, they | :17:26. | :17:29. | |
do not like privilege, unless of course it is for their own children. | :17:29. | :17:39. | |
Well, we in this party must be ambitious for all our children, and | :17:39. | :17:45. | |
we must finish job we started. We have now got technical colleges run | :17:45. | :17:51. | |
by great companies like JCB. I say, let's have one of those colleges in | :17:51. | :17:54. | |
every single major town in our country. We have had 1 million | :17:54. | :18:03. | |
apprenticeships start under this government, and you heard this | :18:03. | :18:08. | |
morning from Samantha. I say, let's set a new expectation, as you leave | :18:08. | :18:14. | |
school, you have a choice - go to university or do an apprenticeship. | :18:14. | :18:18. | |
And while we have got children leaving school not able to read, | :18:18. | :18:22. | |
write or add up properly at the end of primary school, let us set this | :18:22. | :18:27. | |
ambition for our country, let us eliminate illiteracy and give | :18:27. | :18:28. | |
everyone of those children a chance. And my friends, as we do all this, | :18:28. | :18:45. | |
we must remember, the most vulnerable children of all. There | :18:45. | :18:49. | |
are thousands of children every year who broke up in homes where nappies | :18:49. | :18:55. | |
and bedclothes go unchanged, and where there cries of pain go | :18:56. | :19:02. | |
unheard. These children just need the most basic opportunity of all, a | :19:02. | :19:06. | |
loving family. Two years ago, at our conference, I told you about our | :19:06. | :19:12. | |
determination to speed up adoption. This past year, we saw record | :19:13. | :19:17. | |
numbers finding permanent, loving homes. 4000 children adopted. And | :19:17. | :19:24. | |
that is 4000 more reasons to finish the job that we have started. And as | :19:24. | :19:37. | |
we keep on with this, we should remember who is on the front line. I | :19:38. | :19:43. | |
have to take some tough decisions in my job, but none are as tough as | :19:43. | :19:46. | |
whether to break up a family and rescue a child, or try and stitch | :19:46. | :19:53. | |
that family back together. Social work is a noble and vital calling. I | :19:53. | :19:55. | |
that family back together. Social will never forget, after our son | :19:55. | :20:01. | |
Ivan was warned, social worker, sitting patiently in our kitchen, | :20:01. | :20:05. | |
and telling us the sort of help that we might need. This government has | :20:05. | :20:09. | |
helped to get some of the brightest graduates into treating, we have now | :20:09. | :20:13. | |
pledged to do the same for social work. So let us now in this hall | :20:13. | :20:18. | |
here it for Britain's social workers, who do such a vital job in | :20:18. | :20:19. | |
our country today. The land of opportunity needs one | :20:19. | :20:44. | |
final thing - welfare that really works. We know how badly things went | :20:44. | :20:50. | |
wrong. Our fellow citizens working every hour of everyday to put food | :20:50. | :20:55. | |
on the table, asking this - why should my taxes go to people who | :20:55. | :20:59. | |
could work, but don't, or to those who live in homes that hard-working | :20:59. | :21:03. | |
people could never afford? Or two people who have no right to be here | :21:03. | :21:08. | |
in the first place? And I say this to the British people - you have | :21:08. | :21:13. | |
every right to be angry about a system which is unfair and unjust, | :21:13. | :21:17. | |
and that is why we are sorting it out. We have welfare, capped housing | :21:17. | :21:22. | |
benefit. We insisted on new rules so that if you reject works, you lose | :21:22. | :21:30. | |
benefits. Let us be absolutely clear - as Boris said in that great speech | :21:30. | :21:34. | |
yesterday, the problems in our welfare system and immigration | :21:34. | :21:38. | |
system, they are inextricably linked. If we do not get our people | :21:38. | :21:42. | |
back to work, we should not be surprised if millions wants to come | :21:42. | :21:46. | |
here to work. But we must act on immigration directly as well, and we | :21:46. | :21:51. | |
are. Capping migration, clamping down on the bogus colleges, and when | :21:51. | :21:57. | |
the immigration bill comes before Parliament, we will make sure that | :21:57. | :22:02. | |
some simple and fair things which should always have been the case | :22:02. | :22:06. | |
will be set in stone. If you are not entitled to our free National Health | :22:06. | :22:20. | |
Service, you should pay for it. If you have no right to be here, you | :22:20. | :22:24. | |
cannot rent a flat or a house, not of the council, not off anyone else. | :22:24. | :22:30. | |
When you are a foreign prisoner, you should pay your own legal bills. And | :22:30. | :22:34. | |
if you appeal, you must do it from your own country, after you have | :22:34. | :22:36. | |
been deported, not from here. And on these huge national problems, | :22:36. | :22:54. | |
we are making progress. Immigration has come down. On welfare, not only | :22:54. | :22:58. | |
are there more people in work than ever before, but the number of | :22:58. | :23:01. | |
households where no one works is at its lowest rate since records began. | :23:01. | :23:05. | |
households where no one works is at And I want to thank the most | :23:05. | :23:09. | |
determined champion of social justice that this country has, Iain | :23:09. | :23:10. | |
Duncan Smith. Iain Duncan Smith understands that | :23:10. | :23:30. | |
this is not about fixing systems, it is about saving lives, and that is | :23:30. | :23:33. | |
why we have got to finish the job we have started. There are still over 1 | :23:33. | :23:38. | |
million young people not in education, employment or training. | :23:38. | :23:42. | |
And today, it is still possible to leave school, to sign on, find a | :23:42. | :23:48. | |
flat, start claiming housing benefit and opt for a life on benefits. | :23:48. | :23:54. | |
Isn't it time for bold action here? We should ask, as we write our next | :23:54. | :23:58. | |
manifesto, if that option should really exist at all. Instead, we | :23:58. | :24:03. | |
should give young people a clear and positive choice - go to school, go | :24:03. | :24:06. | |
to college, do an apprenticeship, get a job, but we have not to offer | :24:06. | :24:11. | |
to college, do an apprenticeship, them something better than just | :24:11. | :24:23. | |
choosing the dole. And let know one paint ideas like this as callous. | :24:23. | :24:28. | |
Think about it. With your own children, would you dream of just | :24:28. | :24:31. | |
leaving them to their own devices, not getting a job, not training, | :24:31. | :24:38. | |
nothing? No, you would do anything to get them on their way, and so | :24:38. | :24:43. | |
must we. So, this is what we want to see - everyone under 25 earning or | :24:43. | :24:57. | |
learning. And we know, we know that on this, as on everything else, | :24:57. | :25:02. | |
Labour will fight us. But we must remember, we are giving people real | :25:02. | :25:05. | |
opportunities. I have had people say to me, I am back on my feet, I feel | :25:06. | :25:12. | |
worthwhile. One wrote to me, saying, now I can tell my some that his dad | :25:12. | :25:17. | |
really does something. This is what our party is about. We do not | :25:17. | :25:22. | |
patronise people, but a benefit cheque in their hand and pat them on | :25:22. | :25:25. | |
the head, we look people in the eye as equals, and say, yes, you have | :25:26. | :25:30. | |
been down but you are not out, you can do it, we will give you that | :25:30. | :25:34. | |
chance. That is why we will say today that it is this party which is | :25:34. | :25:37. | |
fighting for all of those who are bitten off by Labour. It is this | :25:37. | :25:41. | |
party which is for the many, not the few. Yes, the land of despair was | :25:41. | :25:45. | |
Labour, but the land of hope is Tory. | :25:45. | :26:01. | |
So, we have done some big things to transform our country, but we need | :26:01. | :26:09. | |
to finish the job we have started. We need to go further, to do more | :26:09. | :26:12. | |
for hard-working people, to give more children a chance, back more | :26:12. | :26:17. | |
businesses, help create more jobs. I am clear about how that job will | :26:17. | :26:23. | |
best gets done. It requires a strong government, with a clear mandate, | :26:23. | :26:29. | |
which is accountable for what it promises and yes, what it delivers. | :26:29. | :26:32. | |
And I want to tell everyone here what that means. When that election | :26:33. | :26:37. | |
comes, we will not be campaigning for a coalition, we will be fighting | :26:37. | :26:44. | |
head, heart and soul for a majority Conservative government, because | :26:44. | :26:45. | |
that is what our country needs! You know there are some strange | :26:45. | :27:04. | |
moments in this job. When I was just a few months in, a member of my | :27:04. | :27:07. | |
staff rushed into the office and said, Prime Minister, you have | :27:07. | :27:11. | |
really made it, they are burning an effigy of you on television. | :27:11. | :27:15. | |
Actually, the first time it happened, they did not spell my name | :27:15. | :27:19. | |
right. They do not make that mistake any more. But you do not do this to | :27:19. | :27:23. | |
be popular. You do it cause you love your country. I do the best I can, | :27:23. | :27:30. | |
and for me, it comes back to some simple things - country first, do | :27:30. | :27:36. | |
what is decent, think long-term. There is an old story which is told | :27:36. | :27:41. | |
about a great Hall in Oxford, near my constituency. For hundreds of | :27:41. | :27:46. | |
years, it stood there, held up with vast oak beams, and in the 19th | :27:46. | :27:49. | |
century, those beans needed replacing. And do you know what they | :27:49. | :27:54. | |
found? 500 years before, someone had thought, those beans, they will need | :27:54. | :27:59. | |
replacing one day, and so they had planted some oak trees. Just think | :27:59. | :28:05. | |
about that. Centuries have passed, Columbus had reached America, | :28:05. | :28:08. | |
gravity had been discovered, and when those oak trees were needed, | :28:08. | :28:14. | |
they were ready. Margaret Thatcher once said, we are in the business of | :28:14. | :28:18. | |
planting trees for our children and grandchildren, all we have no | :28:18. | :28:22. | |
business being in politics at all. That is what we are doing today, not | :28:22. | :28:26. | |
just making do and mending, but making something better. Since I got | :28:26. | :28:32. | |
to my feet, almost 100 children have been born across our country, | :28:32. | :28:33. | |
to my feet, almost 100 children have children of wealth and children of | :28:33. | :28:39. | |
none, children of parents in work, and children of parents out of | :28:39. | :28:42. | |
work. For every single one of those newborn babies, that is pledged | :28:42. | :28:46. | |
today that we will build something better, a land of opportunity, a | :28:46. | :28:52. | |
country built on that end during principal that if you work hard, | :28:52. | :28:56. | |
save, played by the rules and do your fair share, then nothing should | :28:56. | :29:04. | |
stand in your way. A new economy, a new welfare system, a new set of | :29:04. | :29:07. | |
values in our schools, not just fixing the mess we inherited, but | :29:07. | :29:10. | |
building something better. We have got a year and a half until that | :29:10. | :29:17. | |
election, until Britain makes a choice, move forward to something | :29:17. | :29:20. | |
better go back to something worse. But I believe that if this party | :29:20. | :29:24. | |
with all we have, then this country will make the right choice. Because | :29:24. | :29:28. | |
we always have before. Whenever we have had the choice of giving in to | :29:29. | :29:32. | |
some shabby, from eyes or pushing forward to something better, we have | :29:32. | :29:36. | |
said, this is Great Britain, the improbable hero of history, the | :29:36. | :29:40. | |
country that does not give in, that knows there is no such thing as | :29:40. | :29:45. | |
destiny, only our determination to succeed. So, I look forward to our | :29:45. | :29:51. | |
future, and I am confident. Beyond this all, there are millions of | :29:51. | :29:56. | |
hard-working people who renew the great in Great Britain every day, in | :29:56. | :29:59. | |
the way they work, the way they give, the way they raise their | :29:59. | :30:03. | |
families. These are the people we have alongside us. Together we have | :30:03. | :30:08. | |
made it this far. Together, we will finish the job we have started. And | :30:08. | :30:12. | |
together, we will build that land of opportunity. | :30:12. | :30:19. | |
STUDIO: and the faithful get to their feet. The prime minister spoke | :30:19. | :30:28. | |
for just under an hour. No new policy announcements. A reiteration | :30:28. | :30:34. | |
of themes we had been told in advance, well worn Conservative | :30:34. | :30:36. | |
themes. We got all the phrases that were leaked to the media last night. | :30:36. | :30:41. | |
Land of opportunity, profit not a word. The prime minister bringing | :30:41. | :30:46. | |
his wife onto the stage now to take the applause of the conference. | :30:46. | :30:49. | |
Quite a lot of Labour and Miliband bashing going on. The Labour | :30:49. | :30:55. | |
government of years gone by, he attacked for a casino economy and | :30:55. | :30:58. | |
welfare Society and broken education system. Then he bashed the current | :30:58. | :31:02. | |
Labour leadership for bashing business. His constant plea was to | :31:02. | :31:08. | |
be allowed to finish the job. He gave strong support for the | :31:08. | :31:16. | |
high-speed train project, and he revealed the staggering revelation | :31:16. | :31:21. | |
that he wants an overall majority. Quite unusual for a party leader, I | :31:21. | :31:26. | |
suppose. I think he just wanted to reassure the Conservative Party | :31:26. | :31:34. | |
faithful that while they suspect he likes coalition, he said no, I want | :31:34. | :31:38. | |
an overall majority at the next election. So, we did not really | :31:38. | :31:43. | |
learn anything new, but we learnt the general pitch of the | :31:43. | :31:49. | |
Conservatives as they had up to the 2015 election, which is, we are on | :31:49. | :31:55. | |
the way, the recovery is here, don't hand the keys back to Labour, let | :31:55. | :31:58. | |
the Conservatives finished the job with an overall majority. So, they | :31:58. | :32:04. | |
used to give very long standing ovations, but not any more. Even at | :32:04. | :32:09. | |
Conservative conferences, they have sat down and the speech is over. Our | :32:09. | :32:13. | |
man who was listening to it all, let's go to him. What did you make | :32:13. | :32:21. | |
of it? I will say this quickly before I am surrounded by delegates, | :32:21. | :32:27. | |
but I don't think this was one of Mr Cameron's more memorable speeches, | :32:27. | :32:32. | |
and almost deliberately so. It was a sort of holding pattern speech where | :32:32. | :32:35. | |
the core message seemed to be come hang on in there, we can get through | :32:35. | :32:39. | |
this, but there is quite a way to go. I was struck by this, | :32:40. | :32:46. | |
pre-briefing. We were told that it would strike on to mystic note, a | :32:47. | :32:51. | |
sense of a dawn beginning to break over the arid plains of austerity. | :32:51. | :32:55. | |
It was a sober speech in many ways, Mr Cameron saying, we are not | :32:55. | :33:08. | |
thereby a long way. If we deviate off the course, look at what | :33:08. | :33:10. | |
happened to our Greek friends. In that sense, the message was, we will | :33:10. | :33:12. | |
happened to our Greek friends. In have two keep making difficult | :33:12. | :33:14. | |
economic decisions, and there is a long haul to go. There were the | :33:14. | :33:17. | |
obvious crowd-pleasing moments, attacks on Labour, Red Ed and Blue | :33:17. | :33:22. | |
Peter economics. There was that riposte to President Putin's jibe, | :33:22. | :33:32. | |
saying, we beat you in the Olympics, and where is the bestselling vodka | :33:32. | :33:37. | |
made? In Fife. There were good pieces to it, but quite a tough sell | :33:37. | :33:44. | |
for a Tory party activist, which is, we will have to keep doing this. It | :33:44. | :33:49. | |
is going to be difficult, hang on in there. Do we have a clear idea, as | :33:49. | :33:55. | |
the English conference season comes to an end, of the dividing lines | :33:55. | :34:04. | |
between the parties as we head into what will probably be the longest | :34:04. | :34:09. | |
election campaign in British history? We have a clear sense from | :34:09. | :34:15. | |
here of what the Tory pitch will be, which will basically be, it's the | :34:15. | :34:19. | |
economy, stupid, and we are the ones who know how to run the economy. | :34:19. | :34:25. | |
Their argument about the cost of living is that the only way to deal | :34:25. | :34:29. | |
with the crisis is not quick fixes with freezing gas prices or doing | :34:29. | :34:35. | |
more on childcare. The only way to solve the cost of living crisis is | :34:35. | :34:39. | |
to sort out the economy, because that is the only way people will | :34:39. | :34:44. | |
stay in jobs and get paid and mortgages will stay low and | :34:44. | :34:49. | |
businesses will grow and so on. In other words, their argument is, | :34:49. | :34:57. | |
trust us with the economy. That is a difficult argument when living | :34:57. | :35:02. | |
standards are still being squeezed, which is why I think this speech was | :35:02. | :35:08. | |
largely a holding speech. It was not the big oratorical flourish before | :35:08. | :35:12. | |
the next election. It was pretty much, we are moving in the right | :35:12. | :35:15. | |
direction. The economy is slowly turning, but we are nowhere near | :35:15. | :35:18. | |
there yet. It was an appeal for turning, but we are nowhere near | :35:18. | :35:24. | |
patients in many ways, which is always a difficult sell. People want | :35:24. | :35:28. | |
things now, they want a good times. Mr Cameron can't offer that. | :35:28. | :35:33. | |
Instead, he has this offer that he is leading us to this land of | :35:33. | :35:36. | |
opportunity, a sort of biblical allusion to the commerce land. But | :35:36. | :35:41. | |
it is still a way away, and he pretty much told people it was. | :35:41. | :35:56. | |
Michael Heseltine, I have had politicians on the left and right | :35:56. | :35:59. | |
promise me the land of opportunity since I was in short trousers. When | :35:59. | :36:06. | |
am I going to get there? Well, by any standards, if you look back over | :36:06. | :36:11. | |
decade after decade, standards rise. But the important part of that | :36:11. | :36:15. | |
speech to me was that no one can now say we don't know what David Cameron | :36:15. | :36:21. | |
believes in. He has spelt out in the clearest, most articular language is | :36:21. | :36:26. | |
passionate concern for the whole spectrum of society. There were | :36:26. | :36:33. | |
interesting sections about social workers, about the need to provide a | :36:33. | :36:40. | |
dramatic improvement in the low levels of education in the West | :36:40. | :36:46. | |
schools, a salute to the military. And to social workers. I mentioned | :36:46. | :36:51. | |
that. He believes in it passionately. This was a one nation | :36:51. | :36:55. | |
speech, in my view a very thorough and honest beach. -- speech. He did | :36:55. | :37:04. | |
not say it is all fine. He said, it is a hell of a past, and I am not | :37:04. | :37:09. | |
going to kid you into thinking we have achieved everything. What he | :37:09. | :37:13. | |
said was realistic and passionate, and it was across-the-board and | :37:13. | :37:16. | |
appealed to the middle ground, exactly what he should do. So you | :37:16. | :37:23. | |
are no doubt that David Cameron is foursquare in your tradition of the | :37:23. | :37:29. | |
Conservative Party? He is a one nation Conservative. That is why the | :37:29. | :37:31. | |
Conservatives have done so much better since he became leader. Of | :37:31. | :37:36. | |
course, he has not finished the job, but my view is that that is the | :37:36. | :37:42. | |
right appeal, clearly and soberly presented, and I was impressed with | :37:42. | :37:52. | |
the comprehensive nature of his speech will stop but he is a one | :37:52. | :38:00. | |
nation Conservative with one seat in Scotland and no seats in any major | :38:00. | :38:05. | |
city in the north. You have few seats in Wales. You are essentially | :38:05. | :38:09. | |
a party of the South and the Southeast. That is the party David | :38:09. | :38:15. | |
Cameron inherited. My own view is that that is the speech that could | :38:15. | :38:21. | |
turn the corner. It is a huge task, but in my view, he charted the | :38:21. | :38:27. | |
course. But he has this difficult balancing act. I was speaking | :38:27. | :38:31. | |
earlier to Nick Robinson, that on the one hand it is perceived, | :38:31. | :38:35. | |
rightly or wrongly, that Labour has moved to the left on the Mr | :38:35. | :38:41. | |
Miliband, so Mr Cameron, being a natural centrist, will want to | :38:41. | :38:45. | |
occupy that ground. That was partly what he was trying to do today. On | :38:45. | :38:49. | |
the other hand, the real threat to him comes from his right flank. How | :38:49. | :38:52. | |
do you occupy the centre ground and sea off the threat of UKIP in the | :38:52. | :38:59. | |
marginal seats? Face them down. If they want Miliband, they have just | :38:59. | :39:03. | |
got to vote UKIP. It is a simple equation. My own view is that faced | :39:03. | :39:14. | |
with that stark decision which will become apparent by polling day, most | :39:14. | :39:22. | |
Conservatives will come back because they can't stomach that process. It | :39:22. | :39:28. | |
is a tough call for the prime minister, though, to say we are the | :39:28. | :39:37. | |
aspiration party, when the social base from which the Conservative | :39:37. | :39:40. | |
Party draws its people gets narrower and narrower, the appeal of the | :39:40. | :39:45. | |
party regionally gets more and more narrow. It is going in the opposite | :39:45. | :39:53. | |
party regionally gets more and more direction from the rhetoric. But you | :39:53. | :39:58. | |
should salute that, because that is a leader, that is integrity, that is | :39:58. | :40:01. | |
analysing the problem and addressing the real problem which you have | :40:01. | :40:05. | |
described, the lack of northern representation. But is Mr Cameron's | :40:05. | :40:13. | |
challenge. Did he run from it? No. Did he pander to the extreme right? | :40:13. | :40:16. | |
No. It was an impressive speech. Did he pander to the extreme right? | :40:16. | :40:21. | |
Let's go to Education Secretary Michael Gove. He was described as a | :40:21. | :40:26. | |
combination of Mr chips and the juror sell Bunny -- your cell | :40:26. | :40:36. | |
Bunny. Michael Gove, welcome to the Daily Politics. What did Mr Cameron | :40:36. | :40:41. | |
tell us that we did not know already? He told us that there is a | :40:41. | :40:45. | |
straightforward choice at the next election between going backwards to | :40:45. | :40:49. | |
the 1970s or embracing the future. The most of us, that was clear | :40:49. | :40:54. | |
beforehand, but we saw an articulation of what image are to | :40:54. | :41:00. | |
Conservative government can achieve -- a majority Conservative | :41:00. | :41:05. | |
government can achieve. That made me embrace a renewed relish for the | :41:05. | :41:09. | |
fight. David Cameron laid out a programme to make us a land of | :41:09. | :41:13. | |
opportunity, a country which can have the world's best education | :41:13. | :41:17. | |
system and the world's most innovative economy. We knew that was | :41:17. | :41:22. | |
what he wanted already. I am not sure that told us anything new. It | :41:22. | :41:26. | |
was a policy free conference speech should. Do you think these sorts of | :41:26. | :41:34. | |
things will catch on? The whole point about conference speeches is | :41:35. | :41:37. | |
things will catch on? The whole that they are not there to please | :41:37. | :41:39. | |
journalists, they are there to make an argument. The argument the prime | :41:39. | :41:43. | |
minister made is the argument the country will have to wrestle with | :41:43. | :41:47. | |
over the next 18 months. Forward or back. For a lot of people who had | :41:47. | :41:51. | |
the chance to hear the prime minister, they will not be checking | :41:51. | :41:55. | |
off on a list every new policy, like the journalists. People will be | :41:55. | :42:02. | |
listening to a prime minister articulating with clarity, force, | :42:02. | :42:07. | |
authority and passion, a course this country needs to take in the future. | :42:07. | :42:10. | |
There were elements of the speech which people may not have | :42:10. | :42:14. | |
appreciated. We are changing the curriculum in our schools to make | :42:14. | :42:17. | |
sure every child can learn to code. I am sure people do not appreciate | :42:18. | :42:21. | |
the extent to which there is a manufacturing revival going on in | :42:21. | :42:25. | |
this country, and I am sure people also don't appreciate how much this | :42:25. | :42:32. | |
government is doing to help those at the front line of public services, | :42:32. | :42:36. | |
social workers. I suspect you did not know that this government is | :42:36. | :42:39. | |
investing in attracting the very best into social worker in an | :42:39. | :42:45. | |
innovative scheme which deserves the support of all of us. If you had had | :42:45. | :42:50. | |
a pound for every time you heard party leaders talk about the land of | :42:50. | :42:54. | |
opportunity and profits not being a dirty word, you would be a rich man | :42:54. | :42:58. | |
and you can retire, couldn't you? Mrs Thatcher said the facts of life | :42:58. | :43:03. | |
are Conservative, and sometimes it is important for leaders to remind | :43:03. | :43:12. | |
us of some of those principles. Among some, there can sometimes be a | :43:12. | :43:17. | |
certain cynicism about politics, a belief that they are all the same. | :43:17. | :43:21. | |
Act Chile, over the last fortnight, we have seen a cage was between one | :43:21. | :43:27. | |
party leader, Ed Miliband, who is looking back nostalgically to the | :43:27. | :43:30. | |
1970s and state control, price control, wage control, and another | :43:30. | :43:37. | |
prime minister who is embracing the future, who is part of a broad | :43:37. | :43:42. | |
consensus now among world leaders that in order to ensure that our | :43:42. | :43:45. | |
people have the best opportunities in the future, we need to improve | :43:45. | :43:50. | |
our education so that every child has access to a high quality | :43:50. | :43:55. | |
academic education, and we also need to grow our economy to take | :43:55. | :44:02. | |
advantage of the opportunities of globalisation. Energy prices are | :44:02. | :44:07. | |
crippling families on average and below family incomes. If I ask Mr | :44:07. | :44:10. | |
Miliband what he will do about it, he says he will freeze energy prices | :44:10. | :44:14. | |
until he sorts out the market. How many paragraphs will you need to | :44:14. | :44:18. | |
explain what you are going to do about it? We are going to sort out | :44:18. | :44:28. | |
the market. How? As you are aware, energy is a complex and highly | :44:28. | :44:35. | |
regulated area of the economy. You are making this up as you go along. | :44:35. | :44:39. | |
You don't know how you will sort out the market, do you? Well, I am not | :44:39. | :44:46. | |
the Energy Secretary. But I do know that we used to have a significantly | :44:46. | :44:51. | |
larger number of energy companies under the last Conservative | :44:51. | :44:54. | |
government. It was produced to six under Labour. I know the market | :44:54. | :44:58. | |
needs to be changed to ensure that we have greater competition. I know | :44:58. | :45:03. | |
we need to liberate industry to take advantage of the shale gas | :45:03. | :45:08. | |
revolution on our doorsteps. I know we need to make sure that | :45:08. | :45:11. | |
microgeneration works, which means making sure tariffs are right. A lot | :45:11. | :45:19. | |
of paragraphs. Of course, Andrew, but you can't have it both ways. You | :45:20. | :45:25. | |
ask me to talk about policy briefly. You can't. You ask me to sum up the | :45:25. | :45:30. | |
policy, I did. You said I don't know what I am talking about, and I | :45:30. | :45:37. | |
explain it in detail, and now you say it is too much. Andrew, I do | :45:37. | :45:41. | |
everything I can to satisfy you. Some folk just will not take yes for | :45:41. | :45:53. | |
an answer. it is reported that you are tended in Austria, and you had | :45:53. | :45:59. | |
your mobile phone is taken away, and you came back with a pair of | :45:59. | :46:02. | |
lederhosen style swimming trunks - say it is not true. Not all of it is | :46:03. | :46:13. | |
true. Well, that is what your no, she did not report that. The papers | :46:13. | :46:17. | |
reported I had lost two stone, I am afraid, I only lost one. As the | :46:17. | :46:21. | |
Prime Minister said in his speech, we have got to finish the job. | :46:21. | :46:26. | |
Should the Daily Mail apologise for Ed Miliband for what he said about | :46:26. | :46:32. | |
his father? No, newspapers should not apologise to politicians for | :46:32. | :46:37. | |
being robust. We need a free press, a press which is robust and | :46:37. | :46:40. | |
sometimes raucous, and which by definition will sometimes offend. | :46:40. | :46:44. | |
Unless you have a free press, you do not have an effective check on the | :46:44. | :46:51. | |
arrogance of politicians, so, I do not think politicians should tell | :46:51. | :46:53. | |
newspaper editors how to do their job. I think newspaper editors are | :46:54. | :47:01. | |
effectively doing their job when they upset us. And you are not | :47:01. | :47:05. | |
influenced in that view by the fact that your wife makes a larger salary | :47:05. | :47:10. | |
out of writing a column for the Daily Mail? My wife influences me in | :47:10. | :47:14. | |
many areas, but my views about the Daily Mail? My wife influences me in | :47:14. | :47:20. | |
media are on the record. I have the opportunity to appear in front of | :47:20. | :47:23. | |
Lord Justice Leveson, and I explained to him why I believed in a | :47:23. | :47:26. | |
free press come and I will make that case whenever I have the | :47:26. | :47:29. | |
opportunity, as I think it is a very precious freedom, and I think it is | :47:29. | :47:39. | |
a bad thing if politicians tried to cajole or colour as or influence | :47:39. | :47:42. | |
editors. What we should do is to make our argument to the people, to | :47:42. | :47:47. | |
the public, and make sure that a free press has the rights to be | :47:47. | :47:51. | |
vigorous, walkers, and yes, of course, at times, upsetting, but | :47:51. | :47:54. | |
that is the price we pay for liberty. One final point on | :47:54. | :47:58. | |
education, the teachers have been on strike this week over your plans to | :47:58. | :48:02. | |
introduce performance related pay - in no view, is teaching a vocation, | :48:02. | :48:08. | |
or is it a career choice motivated by financial reward? It is a | :48:08. | :48:16. | |
vocation. But one thing I know is that the headteachers who are | :48:16. | :48:18. | |
responsible for running the best schools in the country tell me that | :48:18. | :48:22. | |
performance related pay is a vital tool in making sure that all | :48:22. | :48:24. | |
children can get the very best education. We had a teaching union | :48:24. | :48:29. | |
leader from America's" yesterday, and he said initially he was opposed | :48:29. | :48:32. | |
to performance related pay, but eventually, he accepted the case, | :48:32. | :48:38. | |
and now, Washington, DC has moved from being one of the worst areas | :48:38. | :48:42. | |
for education in America to be in one of the most improved. Speak to | :48:42. | :48:45. | |
Amanda Phillips, who teaches in the East End of London, and who runs a | :48:46. | :48:50. | |
brilliant primary school there. And another fantastic headteacher from | :48:51. | :48:54. | |
the Midlands. Both of them will tell you that performance related pay is | :48:54. | :48:57. | |
a way of making sure that every child gets the best possible | :48:57. | :49:00. | |
education, and making sure that good teachers get paid more. Can we have | :49:01. | :49:07. | |
a cast-iron guarantee that you will not wear your lederhosen when you | :49:07. | :49:12. | |
come onto the Sunday politics? You have a cast-iron guarantee, Andrew. | :49:12. | :49:15. | |
But one thing I would like to do would be to invite you to join me in | :49:15. | :49:19. | |
pledging that over the next few weeks, both of us will try to do | :49:19. | :49:22. | |
pledging that over the next few everything we can in order to try to | :49:22. | :49:25. | |
be as fit and healthy as possible, because over the next sex sex romps, | :49:25. | :49:29. | |
there is a fight for the future of this country, -- over the next 18 | :49:29. | :49:33. | |
months, there is a fight for the future of this country, and people | :49:33. | :49:37. | |
want you, Andrew, to be ready for that fight as well. Are you after | :49:37. | :49:46. | |
that Austrian spa? If he is paying. I think it is 2000 quid or | :49:46. | :49:50. | |
something. So, what did the party faithful make of Mr Cameron? I know | :49:50. | :49:59. | |
a man who can find out. Over to you, Adam. Yes, let's see what the | :49:59. | :50:03. | |
delegates thought. You have been waiting patiently - what did you | :50:03. | :50:06. | |
think of the speech? I thought he did fantastically well. He put a | :50:06. | :50:10. | |
clear dividing line between him and the Labour Party. I was struck by a | :50:10. | :50:19. | |
lot of it being a response to Ed Miliband, so does that mean a bigger | :50:19. | :50:22. | |
band is setting the terms of the debate? Not necessarily, but Ed | :50:22. | :50:25. | |
Miliband gave a very assured, good performance, identifying some key | :50:25. | :50:30. | |
issues. So, for Cameron to ignore that would have been folly. But | :50:30. | :50:34. | |
there was also a lot of other stuff which was clearly designed for the | :50:34. | :50:39. | |
cameras and broadcasting outside, a patriotic approach, which I think | :50:39. | :50:42. | |
was the right approach for him to take in this case. Frarncis Maude, | :50:42. | :50:46. | |
having a celebratory cup of tea. We will leave you to it. What was your | :50:46. | :50:54. | |
highlight of this speech? I loved the policies which were coming out | :50:54. | :50:59. | |
for people of my age, 22. Weighing houses, education, it is so | :50:59. | :51:04. | |
important. It is only our party which is showing a positive and | :51:04. | :51:06. | |
inclusive vision for Britain. Anything missing from the speech? | :51:06. | :51:13. | |
No, I think he covered everything we needed to hear, and gave us a clear | :51:13. | :51:16. | |
dividing line, whereby we are the party of opportunity, and the party | :51:16. | :51:20. | |
for the whole of Britain, as opposed to Labour, which is the party of the | :51:20. | :51:26. | |
few. We have got is very retro who wants to speak to The Daily Politics | :51:26. | :51:31. | |
live? What did you think of the speech? Absolutely brilliant. He | :51:31. | :51:33. | |
said everything that we all need to speech? Absolutely brilliant. He | :51:33. | :51:37. | |
know, reminding us of our roots, opportunity for everybody. When are | :51:37. | :51:41. | |
we going to be living in this land of opportunity? We have started. We | :51:41. | :51:45. | |
have a long way to go, David Cameron said that, and he is right. We are | :51:45. | :51:50. | |
only three and a half years into a government. Some people, the way | :51:50. | :51:54. | |
they say, you would think we have been in for a long time. We are | :51:54. | :51:58. | |
putting right what Labour got one, and it is taking some time, but we | :51:58. | :52:03. | |
are getting there. Briefly, land of Hope is Tory, do you think so? | :52:03. | :52:09. | |
Absolutely. This is the only party that gives hope. Now, finally, spare | :52:09. | :52:23. | |
a thought for that penniless, abused breed, the political sketch writer, | :52:23. | :52:26. | |
locked in the conference equivalent of livestock crates, fed on a diet | :52:26. | :52:31. | |
of warm, continental white wine, could be worse, and the odd press | :52:31. | :52:35. | |
release, poised for the dramatic event which may or may not happen. | :52:35. | :52:39. | |
They have not had a proper night's sleep for a month. One of the | :52:39. | :52:43. | |
finest, Quentin Letts, has been dutifully following events for us. | :52:43. | :52:47. | |
He has escaped from his great for this final dispatch, and we would | :52:47. | :52:50. | |
like to warn viewers that there is flash photography in this report. -- | :52:50. | :53:03. | |
from his crate. You have got the blue banners sorted, the invitations | :53:03. | :53:04. | |
have been sent out, then someone has blue banners sorted, the invitations | :53:04. | :53:09. | |
to go and spoil it. Ladies and gentlemen, I am talking about | :53:09. | :53:13. | |
gate-crashers, attention seeking individuals trying to barge their | :53:13. | :53:16. | |
way into David and George's party. And they did not even have the | :53:16. | :53:23. | |
decency to bring a bottle of Blue Nunn. The first culprit, Nigel | :53:23. | :53:29. | |
Farage, muscling in on the fringe events, whispering words into the | :53:29. | :53:34. | |
ears of the Eurosceptic Bruce group, seductive words, like, | :53:34. | :53:40. | |
election pact - positively indecent! You are causing mischief, aren't | :53:40. | :53:44. | |
you? No, I am here to have a proper debate. You are teasing the | :53:44. | :53:50. | |
Conservative Party, gate-crashers number two, Alistair Campbell, Tony | :53:50. | :53:54. | |
Blair's nasty old spin doctor, who barged into the conference to | :53:54. | :53:56. | |
campaign on alcohol awareness, and barged into the conference to | :53:56. | :54:01. | |
to wait the few Tories. Nobody was safe. And continuing love for Mrs | :54:01. | :54:09. | |
Thatcher provided more discomfort, when party members were invited by | :54:09. | :54:13. | |
this programme to nominate their all-time favourite Prime Minister by | :54:13. | :54:17. | |
dropping blue balls into The Daily Politics mood box. Who has got more | :54:17. | :54:24. | |
balls, you Mrs Thatcher? Cheeky. But still, they could rely on the old | :54:24. | :54:28. | |
foot soldiers, couldn't they? That did not seem to be the case when the | :54:28. | :54:31. | |
Defence Secretary, Philip Hammond, received a full frontal assault from | :54:31. | :54:36. | |
a couple of ancient Fusiliers, both party members, who took exception to | :54:36. | :54:39. | |
their regiment being disbanded in the defence cuts. We are fortunate | :54:39. | :54:45. | |
indeed to have the best Armed Forces in the world, with the finest and | :54:45. | :54:49. | |
the bravest men and women serving in them. They are serving us now, as | :54:49. | :54:54. | |
they always serve us, round the clock. Would you like to sit down? I | :54:54. | :55:00. | |
will come and talk to you happily later on. Let me complete my speech. | :55:00. | :55:05. | |
This conference has been a bit more serious, for want of a better word, | :55:05. | :55:07. | |
This conference has been a bit more Thatcherite, then in recent years. | :55:07. | :55:13. | |
It is a bit like being at a gathering of accountants and | :55:13. | :55:15. | |
actuaries. Some of the conference gags have been a bit like that, too. | :55:15. | :55:21. | |
David and Ed Miliband, the greatest sibling rivalry since the Bible - - | :55:21. | :55:34. | |
Kane and not very able. Abu Qatada looked at him and asked, is crazy | :55:34. | :55:39. | |
may flying with me? I admit I was crazy, raising with the European | :55:39. | :55:44. | |
court of human rights. But when it comes to stealing the limelight, | :55:44. | :55:47. | |
there is only one man with the necessary showbiz sparkle, shimmy | :55:47. | :55:53. | |
neon -- shimmying onto the dance floor, Boris Johnson. Not so long | :55:53. | :55:59. | |
ago, I welcomed the former French Prime Minister Alain Juppe, and he | :55:59. | :56:05. | |
told me that he was now the mayor of Bordeaux. I think he may have been | :56:05. | :56:09. | |
when he was Prime Minister as well. It is the kind of thing they do in | :56:09. | :56:13. | |
France, a very good idea, in my view... What he said was... ! Joke! | :56:13. | :56:20. | |
How to sum up the week? I could tell you about Margaret Thatcher ironing | :56:20. | :56:24. | |
board covers which had to be taken off the shelves because they were | :56:24. | :56:27. | |
not heat resistant, I could tell you about David Cameron and his | :56:27. | :56:30. | |
bread-making machine, I could tell you about these lovely teddy bears | :56:31. | :56:33. | |
from the Conservative visible at a group. But really, this week has | :56:33. | :56:37. | |
been about money, welfare, jobs, money, money, money. That is how | :56:37. | :56:41. | |
they are going to play the next few months. So, lads, looks like you are | :56:41. | :56:46. | |
going to have to go out to work. Sorry about that. Well, I think | :56:46. | :56:57. | |
Quentin Letts can join us now. This is a great moment, because the long | :56:57. | :57:01. | |
three weeks of the conference season is now over, so we are feeling a | :57:01. | :57:05. | |
certain liberation, and I am sure you viewers may feel the same. Of | :57:05. | :57:11. | |
course, it is not quite over for the English conferences, as we always | :57:11. | :57:14. | |
have to say, but how did this Tory conference compared to the last | :57:14. | :57:17. | |
three? Well, very different people here. The more loony elements seem | :57:17. | :57:27. | |
to have disappeared, and they seem very serious and resolute and | :57:27. | :57:31. | |
determined to get on with what they are doing. This speech today was the | :57:31. | :57:36. | |
same, Suba, rather solid, not exciting. You could not accuse it of | :57:36. | :57:39. | |
same, Suba, rather solid, not being revolutionary, but that was | :57:39. | :57:42. | |
probably the idea. -- Sauber. It was a contrast to that rather wild, mad | :57:42. | :57:46. | |
speech which Miliband gave last week. Cameron being in the centre | :57:46. | :57:53. | |
ground, grown-up and solid. We will let you go and enjoy your freedom, | :57:53. | :57:57. | |
your liberation, in Manchester. Michael Heseltine, final four from | :57:57. | :58:02. | |
you? I think Cameron staked his claim to the centre ground. It was | :58:02. | :58:07. | |
not, as Quentin said, all about money, it was about caring for a | :58:07. | :58:11. | |
whole raft of people, in social work, in the military, in schools, | :58:11. | :58:17. | |
who are essentially public sector, at the forefront of the battle to | :58:17. | :58:18. | |
improve social conditions, and at the forefront of the battle to | :58:18. | :58:23. | |
Cameron cared passionately. No one can ever say again, we do not know | :58:23. | :58:27. | |
what he stands for. That is it for today. It is the end of the English | :58:27. | :58:33. | |
conference season. The Scottish Nationalists are meeting, strangely | :58:33. | :58:38. | |
enough, in Scotland. Thanks to viewers on the News Channel for | :58:38. | :58:42. | |
watching. Jo will be back tomorrow. I will be back tomorrow night on | :58:42. | :58:47. | |
This Week. James Langdale will have all of today's conference highlights | :58:47. | :58:55. | |
on BBC Two after Newsnight. So, that is it, we will be back tonight, not | :58:55. | :59:02. | |
us, but the team will be back, with the round-up, after Newsnight. | :59:02. | :59:04. | |
Bye-bye. | :59:04. | :59:08. |