30/09/2013 Today at Conference

welcome to another week of Today at Conference. George Osborne had a

tough message for the long-term unemployed. He announced fuel duty

is to be frozen until May 2015. And he's the right man with the right

plan, according to football boss Karren Brady who's to be the

Conservatives' small business ambassador. And it would seem that

David Cameron doesn't like our balls. Who's got more balls, you or

MrsThatcher? The Chancellor, George Osborne, took to the stage in

Manchester to speak to Conservative party members. He insisted the

Government's economic plan was working but was far from complete.

And that by running a budget surplus in the good times, he would fix the

roof while the sun was shining. But before we heard from Mr Osborne,

there was a little bit of celebrity sparkle, he was introduced by the

West Ham vice-chairman and star of The Apprentice, Karren Brady.

It is my great privilege that I introduce you to the only man that I

would happily be an apprentice for. He is the man behind that business

plan, the man who stuck to the plan. The man whose plan is dealing with

the utter mess he inherited and putting us on path to a brighter

future. He's the right man with the right plan. Ladies and gentlemen,

the Chancellor of the Exchequer, right plan. Ladies and gentlemen,

George Osborne. Well, thank you. Car Ren, thank you.

That was a brilliant introduction. You're hired! At every party

conference since the election, as we have gathered, the question for us,

the question for me, the question for our country has been, is your

economic plan working? They're not asking that question now. The

deficit down by a third. Exports doubled to China. Taxpayers' money

back from the banks, not going in. 1.4 million new jobs created by

businesses. 1,000 new jobs announced in this city today. Our plan is

working. Never again should anyone doing my job be so foolish, so

deluded, as to believe that they've abolished the age-old cycle of boom

deluded, as to believe that they've and bust. I can tell you today that

when we've dealt with Labour's deficit we will have a surplus in

good times as insurance against difficult times ahead. And provided

the recovery is sustained, our goal is to achieve that surplus in the

next parliament. That will bear down on our debts, prepare us for the

next rainy day, that's going to require discipline and spending

control. If we want to protect those things we care about, like generous

pensions and decent healthcare and buy the best equipment for the brave

men and women who fight in our armed forces, all of us are going to have

to confront the costs of modern Government, and cap working age

welfare bills. And that wasn't all. Mr Osborne went on to talk about how

hard his parents worked to set up their own business. He also

announced that he hoped to freeze fuel duty until 2015 to help people

with the cost of living. We have cut fuel duty. Abolished Labour's fuel

escalator. I can tell you today that provided we can find the savings to

pay for it, I want to freeze fuel duty for the rest of this

parliament. Conservatives don't just talk about being on the side of

hard-working people, we show it day in, day out in the policies we

deliver. People aspire to keep more of their income tax-free. Many

aspire to run their own businesses and work for themselves. My parents

planned carefully, took a risk, set up a small manufacturing company

more than 40 years ago. The company grew. Employed more people. And the

life of the family business, the orders won, the first exports, the

recessions and recoveries, these were the backdrop of my childhood. I

am hugely proud of my parents, of what my parents achieved, and I am

proud they're in this hall today. We Conservatives are nothing if we're

not the party of small business and that's the way it's going to stay.

And we're the party of home ownership, too. I am the first

person to say we must be vigilant about avoiding the mistakes of the

past. That's why I gave powers to the Bank of England to stop

dangerous housing bubbles emerging. But too many people are still being

denied the dream of owning their own home. So instead of starting the

next phase of Help To Buy next year, we are starting it next week. The

Chancellor went on to tell party members that the long-term

unemployed will have to undertake work placements in return for their

benefits, under tougher rules. The Help to Work scheme. What about the

long-term unemployed? Let us pledge here we will not abandon them as

previous governments did. Today I can tell you about a new approach

we're calling Help To Work. For the first time, all long-term unemployed

people who are capable of work will be required to do something in

return for their benefits and to help them find work. They will do

useful work putting something back into their community. Making meals

for the elderly, clearing up litter, working for a local charity. Others

will be made to attend the Jobcentre every working day. For those with

underlying problems like drug addiction and illiteracy there will

be an intensive regime of support. No one will be ignored or left

without help. No one will get something for nothing. Help to work

and in return work for the dole, because a fair welfare system is

fair to those who need it, and fair to those who pay for it, too.

Earlier this year, the greatest of our peace-time Prime Ministers died.

I was there in the cathedral at that emotional farewell. As I looked at

the coffin in front of me, draped in the Union Flag, I thought to myself,

for what will Margaret Thatcher best be remembered? Her strength? Her

conviction? The simple fact she was the first woman Prime Minister? Yes,

she'll be remembered for all of those things. But for me what she

really had was optimism. She refused to accept that Britain was in

terminal decline. She believed Britain had a great future, that the

British people could lead better and more prosperous lives and do -- so

do we. I tell you something, we are at our best when we are optimists.

We are at our best when we have faith that our country's better days

lie not behind us, but ahead. We've fought hard battles these last three

years. Held our nerve when all around urged us to give in. I want

people to look back at these years and say yes, these were the years of

difficult cuts and sacrifice. But this was also the time when I bought

my first home, set up my business, when our country invested in the

things that matter for our future. These were the years when we laid

the sound economic foundations on which better living standards are

built, the sound foundations without which better living standards cannot

be built. This is the time for a serious plan for a grown-up country.

We are turning Britain around. We say to the people of this nation, we

rescued the economy together. We are going to recover together. And

together we are going to share in the rewards. For the sun has started

to rise above the hill. The future looks brighter than it did just a

to rise above the hill. The future few dark years ago. Thank you very

much. As we heard, the Chancellor pledged

that a future Conservative Government would run a budget

surplus to protect the economy. Straight after the Chancellor's

speech, Andrew Neil spoke to the Conservative Chairman, Grant Shapps,

on The Daily Politics. Andrew challenged him that as they were

predicting deficits for years to come, it will be a long time before

they can run a surplus. It takes as long as it does to turn an economy

around that we now know was the deepest recession this country had

experienced certainly since the war, twice as deep as that in America, of

course, those figures now available show that's how bad it was under the

previous Government. It takes time to turn a ship like that around. We

are making progress, of course. We cut a third off the deficit. He's

made clear we are going to finish the job and then make sure that when

times are good we are running a surplus so this country can afford

it when there is another rainy day. Not before 2020 then? Well, I don't

know how long it's going to take. We have a clear projectory. I very much

hope we will have made more progress by the time we go to the election in

2015. So, it takes as long as it takes. The fact is what was

significant about today was George was saying never again, we are never

going to have that same mistake that Labour made of failing to fix the

roof when the sun was shining. On UKIP, if a Conservative backbencher,

Eurosceptic, decides to do a deal with UKIP at the next election, so

that UKIP doesn't run against him or he runs as a joint Tory-UKIP

candidate, as party chairman what will you do? First of all, our

policy of course is to have a referendum on a reformed Europe in

the next parliament by 2017. All of our candidates will be standing on

the basis that the Conservatives will give you a referendum. What

will you do? Secondly, I am explaining, we will run candidates

in all 650 constituencies as we always do. Thirdly, they will only

ever be on the ballot paper as Conservative candidates. If a

sitting Tory MP or aspiring Tory MP does a deal to be a joint candidate

with UKIP you will take them off the Tory approved list? They will not be

able to run as Tories? Just to be clear, this is different to the way

it used to work in the past. Every single person who stands for this

election in this country for a party has to be signed off by that party

to legally be the candidate. They will only be people on the ballot

papers described as Conservative candidates. There is no other

papers described as Conservative description. You will disown your

candidate who is try to run with UKIP? They can stand as

Conservatives, signed off as Conservatives. I still don't know

what you will do. Will a joint candidate still be the Tory

candidate? I don't understand what you mean by joint candidate. He can

only be the Conservative candidate. you mean by joint candidate. He can

The only description that can apply to him now whether UKIP stand or not

is their business. I can't see if I'm want to have a referendum over

Europe, for example, any point in UKIP standing anywhere. We are the

people who are going to offer the referendum and clearly David Cameron

as the only other choice to Ed Miliband walking up Downing Street

is the only Prime Minister to deliver on that pledge.

The fringe event of the day was for Nigel Farage. It was standing room

only and there were plenty of Tory MPs there. He said only UKIP was

promising a real referendum on Britain's membership of the European

Union. And the idea that somehow there is going to be a deal that

goes on between David Cameron and myself and UKIP, well, frankly, the

fact that I have been excised from the brochure of fringe meetings here

in Manchester tells you how likely that is. They regard us as being

members of the lower orders. They must be truly appalled that in the

upper reaches of UKIP we have working class people. This must be

the most shocking thing for Cameron to see. It really must. We are

treated with contempt. It was terribly funny on a programme

yesterday, he couldn't bring himself to mention my name or the word UKIP.

It's all too difficult. There isn't going to be a deal between us and

the Conservative Party at the next general election. That is

impossible. And our voters wouldn't want it. It would not be in the

national interests, frankly, to put MrCameron back in office when he

believes in continued membership of the European Union. But, I am not a

wholly unreasonable person. And I do recognise that there are some people

on the back benches in the Conservative Party and indeed there

are some in the Labour Party, too, who feel as UKIP feel on most of

these key issues. I think Peter Bone who's sitting here and Others have

made the running with the idea that why can't we have perhaps in some

made the running with the idea that areas a co-operation that takes

place at local level between UKIP associations and Tory or perhaps

even Labour local associations? My attitude is, you know, we run our

party on a very autonomous basis and if conversations take place at local

level with sitting Members of Parliament who want the support of

the local UKIP branch, and intend to run on a joint ticket, I am

open-minded to that because it seems to me getting those MPs back into

Westminster probably would be in the national interest and something

where UKIP would be prepared to work with you.

Earlier today I caught up with Lynton Crosby. We are talking about

UKIP today. How worried should be the party be by it? The party's

UKIP today. How worried should be focussed on the future and the

policies it's taking the British people and that's what it should

focus on. That's enough? Of course. No change? No. Boris Johnson, isn't

due to speak from the floor tomorrow morning, the Mayor of London and

conference darling is already working his magic on the fringe.

What is the definition of a milisecond? It's the time it takes

Ed Miliband to follow instructions of Len McCluskey. What is the

definition of a millimetre? It is the maximum distance that Ed will

allow himself to deviate from the policies of Unite or another union.

What is the definition of a milipede? I don't know, some sort of

left-wing insect, obviously. So, my message to the charming MrsFarage

and all those who believe in that way of thinking, and all her

friends, is look, don't vote for UKIP. Don't even think about it

because we will see this country if you do so as sleepwalk into a repeat

of the Labour Government. UKIP if you want to. If I can channel

MrsThatcher. UKIP if you want to. David Cameron's not for kipping.

Unless obviously he is at his sister-in-law's wedding. We are in a

- you will dpre, we are in a far, far better position now as

Conservatives having done I think a fantastic job. Our Government has

done a fantastic job since the election of 2010. We are in a far

bter position than we could have dreamed. We can win this argument

about living standards and show as George Osborne rightly said today

that we are the party with the serious policies to continue

creating conditions for a sustained and durable private sector recovery.

And we can show over the course of the next couple of years until the

election, less than two years now, that that is the best way to spread

opportunity, to generate jobs, to tackle poverty and inequality which

should be and are prime Conservative concerns, and to take Britain

forward. We won the argument. We won exactly this argument in London in

2012. Between short-term fools gold, and investment in our City. We are

seeing exactly the same pitch now from Miliband and Labour to the

country at large and I have no doubt that we can win across the country

in Britain in 2015. Thank you very much indeed for listening.

This afternoon, it was the turn of the Home Secretary, Theresa May, and

her team. Mrs May reiterated the Conservatives' pledge to scrap the

Human Rights Act and pull out of the European Convention on Human Rights

if it restricts the UK's ability to act in the national interest.

We must not for one second underestimate the threat we face

from terrorism and the challenges we must meet in confronting extremism.

But let the message go out from this hall today that whatever the race,

religion, and beliefs of a terrorist, whatever the race,

religion and beliefs of their victims, this is Britain and we are

all British. We stand united against terrorism and we will never succumb

all British. We stand united against to violence.

It's because of the terrorist threat that this Government has taken a

tough new approach. A new strategy to confront all forms of extremism,

not just violent extremism. More foreign hate preachers excluded than

ever before. And foreign terror suspects, including Abu Hamza, and

Abu Qatada, removed from Britain for good.

But it's ridiculous that the British Government should have to go to such

lengths to get rid of dangerous foreigners. That's why the next

Conservative manifesto will promise to scrap the Human Rights Act. It's

why Chris Grayling is leading a review of our relationship with the

European Court. It's why the Conservative position is clear, if

leaving the European convention is what it takes to fix our human

rights laws, that is what we should do. Those are issues for the general

election when Labour and the Lib Dems will have to explain why they

value the rights of terrorists and criminals more than the rights of

the rest of us. In the meantime, we need to do all we can now to limit

the damage. The Government will soon publish the Immigration Bill, which

will make it easier to get rid of people with no right to be here.

First, we're going to cut the number of appeal rights. At the moment, the

system is like a never-ending game of snakes and ladders with almost

70,000 appeals heard every year. The winners are foreign criminals and

immigration lawyers. While the losers are the victims of these

crimes and the public. So we're going to cut the number of appeal

rights from 17 to four. And in doing so, cut the total number of appeals

by more than half. Last year, human rights were cited in almost 10,000

immigration appeal cases. The second thing we will do is extend the

number of non-suspencive appeals. That means that where there is a

rips - no risk of serious and irreversible harm we should deport

foreign criminals first, and hear their appeals later.

And third, the Immigration Bill will sort out the abuse of Article 8, the

right to a family life, once and for all. This is used by thousands of

people to stay in Britain every year. The trouble is, while the

European Convention makes clear that a right to a family life is not

absolute, judges often treat it as an unqualified right. That's why I

published new immigration rules stating that foreign criminals and

illegal immigrants should ordinarily be deported, despite their claim to

a family life. Those rules were debated in the House of Commons.

a family life. Those rules were They were approved unanimously. But

some judges chose to ignore parliament and go on putting the law

on the side of foreign crim naps instead of the public. So I am

sending a very clear message to those judges. Parliament wants the

law on the people's side. The public wants the law on the people's side.

And Conservatives in Government will put the law on the people's side

once and for all. At every conference, there are stalls for

party members to peruse and buy things from when they're not in the

conference hall. Here in Manchester, there's a Harvey Nichols stall, for

example. But one of the most popular stalls is the one selling Margaret

Thatcher memorabilia. The best-selling item so far is an Iron

Lady bib and new in today is this cloth bag which looks like a

handbag. But can David Cameron match up to Lady Thatcher? Adam Fleming

has been finding out with his moodbox.

You can't move for tributes to the Iron Lady. There is even a gift shop

dedicated to her. Who will members vote as the better leader? Margaret

Thatcher or David Cameron? What has she got that Cameron hasn't? Guts.

Guts and determination and standing up. Could David Cameron do anything

to swing your vote? No. Thank you very much. Messed it up on the gay

votes for me, that was the final thing for me. I am a massive Cameron

fan. Will he have more of a historical legacy than the Iron Lady

Probably not. It won't be a radical time. Will the Tories see the like

of her again? Maybe. I don't know if in my lifetime. I hope so. Is there

a potential Iron Lady in the ranks you can see? I don't think so.

Cameron is more democratic than Thatcher was. I can't say no to

MrsThatcher. But I have to say a big yes to David Cameron. Most people my

age don't know much about Thatcher. I happen to be a fan, I ever seen

everything she has done on TV Literally everything? Every clip I

have seen on YouTube. How do you think MrsThatcher would react if I

thrust these in her face? You naughty boy! Would you rather work

for David Cameron or Margaret Thatcher? That's David Cameron's

Chief of Staff. The hall was packed, people standing around the edges and

there was an excitement and buzz about politics. And today that's all

gone. What's Cameron's miners' strike?

UKIP. Someone has paid someone to put the balls in the Cameron one.

Then by the end of the day, quite soon probably, the Thatcher one will

be overflowing. And they'll have to transfer some to the Cameron one.

Hang on, I see a bit of Thatcher fashion tribute going on here. I

look like a granny, is that what you mean! No, no, just one more.

Thatcher or Cameron? Um... Both. Sorry. It's an either/or. As an

historian you can't got some people. I am going to go for Thatcher, she

had balls. Who has more balls, Thatcher or Cameron? If David

Cameron was here voting he would vote for the person that I am going

to vote for. Who is? Lady Thatcher, of course. Prime Minister, who's got

more balls you or MrsThatcher? The Prime Minister must have seen it as

more balls you or MrsThatcher? The he swept through here. The result of

the moodbox that Thatcher is more popular than he is.

That's it for today in Manchester as the Conservative Party take on board

George Osborne's speech. Tomorrow, one of the Conservatives' most

recognisable figures addresses the party's conference - the Mayor of

London, Boris Johnson. Also speaking in the course of the day are the

Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, and the Education Secretary, Michael

Gove. The Daily Politics Conference

Special will be on BBC2 at midday tomorrow and I'll be back tomorrow

night after Newsnight with another Today at Conference. Until then,

goodnight.