Where were you on March 17, 1998? It was St Patrick’s Day, of course, but something far more significant than the annual Guinness-fest occurred on that Tuesday.

I remember it well: I should have been at Cheltenham’s National Hunt festival to watch JP McManus’s Istabraq win the first of his three Champion Hurdles. Instead, I was in the office, watching Labour’s Gordon Brown deliver the first of his 10 full Budgets. Istabraq was electrifying; Mr Brown merely intriguing.

The full article and damning evidence can be found here

FROM: THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY CENTRAL OFFICE

The Prime Minister
10, Downing Street
London, SW1A 2AA

3 February 2010

Dear Mr Brown

At Prime Minister’s Questions today, you told the House of Commons that you knew nothing
about the secret fund, worth a reported £50,000, which was held by the Labour Party for your benefit. When asked why you did not declare this on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests (RMFI), you said specifically: ‘I know nothing about what he [the questioner] is talking about.’

This simply cannot be true.

It is clear from Peter Watt, the Labour Party’s former General Secretary, that you were the beneficiary of a secret fund held by the Labour Party. He has said explicitly:

‘Before becoming Prime Minister, Gordon went to some lengths to insulate himself and the Treasury from our financial troubles, setting up his own personal pot of cash at party HQ. This was money we could not dip into, since it was set aside for the Chancellor’s own pet projects. Murray Elder helped secure donations from the Chancellor’s supporters’ (Inside Out, January 2010, page 105).

He went on to claim that it may have been used to finance your ‘long-term campaign to become party leader’ (Inside Out, Peter Watt, 2010, page 105).

Mr Watt’s assertions were widely reported. Indeed, across several pages in the Mail on Sunday, Mr Watt claimed that you used ‘up to £50,000-a-year of Labour money to pay for private polling’ (Mail on Sunday, 17 January 2010).

The allegations were explicitly confirmed as truthful by a Labour official who said in the same article: ‘It [the fund] was funded through donations to the Party.’

In the light of these allegations, my colleague, Greg Hands MP, wrote to you more than two weeks ago, on 17 January, to query why you had failed to declare the fund properly the

Register of Members’ Financial Interests. This letter was publicised in several newspapers on 18 January.

As you did not respond, Greg Hands submitted a complaint to John Lyon, the Parliamentary Commissioner this week. I attach a copy of this complaint for your reference. Again, this complaint was reported.

Yesterday in a speech titled ‘Transforming Politics’, you said that you would ‘do all that is necessary to restore trust’ in politics and the conduct of MPs. If you wish to restore trust in politics, you should stop treating people like fools by claiming that you were unaware of this fund when all the evidence points to the contrary..

I therefore urge you to admit to this fund’s existence, apologise for misleading the House and co-operate with any inquiries that John Lyon may wish to make.

Yours sincerely,

Eric Pickles
Chairman, The Conservative Party
Member of Parliament for Brentwood and Ongar

About Julian:  Julian Bray is a broadcaster, moderator, speaker, journalist and lectures on leadership, company turnarounds, corporate and recession busting strategies, politics, aviation, travel and The City.

In the run up to the General Election #GE10 it has become apparent that the Business Secretary’s contempt for charitable organisations has reached new lows as he robs charities to claw money back the for reckless spending machine that is the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP).

Last month Lord Mandelson decided to remove an exemption for charities from music licensing rules which quite simply means that from April 2010 those organisations will have to choose between paying large bills if they hold events with recorded music or do without the music completely.

By law all retail outlets are bound by the Performing Rights Society (PRS) representing composers and songwriters, there is no exemption for charities.

However, a large majority of these organisations must also purchase a licence from Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL) representing performers and record companies. Currently there are two small clauses in the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 (Sections 67 and 72) that exempt charities from this requirement.

Lord Mandelson has decided to remove this exemption following a public consultation by the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) ensuring this is in place for April this year. Is this another sign that #GE10 will be in March?

Let’s consider a few areas this affects so we can see just how bloody silly this really is. A charity shop with music in the background would be forced to pay. Carnival floats that play music would be forced to pay. A carer’s association or nursery playing music to entertain the children would be forced to pay.

Think it’s wrong? You know where to put your X on polling day at #GE10.

In true panto spirit Alistair Darling today announced something more akin to the truth that faces this country.

Ministry Of Misinformation representative pictured adjacent to Comical Ali(stair)

Seems that even today Gordon Brown has a problem with the ‘C’ word. Call that election Gordon and you’ll know what a job cut really is.

With deepest thanks to AngryOfCroydon for this contribution.

LabourLost can only agree with every word of the above.

The election campaign is already starting to get heated. Yes, those in the frame for Leader of the Labour Party are really stepping up a gear.

We all know it is General Election year #GE10 and the most likely date is 6th May, following a Budget full of empty promises of investment, prosperity and pay later schemes. But there is currently an election looming far sooner and far more meaningful for the Labour Party and potentially the country.

It is clearly understood that any leader of the Labour Party other than Gordon Brown following a coup would be able to narrow the Poll gap between themselves and the Conservative Party as the incumbent would inevitably enjoy the honeymoon period and the ‘bounce’ that goes with a personality change.

For months it was assumed that 26th March would be #GE10 thereby allowing the Government to avoid announcing any form of Budget but that would simply not allow enough time for the new leader to make the role his/her own.

Following a pre-Christmas party hosted by Charles Clarke the former Home Secretary and one of the most vocal anti-Brown campaigners it seems one output was to brief a series of coordinated press releases slamming the leadership of Gordon Brown and stating how better off the party and the country would be without him at the helm.

Briefings: Charles Clarke, Barry Sheerman, Greg Pope, Polly Toynbee

…the list of those present includes Parmjit Dhanda, Malcolm Wicks and Meg Munn

So then, who is the in the driving seat and who is set to star in the shake-up of the Labour party?

Or, are we to face yet another failed coup from a bunch of snipers who haven’t got the courage to do anything other than moan about how bad a Conservative Government would be for Britain?

We already know that Harriet Harman is to head up Gordon Brown and the PLP’s #GE10 campaign which sidelines Lord Mandelson (a very risky strategy indeed), but was this appointment simply to the *Fearless Five striking first?

*Fearless Five are a group of rebels led by Jack Straw, the others are Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman, Chancellor Alistair Darling, Foreign Secretary David Miliband and Home Secretary Alan Johnson.

One also has to wonder how much Sarah Brown will be used throughout #GE10 as already she has persuaded an ex-colleague from the PR field, Helen Scott Lidgett to join her in the depths of the bunker.

Today, Gordon Brown will give a speech that will be full of empty promises and scorn on the Tories but will it be enough to stave the assassins from his door?

It’s quite a claim on the last day of the decade as we push towards a new era with the advent of the demise of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Given the size of the claim does it stack up against the even bigger claim by Gordon Brown to have ended boom and bust and that Britain was better positioned than others to weather the recession? Considering that Britain is still in recession whilst every other G20 country has prospered one has to consider the claim by the Oxford Economics ThinkTank to be factual.

There are a number of economists who believe the country returned to growth within the Q4 2009 though considering the artificial spending patterns in November and December and the last minute rush to gain what can be gained from the reduced VAT rate there are a growing number of economists who believe this growth,if real at all to be unsustainable.

It has already been proved that this year has seen the worst performance for our economy since the 1920’s and year on year both Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown are forced to come to the despatch box and state their figures are to be revised.

Oxford Economics findings state that GDP per person fell to £22,700 on average in 2009, down from £23,000 in 2005 after inflation adjustment – a fall of 1.3%. In Labour’s first two terms GDP per head grew 12.6% and 8.3% respectively.

Supposing there may be some recovery in economic growth in 2010, Oxford Economics expects GDP per head to be £22,775 next year (measured in 2009 prices) – which in reality is a reduction in living standards equivalent to £225 per person when compared with 2005.

Adrian Cooper, the managing director of Oxford Economics went on record with the following statement

The decline in UK GDP per capita over the last four years contrasts markedly with the improvements seen over the Labour government’s first two terms

…he further stated

Coupled with the tax rises to be implemented over the coming years – starting on 1 January 2010 – this research underlines the new age of austerity facing the UK economy

There are oh so many woes for this Government but unfortunately that means there are oh so many woes for this country ahead of the General Election #GE10.

We’ve said it before and we reiterate it people, please use your vote and use it wisely.

During the run up to the GE we shall continue to use the #labourlost hashtag on Twitter and we shall also be using the #GE10 hashtag; there are several other suggestions doing the rounds but we believe #GE10 to be fully representative and utilising only 5 characters we believe it is also the best possible use of space for the purpose of Twitter.

So, come the election how will you vote?

Are you a core supporter of a particular Party? Have you always voted the same way?

What forged your opinions and political ethos?

Will you vote on the day with local requirements in mind, for instance against your normal beliefs because you like what a candidate has promised for your constituency?

Will you decide on the day or have you already made your mind up and nothing on this earth however said or done can change that?

Are you doing anything special to help your local candidate? Do you want to get involved but don’t know how to assist? (Whichever Party: use the comment form and we can try to let you know).

It is very clear at the moment that even the Pollsters don’t know what is happening or what is going to happen on the day and we can see this clearly almost on a daily basis with the Conservatives reported to be 17% clear whilst another poll claims Labour have cut the lead to just 9%.

Slowly we have threads of the new shaping of things to come with claim and counter from all sides, the slow unraveling of the pre-budget report and now the potential of a March election which would let Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown off the hook with regards to announcing the real budget and real state of the nation’s finances.

If we do have a March election it would be nigh on impossible to stage a TV Debate although it was blogged to this effect back in October by Parlez_me_nTory.

Just a few things to set the mind working in the run up to Christmas and that long period of plotting, electioneering and gathering of strategy. I love this period as the nation steadies its troops and all parties are placed on a war footing.

We’re not talking about being unable to remember a date for a course undertaken or slightly changing the result of a task you actually undertook in a previous role to highlight the positive outcome more favourably, no, this was not just any lie.

This was your diamond studded, gold encrusted M&S kind of lie.

Back in 1994 Sally [Illman] applied for a role with City PR firm Consolidated Communications with a supporting CV claiming she had attained a degree from Oxford; the boss of the firm Alastair Gornall claims that was the deciding factor in her recruitment.

After Consolidated Communications did some checking to confirm Ms Illman’s status the firm were told by Oxford University that no such degree had been issued as the student had dropped out after 2 years. Former students recall how she neglected her studies in favour of socialising.

Mr Gornall challenged his new recruit and following an angry exchange in which he accused her of lying, he subsequently fired her.

Yesterday a spokesman for Mrs Bercow insisted she had never knowingly lied about her academic achievements. He blamed ‘confusion’ that may have arisen when her academic details were passed to Consolidated by a head-hunting firm.

Confusion? In this instance what does that mean? The CV has to be clear it either says the candidate has a degree or it doesn’t, there is no half-way house. That is, unless you are deliberately trying to deceive as it would seem Ms Illman was.

The spokesman continued: ‘In the CV she said she was at Oxford from 1988 to 1990. Anyone could work out that is two years and not three. Nor did the CV say she had completed her degree. She never gave the impression, either verbally or in written form, that she had completed her degree at Oxford.’

Mrs Bercow studied theology in her first year, then switched to history. However, towards the end of her second year, university authorities became concerned that she was neglecting her studies.

They told her to take a year out to ‘get her head together’. She left – but never returned.

In addition to changing her mind on her studies from theology to history to drop-out she also switched her political allegiance in an attempt to find her true mind. Shortly before leaving Oxford, Ms Illman (once a Conservative) joined the Liberal Democrats, later returning to the Tories but by 1997 she had defected to Labour.

It would seem that with an early sign of a lack of integrity Mrs Bercow was always destined to represent the PLP though with dedication and loyalty such as that displayed by Mrs Bercow I pity the electorate of Westminster should she gain the seat at the forthcoming General Election.

LabourLost believe you may enjoy further reading related to a woman with a past.

Many tomes will be written today and in the future about the cynical content of the speech and how it is in effect a pre-manifesto manifesto so I don’t for one minute propose to add to that weight of words.

Instead, I propose to discuss something I feel is far more newsworthy today as I believe it ’slipped’ under the radar yesterday in the furore of an investment announcement.

Yesterday, Lord Adonis announced that the 10 worst railway stations in England would each get to share £50m. That much we already know.

Fair enough, in the past I have been ‘quietly impressed’ with Lord Adonis and his apparent concern for doing the right thing by the railways but somehow, this just doesn’t sit comfortably with Parlez~me~’n~Tory.

How does Lord Adonis suddenly (1 day prior to a huge swathe of announcements within the Queen’s Speech) decide which stations are to be in his remit for this investment proposal?

What criteria was used for determining the worst stations in the country? Was this a consultative process? If so, with whom and when?

Personally, I believe that the only consultation (external to rail management) was between members of the Cabinet and only very senior members at that.

It is the belief of Parlez~me~’n~Tory that the criteria used was based purely on the best possible chance of a positive return at the General Election. Shall I put that statement into perspective?

Let’s take a look at the stations that are set to benefit and who controls the community. The 2nd line of each entry indicates: MP (Constituency/Benefitting area, Party) Majority (Year entered Parliament):

Station: Barking

Margaret Hodge (Barking, Lab) 8,883 (1994)

Station: Clapham Junction

Martin Linton (Battersea, Lab) 163 (1997)

Station: Crewe

Edward Timpson (Crewe & Nantwich, Con) 7,860 (2008)

Station: Liverpool Central

Maria Eagle (Liverpool, Garston, Lab) 7,193 (1997)
Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside, Lab) 10,214 (1997)
Peter Kilfoyle (Liverpool, Walton, Lab) 15,957 (1991)
Jane Kennedy (Liverpool, Wavertree, Lab) 5,173 (1992)
Robert Wareing (Liverpool, West Derby, Ind) 15,225 (1983)

Station: Luton

Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North, Lab) 6,487 (1997)
Margaret Moran (Luton South, Lab) 5,650 (1997)

Station: Manchester Victoria

Tony Lloyd (Manchester Central, Lab) 9,776 (1983)
Graham Stringer (Manchester, Blackley, Lab) 12,027
Gerald Kaufman (Manchester, Gorton, Lab) 5,808 (1970)
John Leech (Manchester, Withington, Ldem) 667 votes (2005)

Station: Preston

Mark Hendrick (Preston, Lab) 9,407 (2000)

Station: Stockport

Ann Coffey (Stockport, Lab) 9,163 (1992)

Station: Warrington Bank Quay

Helen Jones (Warrington North, Lab) 12,204 (1997)
Helen Southworth (Warrington South, Lab) 3,515 (1997)

Station: Wigan North Weston

Neil Turner (Wigan, Lab) 11,767 (1999)

Do you notice a pattern developing?

It is rather obvious that apart from a token Conservative, Liberal Democrat and Independent the rest are Labour; not exactly with the strongest majorities either.

So, we have many Government ministers that were already set to enter the General Election campaign on very shaky ground who can now point to a huge cash investment in their region as evidence of what the Labour Government can and will do for their community. [It would be very interesting to do some analysis on what the breakdown of each local council is for these regions]…anyone wish to do that work?

Expect countless cries of ‘you wouldn’t get this under a Tory Government’ most notably in the voice of John Prescott to ram home hard the ‘working class’ Labour perception.

With the strategic position of the vast majority of these seats, [don't think for one minute they weren't chosen without that in mind] this investment turns out to be not quite what you thought it was yesterday and with the Queen’s speech today this will be all but lost in the noise. This cannot be allowed to happen.

MP’s from all sides, lobbyists and the blogosphere must leap on this and challenge Lord Adonis for the truth behind his rationale.

This post was first published on the Parlez~me~’n~Tory blog.

Lord Mandelson, who once represented Hartlepool as an MP has just been granted a freeman of the town. His new title reads a full 45 words and is:

The Right Honourable Baron Mandelson of Foy in the county of Herefordshire and Hartlepool in the county of Durham, Lord President of the Council, First Secretary of State, and Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and Honorary Freeman of the borough of Hartlepool.

If that wasn’t ridiculous enough there are grave doubts about the fairness in which he was granted the new title.

In a straight run-off Lord Mandelson would have been up against Isobel Wilson of the town’s Pansies Breast Cancer Support Group, Wendy McLoughlin MBE, 63, who chairs Hartlepool Families First for disabled children and sports presenter (locally-born) Jeff Stelling. But strange occurrences within the council ensured that any vote against Lord Mandelson would mean that one-out, all-out!

Previously, Hartlepool council has voted on each candidate individually for the honorary title of freeman. One councillor stated that the secret meeting headed up by the ruling Labour group which took place on 5th November was blatant emotional blackmail.

Labour group leader Jonathan Brash demanded a vote to couple Lord Mandelson’s name in with four other nominations for freeman and two for alderman, a total of seven.

The resulting vote was tied at 19-all, with 17 of those 19 votes in favour coming from Labour councillors, including Lord Mandelson’s former agent and close ally, Steve Wallace. The casting vote went to Carl Richardson, the chairman (Labour).

Councillors were then instructed to gain a two-thirds majority to grant all 7 nominations the title, if any attempt to block Lord Mandelson was undertaken, they would have to block popular Sky Sports presenter Jeff Stelling.

A total of 32 votes were cast which, under the two-thirds majority rule, meant 22 votes were needed to secure Lord Mandelson’s freeman title. The result was 22 to ten – with six abstentions.

LabourLost says: Lord Mandelson, you disgust me. Riding roughshod over genuine and good people that have actually done something for the community. Yet another example of the abuse of powers that is endemic within the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Whilst the row, rightly or wrongly continues apace with The SUN v the Government regarding the mother of Guardsman Janes there are individual movements within the PLP to shore up their defences so that those individuals are best placed to capitalise from a most catastrophic defeat.

The latest of these machinations on display is that by one David Miliband MP. It is very clear that Mr Miliband has his sights on a powerful role whether it be in Britain or controlling Britain from Europe.

Forced to make a choice yesterday David Miliband has all but refused the job of foreign affairs within the newly created European structure following the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty preferring instead to show his allegiance to the PLP.

Senior members of the PLP have briefed David Miliband in private that they believe there is still a chance that Gordon Brown would step down before the General Election and that he would be best placed to step into the void.

They have also briefed him that to walk away now would not sit well with the core support as he would appear as a rat leaving a sinking ship.

As a consequence this single act of forfeiture says more about his personal ambition than his desire to do what is best for his country.

The problem with the UK is since the Thatcher era we have been constantly punching above our weight and when Labour came into power some twelve years ago, it was with the promise of a new revitalised UK.

Northern Ireland (with an untold amount of money thrown at it) no longer was a nagging sore, deals were done and the Irish Taliban, senior IRA personnel, were given shoe-in positions of power, when at least one of them should have been facing a trial for 18 well documented murders and the UK authorities to this very day have all the evidence – firmly under lock and key.

The involvement of an Irish Priest at one point caused at least one of the major fugitives to be released having been captured after a long and bloody search by the military.

I know this as the senior military figure in Belfast at the time (now sadly passed on) recounted the story in detail to me. It was at the end of his distinguished military career when he, Major Napier was looking forward to retirement, but was unexpectedly posted to Belfast with the Kings Own Troop Royal Horse Artillery.

Ironically, I later heard the London Met. Police (at the time, on virtual permanent secondment to Northern Ireland) view on the same series of incidents in Northern Ireland and all the strands matched up.

So given the Northern Ireland experience and the fact that Tony Blair was in the driving seat, you can see why Gordon Brown is keen to make Afghanistan work, even though the current rate of murders (you really can’t call them battlefield casualties) is exceeding the Falklands daily tally.

There but for the grace of God

Ministers keep to the line that if we pull out, the Taliban will join with other terrorist groups, overrun Pakistan and use nuclear weapons against us in the UK.

So the classic Westminster model thinking is (as used back in colonial times) support the functioning Government of the day, put in place basic elements of a rag tag police force and implant basic civic systems, use a combination of bribes dressed up as aid and threats (withdrawal of bribes ie aid) to exert a nominal hold over the incumbent Government.

Trouble is everyone knows that the UK is financially stretched and the populous does not have the jingoistic (politically incorrect) will to support the action in Afghanistan.

Children have grown up during the 12 years of Labour inspired multicultural rule and with information computer technology, know far more about world affairs than many politicians from a previous more sane world.

Take a walk around any major UK conurbation, find the Central Library computer room or in-town internet cafés, the collective high tech teaching of discredited and deported Mullahs are to be found streaming hate and vilification 24 hours a day and 7 days a week.

Essentially it’s Gordon Brown looking at the Autumn of his political aspirations versus the Mullahs? No contest in some ethnic and religious groupings. The days of a stiff upper lip, swagger stick and a loud “Now look here…” no longer works. ‘Johnny Foreigner’ lives in the UK, has a growing family, a taxpayer and is now a second/third generation British Citizen.

Ministers say the threat comes from a variety of ‘dark’ fanatical well financed, trained, equipped forces combining together and then our own mainland is threatened.

For this reason if you follow the logic, we fight hand to hand skirmish actions with conventional weaponry and highly restrictive rules of engagement in Afghanistan?

Rather than unleashing a concerted arms length missile based attack and blanket carpet bombing of poppy fields,Taliban strongholds and used of a whole range of weapons of mass destruction NATO forces have stashed away. The whole Dr Strangelove scenario if you like, and where are all those NATO troops and associated support?

There is no front line

Publicly when we were ‘winning’ it looked good, and gave MPs something to talk about.

The UK looked good (in Gordons’ good eye anyway) at international symposia such as the G8 or G20 and soon wonderful Copenhagen. Such actions keep the arms industry in operation and many thousands employed in areas traditionally associated with high unemployment.

On the money side conventional warfare is also cheap, the Treasury likes that, having dipped into and virtually emptied the secret off balance sheet military ‘contingency fund’ or ‘war chest’ to pay off (or bail out) the bankers, prop up the massive underfunding of the Olympics, the private sector was supposed to have filled.

The truth is that few really understanding what goes on inside the many privately funded faith schools, parents and young impressionable people also have access to superior worldwide family and wider networking avenues only open and normal to people of Asian origin. All perfectly legal and supported to the hilt, by the Human Rights Act.

It also has to be said, the traditional British family unit crumbled a few generations back. As to the UK’s world financial standing, reading The Daily Telegraph as the Taliban certainly do, “UK is ‘skint’ says M&S’s Sir Stuart Rose”. If the Taliban didn’t know it earlier they certainly do now!

So no strong public backing for the war, no extra money to fight it and a Government on the way out probably by late March. MP’s collectively tarnished as corrupt with Duckhouses and moats to clean, all out of the public purse. Whilst mounting job losses are announced daily and not just in the hundreds but thousands. Nothing like a good recession to have a bottom upwards corporate clear out, it’s not looking good.

A weak, corrupt Afghanistan Government and subsistence level poorly paid Afghan trainee police officers drawn from the general population, with minimal vetting. Extra income and wider families covertly maintained by the opium warlords and in a country where everyone is related. That is what our troops are facing, and Gordon Brown knows it.

The sad reality of war: RIP

So what should be done. Gordon needs to save face. He’s lost his saintly spin doctor, rudderless if you like, nervous about returning highly professional motivated battle hardened but disciplined British troops en-mass to the UK, but that is what has to be done, the real threat is from within and as we are now fully within Europe, the Lisbon treaty having been ratified, take full advantage of it.

Europe can now collectively take over the Police training role and supply on a rota basis, the NATO troops required, our insular role is effectively done and dusted. We should leave Afghanistan, within weeks and if there is any training to be done, it can be carried out at arms length in neutral territory in any one of a number of European countries.

We’ll continue to supply the hardware and remote drone assisted air support but our British troops on the ground in hostile conditions? This is the battle tactic of 64 years ago, the Battle of the Somme without the mud. Just as futile and pointless.

The heartbreaking thing is that all the Ministers know it, but have to keep it going until they can collectively pass the buck or baton to a new administration. “Not our problem old boy. Fancy a pink Gin?”

END

About Julian:  Julian Bray is a broadcaster, moderator, speaker, journalist and lectures on leadership, company turnarounds, corporate and recession busting strategies, politics, aviation, travel and The City.

A few days ago Ian Craig, the chief schools adjudicator, recommended a range of new penalties to be introduced to punish parents who break school admissions rules by giving false addresses, fibbing about their ‘real’ address and moving house just to personally gain from the postcode.

Fair enough, I can understand that. But who is it that’s behind this mandate?

None other than the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families Ed Balls MP who along with his wife Yvette Cooper MP according to the Telegraph’s MP’s expenses research ‘flipped’ their homes a number of times

After being elected to Parliament for the first time in 1997, Miss Cooper, now the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, designated a modest property in her constituency of Castleford, west Yorkshire, as her second home, and began claiming mortgage interest payments on her parliamentary allowances.

In May 2005, after Mr Balls was elected MP for Normanton, Miss Cooper “flipped” her second home to the family house she shared with her husband and their three children in south London. The couple both began claiming a half share of the £1,466 mortgage interest, a sum of £733 each compared with the £530 she had been paying in Yorkshire.

Two years later, in May 2007, the couple moved again, to a larger, £655,000 property in north London which they designated their second home. Their mortgage interest payments increased to just over £1,031 each.

They also put the bill for the £2,000 cost of removal vans and men on their parliamentary expenses.

…and just in case you thought they were hard up

Yvette Cooper

Job: Chief secretary to the Treasury

Salary: £141,866

Total second home claims

2004-05: £19,428

2005-06: £14,234

2006-07: £15,995

2007-08: £12,219

Ed Balls

Job: Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families

Salary: £141,866

Total second home claims

2004-05: Not elected

2005-06: £13,618

2006-07: £15,979

2007-08: £12,219

I put it to you Mr and Mrs Balls, you potentially gave false addresses, fibbed about your ‘real’ address and moved house just to personally gain from the postcode.

You are no better than those you seek to suppress.

Previously published over at Parlez~me~’n~Tory

This explains why the ‘cast iron’ guarantee was not adopted and what we can expect from a Conservative Government with regards to Europe.

[Here is the speech in full]

Yesterday in Prague, the Czech Constitutional Court rejected the one remaining challenge to the Lisbon Treaty, and the President of the Czech Republic signed it.

The Lisbon Treaty has now been ratified by every one of the twenty seven member states of the European Union, and our campaign for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty is therefore over.

Why? Because it is no longer a Treaty: it is being incorporated into the law of the European Union.

Next week, the new posts that the Lisbon Treaty creates – a President and a Foreign Minister – will be filled.

We cannot hold a referendum and magically make those posts – or the Lisbon Treaty itself – disappear, any more than we could hold a referendum to stop the sun rising in the morning.

I know, from the many public meetings I’ve held around the country, from the huge number of letters and emails that I receive, how much the people of this country will resent the fact that we cannot now have the referendum we were promised.

The decision to promise, and then deny, a referendum was taken by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.

The betrayal was backed and matched by the Liberal Democrats.

And I believe it ranks alongside the expenses scandal as one of the reasons that trust in politics has broken down.

Of course I wanted a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.

I’ve argued for it, campaigned for it, put it front and centre in our European election campaign.

We have voted for it in Parliament.

I’ve challenged the Prime Minister about his broken promise at every opportunity.

And if the Treaty had not been ratified by every European government when we came to the election, we would have held a referendum on it.

But now it has been ratified.

And I always said that if this happened, I would set out immediately how a Conservative Government would respond.

So today, I want to speak directly to the British people.

I want to explain what a new Conservative government will do to protect Britain’s interests in Europe and salvage something from the mess that Labour will have left us.

And I want to speak to our European partners too, to set out clearly what they can expect from a Conservative government in Britain.

NEVER AGAIN

First, we will make sure that this never happens again.

Never again should it be possible for a British government to transfer power to the EU without the say of the British people.

If we win the next election, we will amend the European Communities Act 1972 to prohibit, by law, the transfer of power to the EU without a referendum.

And that will cover not just any future treaties like Lisbon, but any future attempt to take Britain into the euro.

We will give the British people a referendum lock to which only they should hold the key – a commitment very similar to that in Ireland.

This is a major constitutional development.

But I believe it is now the only way to reassure the British people that powers cannot be given away without their explicit approval in a referendum.

It is not politicians’ power to give away – it belongs to the people.

So at the General Election, we will challenge the other political parties to accept the referendum lock and pledge never to reverse it.

NO MADE-UP REFERENDUM

I recognise there are some who, now that we cannot have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, want a referendum on something else…anything else.

But I just don’t think it’s right to concoct some new pretext for a referendum simply to have one for the sake of it.

That wouldn’t survive serious scrutiny.

I don’t think a made-up referendum will get Britain anywhere.

For instance, what about a referendum asking for a mandate for our negotiating aims in Europe?

We would have just asked for that mandate in an election and received it.

Would we really want to turn round straight after an election, with the public finances in the state they are in and the economy as fragile as it is and ask the same question all over again?

A made-up referendum might make people feel better for five minutes but my job is to put together a plan that lasts five years, and I don’t think a phoney referendum should play any part in that.

Let me repeat: a Conservative government will guarantee a referendum if there is any attempt to transfer further powers from Britain to the EU.

But if we wasted everyone’s time and taxpayers’ money on a referendum that has no practical effect, I don’t think the British people would thank us for it.

SOVEREIGNTY

In any case, there is more we can do than simply promise a referendum lock on any future handover of power.

Take the sovereignty of our laws.

Because we have no written constitution, unlike many other EU countries, we have no explicit legal guarantee that the last word on our laws stays in Britain.

There is therefore a danger that, over time, our courts might come to regard ultimate authority as resting with the EU.

So as well as making sure that further power cannot be handed to the EU without a referendum, we will also introduce a new law, in the form of a United Kingdom Sovereignty Bill, to make it clear that ultimate authority stays in this country, in our Parliament.

This is not about Westminster striking down individual items of EU legislation.

It is about an assurance that the final word on our laws is here in Britain.

It would simply put Britain on a par with Germany, where the German Constitutional Court has consistently upheld – including most recently on the Lisbon treaty – that ultimate authority lies with the bodies established by the German Constitution.

But people will rightly say that the Lisbon Treaty does not just transfer powers to Brussels today.

It allows further powers to be transferred in the future, because it contains a mechanism to abolish vetoes and transfer power without the need for a new Treaty.

We do not believe that any of these so-called ratchet clauses should be used to hand over more powers from Britain to the EU.

Furthermore, we would change the law so that any use of a ratchet clause by a future government would require full approval by Parliament.

These changes: the referendum lock, the Sovereignty Bill, stopping the use of ratchet clauses, all these changes can be put in place by our own Parliament.

They do not require the approval of our European partners – merely the sanction of the British people at the ballot box, which we will seek at the forthcoming General Election.

They will put in place real protection for our democracy – protections other countries have but which are missing here in Britain.

They would increase accountability, and they would ensure that the breach of trust committed by this Labour Government could never happen again.

Those two words – never again – will be on our leaflets, in our Manifesto: we will make sure that the British people remember who it was that broke their promise – Labour, and who it is that will stop this happening again – the Conservatives.

BRITISH GUARANTEES

But these measures are all about preventing problems in the future.

They don’t deal with the problems we are facing today, which will now be made worse by the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty.

In essence, these problems boil down to the steady and unaccountable intrusion of the European Union into almost every aspect of our lives.

A Conservative Government will address some of these problems by negotiating three specific guarantees with our European partners guarantees over powers that we believe should reside with Britain, not the EU.

First, social and employment legislation.

Of course, Britain used to have an opt-out from the Social Chapter: but Labour foolishly gave this up.

And today, too much EU legislation in this area is damaging both our economy and our public services.

So we will want to negotiate the return of Britain’s opt-out from social and employment legislation in those areas which have proved most damaging to our economy and public services for example the aspects of the Working Time Directive which are causing real problems in the NHS and the Fire Service.

The second British guarantee we will negotiate is over the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

We must be absolutely sure that this cannot be used by EU judges to re-interpret EU law affecting the UK.

Tony Blair claimed that his Government obtained an opt-out from the Charter.

But what he got – as the Government have now admitted – was simply a clarification of how it works in Britain.

We will want a complete opt-out from the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

The third area where we will negotiate for a return of powers is criminal justice.

We must be sure that the measures included in the Lisbon Treaty will not bring creeping control over our criminal justice system by EU judges.

We will want to prevent EU judges gaining steadily greater control over our criminal justice system by negotiating an arrangement which would protect it.

That will mean limiting the European Court of Justice’s jurisdiction over criminal law to its pre-Lisbon level, and ensuring that only British authorities can initiate criminal investigations in Britain.

I recognise, of course, that taking back power in these areas, or negotiating arrangements that suit the UK, is not something we can do unilaterally.

It means changing the rules of an institution of which we are a member – changing rules that Britain has signed up to.

If we want to make changes, we will need to do that through negotiation with our European partners, and we will need the agreement of all twenty seven member states.

I also recognise that these are highly complex areas, where we need to think through the practical details with great care.

William Hague is now leading detailed work to examine precisely what we will need to change, and, if we win the next election, his work will draw on the specialised legal advice which the Government has available to it, as well as the expertise of officials from the Foreign Office and other relevant departments.

But success in these negotiations will establish an extremely important principle: that European integration is not a one way street and that powers can be returned from the EU to its member countries, a principle that was envisaged in the Laeken Declaration nearly a decade ago.

Let me be clear. Our guarantees are essential, realistic and deliverable.

Essential, because we have identified the areas of the Lisbon Treaty that cause the deepest concern, and the ones with greatest potential to interfere with our democracy.

Realistic, because we will propose that these British guarantees are added as protocols to a future accession treaty – like the recently concluded Irish guarantees.

And deliverable, because we have chosen areas where the return of powers from the EU to Britain protects our distinctive national interests without harming the interests of our European partners.

THE NEXT PARLIAMENT

So, yes, I believe we will be able to negotiate the return of the powers I have set out.

But no, we will not rush into some massive Euro-bust-up.

We will take our time, negotiate firmly, patiently and respectfully, and aim to achieve the return of the powers I have set out over the lifetime of a parliament.

I know some people will want me to go further, and faster. To them let me say this:

If we win the election, we will inherit the worst public finances of any incoming government for fifty years.

We will have a generational challenge to get Britain to live within her means, to secure economic recovery and to deliver this country from the appalling mess left by this Labour Government.

That has to come before anything else.

THE LONGER TERM

These steps: a referendum lock to prevent this ever happening again, and the return of a specific set of powers. I believe these things can stop Britain’s relationship with the EU from heading in the wrong direction.

Clearly we will be asked the question: what if you cannot get these guarantees and what if Europe continues to head in the wrong, centralising direction? Let me answer that question in advance.

Well, if that were to happen, then of course we can return to this subject in a manifesto for the parliament after the next one.

Let me be clear: this is not something we want to happen. Nor is it something we expect to happen.

But if those circumstances were to occur, we would not rule out a referendum on a wider package of guarantees to protect our democratic decision-making, while remaining, of course, a member of the European Union.

But that would be a judgement for the future, not for this election or for the next Parliament.

What I have set out today settles our policy for the next parliament.

CONCLUSION

I just want to conclude by saying something clearly to our European partners.

My purpose in committing any government I lead to these measures is not to frustrate or to sabotage the operation of the European Union.

It is to put Britain’s role in the EU on a more positive footing.

As we commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, we should remember that the European Union has done much to reconcile the painful division of Europe and to spread democracy and the rule of law across our continent.

But it should not rest on those achievements.

Today, European countries need to work together to combat global climate change, to fight global poverty, to boost global economic growth.

If I am elected Prime Minister, the British Government I lead will be an active member of the European Union.

On energy security, on climate change, on growth, on global poverty, we will look forward to working with our European partners to make progress on those issues.

We will press to keep the doors of the European Union open to new member states, especially to entrench stability in the Western Balkans where so much European blood has flowed, and also to Turkey.

We will stand for open markets, and a strong transatlantic relationship; an EU that looks out to the world, and that builds strong and open relations with rising powers like China and India.

We will want to see a tough financial settlement in the forthcoming negotiations on the EU budget, ensuring that Britain does not pay more than its fair share.

We will pay particular attention to the area of financial regulation, where we will be vigilant and tenacious in defending the competitiveness of the City of London.

Like every other Member State, we will fight our corner to advance our national interests.

But our guiding principles will be these: we believe Britain’s interests are best served by membership of a European Union that is an association of its member states, we will never allow Britain to slide into a federal Europe and that means we will watch closely how the Lisbon Treaty works out in practice.

We will put in place a referendum lock, so never again can a British government transfer powers to the EU without the people giving their consent in a referendum.

We will enact a United Kingdom Sovereignty Bill, making clear that ultimate authority rests with our Parliament.

And we will negotiate for a specific set of British guarantees that are realistic, deliverable – and essential.

That is our programme for Government.

That is the mandate we will seek at the next election.

In this area – Britain’s relationship with Europe – what people want from their politicians is some straight talk and plain speaking.

They were told we were joining a Common Market and it turned out to be a European Union.

They were told they would have a say over the European constitution but that promise was broken.

People are fed up with the endless lies and spin, they just want to know what we can achieve and how.

That is what I will deliver.

I said we would leave the federalist group in the European Parliament and we did.

I said we would have a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty and if it hadn’t been ratified we would have had that referendum.

But I did not promise a referendum come what may because once the Lisbon Treaty is the law, there’s nothing anyone can do about it and I’m not going to treat people like fools and offer a referendum that has no effect.

What I am promising today is doable, credible, deliverable.

That’s what this is all about.

Giving the British people a policy on Europe that they can actually believe in.

The stark statement from the Home Secretary on immigration.

One can tell we are nearing a General Election as the usual arrogance seems to have taken a back seat in readiness to be replaced by attrition as Alan Johnson yesterday admitted the Government had mishandled immigration and that it is placing a ’strain’ on jobs and services.

The Home Secretary admitted his Government’s ineptitude as he said Labour had been ‘maladroit‘ in its approach to the issue. Claiming there will now be no ‘shying away‘ [as it is] ‘one of the public’s top concerns‘.

The ‘moderate majority’ had not had its views heard, Mr Johnson said.

Mr Johnson had previously claimed he did not ‘lie awake‘ worrying about the population reaching 70million. Which in itself was broadly in line with his predecessor’s predecessor Phil Woolas less than 12 months ago.

Mr Johnon seemed to understand reality when he said some parts of Britain were ‘disproportionately affected‘ [by immigration], with new arrivals putting a ‘strain‘ on jobs and services.

Admitting the PLP’s failings he said ministers had ignored for ‘far too long‘ problems in the immigration system that led to huge backlogs of asylum seekers and foreign national prisoners.

The only discernible reason for this offering of humble pie is the proximity to the General Election and Mr Johnson’s Party leadership ambitions.

Whilst I accept that governments of both persuasions, including this one, have been maladroit in their handling of this issue, I do believe that the UK is now far more successful at tackling migration than most of its European and north American neighbours

Why can’t you just say ‘this Government’? You’ve had power for 12 years, you’ve ravaged our country at least have the integrity to admit the failing is one of your own making.

As I’ve said, our record is not perfect. When we came in to government in 1997, there was no magic button we could push immediately to resolve all the historic, political and operation problems associated with immigration

Yet another instance of blaming the inherited situation instead of stepping up to the plate.

The legacy problems with unreturned foreign national prisoners and asylum seekers may have accumulated under previous administrations, but they continued to be ignored for far too long on our watch

Very clever, when referring to previous administrations he actually means under Tony Blair but words it in such a way as it read as though it is pre-’97.

Alan, you can fool all of the PLP at the same time but you will find the British public a far worthier adversary.

Professor David Nutt, who heads the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs and is the government’s chief drug adviser has gone on record accusing ministers of ‘distorting‘ evidence with regards to cannabis to advance their cause.

According to Professor Nutt smoking cannabis presents only a “relatively small risk” of psychotic illness, and claimed those who advocated moving ecstasy into Class B from Class A had “won the intellectual argument”.

I am not a person to preach and I never will for the record I have never taken an illegal substance, never wanted to, never felt the need, never considered it but I have in my past lived with a drugs user whose resume skipped between class A, B and C and whilst the claim ‘nobody has ever died from smoking cannabis‘ may be true there are thousands of people who have lost their lives through drugs whereby the first step on the slippery slope was cannabis.

There are also countless lives wrecked by the selfishness of the drug user who may be prone to bouts of depression, schizophrenia or worse, suicidal tendencies.

Whilst it may be hard to argue with scientific evidence I suspect the family of Leah Betts would find it particulary hard to advocate the reclassification of ecstsay.

I believe the Government was right to reclassify cannabis last year back to class B but it should never have had to do it because it was simply wrong to drop the classification in the first place.

Making amends for your past mistakes does not earn you a merit, especially when the Government claimed it was the right thing to do at the time.

Professor Nutt further claimed

It may be that if you move a drug up a class it has a greater cachet..[the government's approach] “starts to distort the value of evidence

What kind of nonsense is that? There is simply no proof and therefore no place for statements like this to back up scientific research.

The former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith came in for some stark criticism when Professor Nutt stated that she had ‘devalued..scientific research‘ when she reclassified the drug.

What the Government needs to do is to either act on what an Advisory Council does or remove the Council altogether.

UPDATE: It would seem that Gordon Brown mistyped his URL this morning and instead of finding himself on LabourList he arrived with us at LabourLost.org – seemingly he acted on the line directly above whereby we suggest he listens or removes the council. Today the Government sacked Professor Nutt 24hrs after he provided the content for this blog post!

“The right to search homes, seize cash, freeze bank accounts and confiscate property will be given to town hall officials and civilian investigators employed by organisations as diverse as Royal Mail, the Rural Payments Agency and Transport for London.”

Labour are using a statutory instrument to bring this Al Capone law into force so that parliament is denied a chance to debate it. Even the chairman of the Police Federation was shocked to learn of the powers now being given to (amongst others) the Royal Mail, Transport for London and your local council.

Have Labour lost the plot … we think so!

David Miliband poured his sycophantic praise on the former Prime Minister yesterday on the Andrew Marr show and is due to redouble his efforts today when he puts a case for a strong UK presence at the centre of a reinvigorated Europe.

LabourLost understands that Miliband has abandoned the idea of running for the new role of EU Foreign Minister preferring instead to shoehorn his former boss into the more powerful role in an attempt to ensure some form of PLP continuity should the forthcoming General Election prove as disastrous as feared.

It won’t be all plain sailing though as along with Poland the BeNeLux countries are proving somewhat difficult and are presenting at least some credible opposition to the Blair campaign efforts.

There is further hope for anti-Blair campaigners in that there are those [within Europe's top posts] who are worried about his forthcoming appearance at the centre of the Chilcot enquiry into the Iraq War.

It is clear from David Miliband’s comments that he is seeking the role for Tony Blair providing Political leaders give the role enough ‘clout’. Yesterday Mr Miliband urged other EU leaders to choose an international figure as president rather than an unknown ‘business manager’.

In one final thought let us not forget that it is the broken manifesto promise of this Labour Government of a referendum on the EU Constitution which became the Lisbon Treaty [simply a name change] that allows the creation of this EU Presidential role; where’s the justice in that?

When you look at it like that you can see why they pushed the treaty through without allowing the democratic process to run its course in our once Great Britain.

Alas, if the Prime Minister gets his way this is not likely to be the case.

Desperate to suppress a back bench rebellion that is mounting in the run up to next month’s report by Sir Christopher Kelly, Gordon Brown is frantically working with his aides to hatch his latest plan.

The Kelly report is expected to make a dramatic overhaul of the expenses system and so the PM is working tirelessly to gain support for a self regulated system to be put in place that would include the following:

Increasing the basic salary of all MP’s by circa £3,000 from £64,766 to £67,766 whilst forcing a reduction (average £20,000) from Government salaries which are earned on top of the basic salary and range between £96,000 / £197,000. Downing St believes that the general public will accept this ‘reform’ in principle as the aim is that the overall cost to the taxpayer will not rise from £12.3m for ministerial wages.

The Kelly report will, among other things prevent MP’s from employing family members in any capacity. It will also make the recommendation that MP’s rent their second home as oppossed to purchasing at taxpayers expense thereby removing the temptation for an MP to ‘flip’ between their homes for financial gain.

It is unlikely that many backbenchers will accept the recommendations whilst Gordon Brown is likely to struggle to suppress his many rebels who are quietly massing on the fringe as though in a scene direct from the Roman Senate after the constitutional reforms of the Emperor Diocletian. Clearly they will not go quietly with his ‘new package’.

The Prime Minister is simply playing catch-up to David Cameron who has pledged a smaller Cabinet within a smaller Government. David Cameron has the makings of a full package of proposals whilst Gordon Brown has a solution more akin to a patchwork quilt.

Imagine if you will both Gordon and David both sifting through the fancy dress box and Cameron emerging with a full Zorro suit whilst Gordon has the remnants of outfits of the Joker, the Riddler and Bozo The Clown.

It is not though the PLP or the House of Commons that Gordon Brown needs to convince it is the most powerful person in the country and that is the voter in the street a large proportion of whom come from the Public Sector who’ve just been forced to take a pay freeze.

Bloggers and the mainstream Media are joining them in their joyful celebrations.

Certainly, on the face of it, today’s announcement that there will be a deciding round of the presidential poll on 7 November, pitting Hamid Karzai against Abdullah Abdullah for one last time is a pretty big thing.

Perhaps something worth celebrating?

Perhaps, some may even see it as justice for the myriad of deaths that were caused (from all sides) during Panther’s claw.

Personally I am not celebrating, I would like to think that the whole situation would better itself and peace and harmony can preside over a nation that has seen more than its fair share of bloodshed.

Alas, we do not live in a Utopian society and last time I looked no other system of Government offered those values either.

The nub of the problem for me is that the August election took many months of planning, many thousands of heavily armed troops on the ground securing areas so that honest people could go and place a tick in a box (that’s why I get passionate about voter apathy in the UK) and as a result many deaths occurred.

Ballot papers were sold cheaply, ballot papers were sold by the handful, by the hundred, thousand. Multiple ballot papers were issued to individuals. Valid papers were withdrawn after the poll closed. The list of corruption is almost endless.

No amount of intervention could secure an honest election let alone an honest result on the day so why are people so willing to believe it will be any different this time around after only 17 days planning? Simple answer: it won’t!

I know that the Media and the bloggers have faith and hopes and that is a good thing to have; even old sceptical me had those once but I have learnt to look closer at the details, read the small print and I certainly don’t sign unless I damn well have to.

Let’s take a look at a remarkably similar situation that took place elsewhere quite recently, Zimbabwe.

Robert Mugabe has held the office of Head of State in a variety of forms since 1980. In the 2008 election the main Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai (it is believed) defeated the incumbent but faced charge upon charge of false accusations as Mugabe clung to power.

In the face of horrific treatment and overwhelming personal tragedy Morgan Tsvangirai stood by and never faltered, his people backed him to win and win he did, but not in the conventional way.

By facing up to the truth and doing the very best he could he accepted the role of Prime Minister in a Unity Government with President Mugabe.

Afghanistan: It is quite clear that something must be done Very soon hence the extremely short time frame. The alternative option is to sit and wait until the spring but President Obama has made it clear his commitment of 40,000 troops is dependent on having a working Government solution in place.

I personally believe by the first week in November there will be draft plans in place with all Party support for a Unity Government which will form the basis of a broad based coalition governing body thereby allowing both Karzai and Abdullah to share power and more importantly to give the Afghan people a better chance than what is on the table at this moment in time without the need for the vote-off.

The British Army has been forced to cut the number of new soldiers it recruits to save money, official MoD document.

In 2008, the Army took in 14,280 new people, while 14,070 personnel left. A 500-place recruitment cut would have meant the Army brought in fewer people than it lost

According to MoD document ref:“ABN 57/09 In Year Savings Measures” Savage cuts in manpower are part of a £97 million package of spending reductions forced on the Army this year. This follows the UK Governments spending of over a TRILLION POUNDS STERLING to prop up the all but bust banking sector, the virtually unlimited printing of banknotes by the Bank of England (other banks are also available!) and to pay for MP’s expenses, Duck Houses, Moats, Food, Cleaners and so on.

Training for Territorial Army soldiers and the renovation of soldiers’ housing – already in a poor condition have also been cut to save the faces of several politicians.

The reductions in training and recruiting are now raising concerns about the impact on the Army’s future capabilities. The squeeze on the Army’s already strapped budget has emerged in the same week that beleaguered Prime Minister Gordon Brown, currently bumping along the bottom of the opinion polls, announced he will send another 500 British troops to Afghanistan. He did however put several conditions on the deployment, none of them medical or relating to his own health.

Ministers have publicly and repeatedly insisted that the Armed Forces are properly funded, but the Army document drawn up this week for the MoD shows that Army recruitment has been cut by 500 from January to relieve “pressure” on the manpower budget. The very same number earmarked for active service in Afghanistan.

The MoD paper, dated October 13 2010, obtained by the Military World website is entitled “ABN 57/09 In Year Savings Measures”. It outlines cuts drawn up by General Sir David Richards, the Chief of the General Staff and rubber stamped by the not very impressive Bob Ainsworth, the current defence secretary.

Sir David has already made cuts of £43 million to help the MoD balance its budget, but at a stormy meeting of the Defence Board last month, he was told to come up with another £54 million of reductions, an amount less than the MoD’s annual spend on spin doctors.

The Daily Telegraph revealed last month that the MoD spent more than pounds 61 million on public relations last year.

To avoid direct cuts from the Afghan operation, Sir David has been forced to reduce the Army’s training and recruitment activities.

The paper states: “The planned recruit intake into the Army Recruiting and Training Division is to be reduced by 500 to help reduce the specific pressure on the Army manpower budget.”

In 2008, the Army took in 14,280 new people, while 14,070 personnel left. A 500-place recruitment cut would have meant the Army brought in fewer people than it lost. The recruitment cut will be felt across the Army. The only units to be spared from the cuts are the so-called “pinch point” trades where there are already deep shortages of specialists, and those infantry regiments with the worst recruiting records.

The recruitment cut will deprive the Army of £2 million in the current financial year, the MoD paper claims.

“The planned recruit intake into the Army Recruiting and Training Division is to be reduced by 500 to help reduce the specific pressure on the Army manpower budget,” the document concludes.

After intense criticism from opposition parties, campaigners and commanders, ministers made repeated promises to improve the standard of accommodation for soldiers, but shamefully the document reveals that housing has also fallen victim to the cuts. Another £14 million of cuts will be made by delay some planned upgrade work on single soldiers’ living accommodation.

The Army had planned to upgrade 790 housing units this year. Now only 205 of those projects will be completed on time this year.

The MoD paper, widely distributed to commanding officers and senior officials this week, says the cuts are needed for the MoD to “remain within budget in this financial year.”

It says: “Financially, these are difficult times and the MOD, like all Government departments, is required to produce major cost savings.”

“Our priority is to support current operations and these measures are necessary to focus remaining resources on the main effort. These measures will not affect current operations.”

The document also confirms that training for Territorial Army soldiers will be cut by £20 million. That follows a £23 million cut earlier in the year. A budget reduction of £43 million in less than a year.

David Cameron, the Conservative leader, said the “unacceptable” cuts are affecting reservists due to go to Afghanistan next year.

Another £4 million will be cut from funding for school cadet forces. As Chancellor in 2006, Gordon Brown announced the expansion of cadet units, saying he wanted more children to participate in them.

University Officer Training Corps will also lose £3 million.

The cut in Army recruiting and training should raise questions about Government/MoD runaway spending on civilian officials. The MoD currently employs 85,730 civil servants. Britain now has more military bureaucrats for every active serviceman than any of its NATO allies..

Liam Fox, the Conservative shadow defence secretary, accused Labour of being: “disgraceful and penny pinching.”

He said: “Too often, this Government has simply not been up to the task on defence. We need forces that are better supplied with equipment.. In Afghanistan and elsewhere, whether we’re dealing with equipment or other things, we’re willing the ends, but not the means.”

About Julian:  Julian Bray is a broadcaster, moderator, speaker, journalist and lectures on leadership, company turnarounds, corporate and recession busting strategies, politics, aviation, travel and The City.

It proved to be at the heart of their manifesto and at the heart of the desirous British people.

The public were tired of John Major’s sleazy Cabinet. They wanted change, they wanted to force change and by god they did, sweeping New Labour into Government with Tony Blair as Prime Minister.

The Labour Party spin machine tells a remarkable story of how investment upon investment made good the pledge of education, education, education but whilst history shows the investment was correct the people currently in charge tell quite a different story.

In the 10 years between 1997 and 2007 the core “per pupil” funding rose by 48% in real terms, that equates to £1,450 more per year per child. Fact.

But for all that investment did it go to the right areas and what is the result?

Well, according to a speech given yesterday by Sir Terry Leahy [knighted by the UK Government in 2002 and a current member of Gordon Brown's National Council for Educational Excellence] the standards are woefully low.

Sir Terry who is the boss of Tesco further stated, [because of this] Employers like us are often left to pick up the pieces.

Is Gordon Brown listening? Will he heed the warning?

Previously Tesco has sponsored a number of Labour Party events, though Sir Terry’s criticism will be seen as issuing further evidence to the Government of business turning its back on the party ahead of a General Election.

The moral of the story here is that investment is not enough, correct and accurate targeting and readjustment when and where required is just as important as cash in hand.

Gordon Brown to step down for ‘medical’ reasons in January 2010?

“Yesterday [Friday 10 October 2009] Mr Brown visited Moorfields Hospital as part of regular checks on his eye and this check was also fine. Mr Brown wants to thank the doctors and staff of the NHS, particularly Moorfields Hospital. Were there to be any change, he would of course make a further statement.”

10 Downing Street claimed the details had been released “in the interests of transparency”, and the hapless spokesman went on to claim “there was no question of “regular” updates on the Prime Ministers ‘ continuing medical condition.” A really brassed-neck attempt to draw a line under current speculation. However, the approach could make it more difficult to hold back information about Mr Brown ’s health and general well-being in future.

Contrary to media reports and claims by some commentators who should know better. I first raised questions over Gordon Browns medical condition, a few years ago when he was still at the Treasury, initially prompted by a long drawn out televised Budget Speech which for some reason, the cameras repeatedly focused on the state of Gordon Browns fingers and thumbs; all his nails were badly bitten right down to the quick, perhaps not bitten but ripped out would be more accurate.

Nailbiting in adults is generally accepted as a clear sign of chronic stress, not just habit. In the same Budget Speech live Telecast, Brown had sat down and the Leader of the Opposition was just rising to his feet to reply. Again a candid cutaway, showed Brown having a furtive nail nibble whilst listening to an over the shoulder comment from Tony Blair, seated alongside him.

The PM has been repeatedly quizzed during interviews over his medical condition and his eyesight ( ‘telly-land ‘ increasingly reliant upon the bloggers for breaking news and scandal), BBC ’s Andrew Marr Show last month, (the video being included in  ’Duckhouse Blog ‘). During the MARR interview Mr Brown reluctantly denied mounting speculation that he was becoming increasingly dependent on prescription painkillers. This should be an easy matter to resolve by a simple regular Urine test or releasing Gordon Browns medical records and a comprehensive list of all OTC (Over the counter), prescription and other drugs, he and Sarah Brown may have access to.

Some so far unconfirmed media reports had suggested Mr Brown might use concerns about his health as a legitimate and dignified reason for stepping down as Prime Minister ahead of the election. New concerns about tears to the retina in his one remaining eye – Brown lost his other eye as the result of an injury, whist playing Rugby as a teenager.

Quoted on the Internet, Som Prasad, a consultant ophthalmologist at Arrow Park Hospital on Merseyside, Northern England, said that although Mr Brown may not undergo more surgery on his retina, other less drastic surgical procedures could be on the cards.

Tears to the retina can be heat-sealed by directing a laser beam of light through the pupil of the eye to produce a scar which seals the tear. An alternative would be cryotherapy treatment, where a freezing treatment is applied by a pen-shaped probe to the outside of the eye. But if the retina becomes detached – as has happened to Mr Brown twice before – “more complicated operations” may also be needed to prevent the loss of sight.

Candidly  ’friends ‘ of Gordon Brown have been sugesting January 2010 would be a very good time for Gordon Brown to withdraw from politics and retire with dignity. That the door has been left wide open he could easily cite  ’medical reasons ‘. Fighting a long and protracted war in Afghanistan (Brown admits to not understanding the ritualistic ways of the Military), constant  ’head on ‘ rows with the Forces and now a possible formal written demand, that following the MP expenses scandal, Gordon Brown might be required to pay some of the money claimed as expenses over the last five years, back to the Treasury. Will any payment will include his subscription to Sky Sports satellite premium TV channels then?

Rats leaving a sinking ship? Just political tactics then? You can decide in May 2010 at the General Election

About Julian:  Julian Bray is a broadcaster, moderator, speaker, journalist and lectures on leadership, company turnarounds, corporate and recession busting strategies, politics, aviation, travel and The City.

Whilst it is true that an election can be called at any time the Government is likely to wait until the last possible moment and hence in all reality we probably have another 6 months+ of the Parliamentary Labour Party.

That is not to say we necessarily have another 6 months of Gordon Brown as the Prime Minister. During the last weekend of the summer recess the media has been awash with stories of how the PM recently had a regular health check and eye test with Downing St disclosing the there were two small retinal tears in the good eye of Gordon Brown.

There are some in the blogosphere who believe this is a softening up tactic to allow Gordon Brown to stand down as leader at the last minute and permit a caretaker manager to takeover for a couple of months, the belief amongst those that harbour this thought is that the new ‘caretaker’ would enjoy a period of grace and poll bounce before announcing the date for the election. This is just speculation at the moment but needs to be discussed as it is currently being touted heavily.

In what is likely to be a day of Admin amongst MP’s the spotlight will be shining heavily on the outcome of the review by Sir Thomas Legg into the continuing expenses scandal.

An area of interest of particular note will be the publishing today of the results of a six-month investigation into the expense claims of the former home secretary Jacqui Smith by the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, John Lyon.

We shall be monitoring events.

The full text of his speech follows bringing the Conservative Party conference and our coverage of it to a close.

I want to get straight to the point.

We all know how bad things are, massive debt, social breakdown, political disenchantment. But what I want to talk about today is how good things could be.

Don’t get me wrong, I have no illusions. If win this election, it is going to be tough. There will have to be cutbacks in public spending, and that will be painful. We will need to confront Britain’s culture of irresponsibility and that will be hard to take for many people. And we will have to tear down Labour’s big government bureaucracy, ripping up its time-wasting, money-draining, responsibility-sapping nonsense.

None of this will be easy. We will be tested. I will be tested. I’m ready for that – and so I believe, are the British people. So yes, there is a steep climb ahead.

But I tell you this. The view from the summit will be worth it.

AFGHANISTAN

If we win the election the first and gravest responsibility I will face is for our troops in Afghanistan and their families at home.

I know that.

I know about the mothers and the wives, the husbands and the children, counting the minutes between news bulletins, fearing the announcement of the next casualty. I know what they want – and deserve – from their government. A ruthless, relentless focus on fighting, winning and coming home.

That must start at the top. Instead of a revolving door at the Ministry of Defence with a second rate substitute in charge, we need a politician from the front rank, and in Liam Fox we have one.

We need a clear chain of command that flows right from the top. My national security council, with the key ministers and defence chiefs, will sit from day one of a new government, as a war cabinet.

We need a strategy that is credible, and do-able. We are not in Afghanistan to deliver the perfect society. We are there to stop the re-establishment of terrorist training camps.

Frankly, time is short. We cannot spend another eight years taking ground only to give it back again.

So our method should be clear……send more soldiers to train more Afghans to deliver the security we need. Then we can bring our troops home.

And I know the most urgent requirement of all. That those brave men and women we send into danger have every piece of equipment they need to do the job we ask of them. I will make sure that happens.

And I have something else to say. When the country is at war, when Whitehall is at war, we need people who understand war in Whitehall.

That’s why I’m proud to announce today that someone who has fought for our country and served for forty years in our armed forces will not only advise our defence team but will join our benches in the House of Lords and if we win the election could serve in a future Conservative Government:

General Sir Richard Dannatt. As we welcome him to serve with us, let us all salute those who serve our country.

FAMILY, COMMUNITY, COUNTRY

We could have come to Manchester this week and played it safe. But that’s not what this party is about and it’s certainly not what I’m about.

When I stood on that stage in Blackpool four years ago it wasn’t just to head up this party, sit around and wait for the tide to turn. It was to lead this party and change it, so together we could turn the tide.

Look what we’ve done together. More women candidates, campaigning on the environment, the party of the NHS. And this year, here in Manchester, our most successful, dynamic conference for twenty years.

I’d like to thank everyone involved, the police who kept us safe and your chum and mine, Eric Pickles.

But also this year, in these difficult times, we’ve won the argument on the economy and debt as George Osborne showed in that magnificent speech on Tuesday.

That was the success we achieved this year.

But for me and Samantha this year will only ever mean one thing. When such a big part of your life suddenly ends nothing else – nothing outside – matters. It’s like the world has stopped turning and the clocks have stopped ticking. And as they slowly start again, weeks later, you ask yourself all over again: do I really want to do this? You think about what you really believe and what sustains you.

I know what sustains me the most. She is sitting right there and I’m incredibly proud to call her my wife.

My beliefs. I am not a complicated person. I love this country and the things it stands for.

That the state is your servant, never your master. Common sense and decency. The British sense of community.

I have some simple beliefs.That there is such a thing as society, it’s just not the same thing as the state. That there is a ‘we’ in politics, and not just a ‘me.’

Above all, the importance of family. That fierce sense of loyalty you feel for each other. The unconditional love you give and receive, especially when things go wrong or when you get it wrong. That powerful sense you have when you hold your children and there’s nothing, absolutely nothing – you wouldn’t do to protect them.

This is my DNA: family, community, country. These are the things I care about. They are what made me. They are what I’m in public service to protect, promote and defend. And I believe they are what we need in Britain today more than ever.

I know how lucky I’ve been to have the chances I had. And I know there are children growing up in Britain today who will never know the love of a father. Who are born in homes that hold them back. Who go to schools that keep them back.

Children who will never start a business, never raise a family, never see the world. Children who will live the life they’re given, not the life they want. That is what I want to change.

I want every child to have the chances I had. That is why I’m standing here.

BIG GOVERNMENT

But we won’t help anyone unless we face up to some big problems. The highest budget deficit since the war. The deepest recession since the war. Social breakdown; political disillusionment. Big problems for the next government to address.

And here is the big argument in British politics today, put plainly and simply. Labour say that to solve the country’s problems, we need more government.

Don’t they see? It is more government that got us into this mess.

Why is our economy broken? Not just because Labour wrongly thought they’d abolished boom and bust. But because government got too big, spent too much and doubled the national debt.

Why is our society broken? Because government got too big, did too much and undermined responsibility.

Why are our politics broken? Because government got too big, promised too much and pretended it had all the answers.

Of course it was done with the best intentions. And let’s be clear: not everything Labour did was wrong.

Devolution; the minimum wage; civil partnerships, these are good things that we will we keep.

But this idea that for every problem there’s a government solution for every issue an initiative, for every situation a czar….

It ends with them making you register with the government to help out your child’s football team. With police officers punished for babysitting each other’s children. With laws so bureaucratic and complicated even their own Attorney General can’t obey them.

Do you know the worst thing about their big government? It’s not the cost, though that’s bad enough. It is the steady erosion of responsibility. Our task is to lead Britain in a completely different direction.

So no, we are not going to solve our problems with bigger government. We are going to solve our problems with a stronger society. Stronger families. Stronger communities. A stronger country. All by rebuilding responsibility.

THE DEBT CRISIS

The clearest sign of big government irresponsibility is the enormous size of our debt.

If we win the election, we will have to confront Labour’s Debt Crisis, deal with it, and take the country with us. I want everyone to understand the gravity of our situation.

Our national debt has doubled in the last five years and our annual deficit next year will be over £170 billion.

That’s twice as big as when we nearly went bankrupt in the 1970s. It is a massive risk to our economy. If we spend more than we earn, we have to get the money from somewhere.

Right now, the Government is simply printing it. Sometime soon that will have to stop, because in the end, printing money leads to inflation. Then the Government will have to borrow it.

But we’ll only be given the money if lenders are confident we can pay it back. If they’re not, we’ll have to pay higher interest rates and that could stop our economic recovery in its tracks.

So we have three choices.

Option one: we can just default on the debt. Not pay it. Other countries have done that in the past. But I don’t think anyone in this country wants to go down that road.

Option two: we could encourage inflation, which would wipe out the value of the debt, making it easier to pay off. But that’s not just an economic disaster – it’s a social disaster too. It doesn’t just wipe out debts, it wipes out people’s hard-earned savings.

So we have the third option – for me the only option. We must pay down this deficit. The longer we leave it, the worse it will be for all of us.

I know there are some who say we should just wait.

Don’t talk about the deficit. Don’t even plan for what needs to be done. Just wait. Don’t they understand – it’s the waiting that’s the problem.

The longer we wait for a credible plan, the bigger the bill for our children to pay. The longer we wait, the greater the risk to the recovery. The longer we wait, the higher the chance we return to recession.

Here’s the most obvious reason we can’t wait. The more we wait, the more we waste on the interest we’re paying on this debt.

Next year, Gordon Brown will spend more money on the interest on our debt than on schools. More than on law and order, more than on child poverty.

So I say to the Labour Party and the trades unions just tell me what is compassionate, what is progressive about spending more on debt interest than on helping the poorest children in our country?

The progressive thing to do, the responsible thing to do is to get a grip on the debt but in a way that brings the country together instead of driving it apart. That means showing leadership at the top which is why we will cut ministers’ pay and freeze it for a parliament.

It means showing that we’re all in this together which is why we’ll freeze public sector pay for all but the one million lowest paid public sector workers……for one year to help protect jobs.

And it means showing that the rich will pay their share which is why for now the 50p tax rate will have to stay and Child Trust Funds for those on middle and higher incomes will have to go.

Yes we have made some tough choices. But in British politics today that is the only responsible thing to do.

PENSIONERS

Dealing with this debt crisis is not just about cuts in the short term. We must also live within our means over the long term. Everyone knows we have an ageing population.

Our pension system was designed in a time when many people didn’t live till 70 …. It is out of date and it has to change. That’s why this week we made the difficult decision to bring forward the raising of the pension age.

I know that working longer will be tough for many people. But it will also allow us to help pensioners more.

I got an email from a lady who wrote to me in desperation. She doesn’t want me to reveal her name because she’s so frightened of what might happen to her.

She and her husband left school at fifteen and started work straight away. They bought their own home, where they’ve lived for forty years. But they’ve been let down terribly. She lost out on the 10p tax and took a drop in her pension. She and her husband aren’t entitled to pension credit because they saved for their old age.

Here’s what she says:

“during the cold spell this winter, we sat watching TV with blankets wrapped around us.

The drug dealer and the druggies who live nearby had their windows wide open and the heating full on.

We don’t bother watching police dramas on the TV, we just look out of our window.

Our savings are making no money.

If one of us dies we cannot afford to stay in our home.”

This lady doesn’t want pity. Pensioners don’t want pity. They just want to know that if they’ve lived responsibly, they’ll be looked after in their old age.

Parties have been talking about raising the pension in line with earnings for years. But it never happens.

Well let’s be the party that finally makes it happen. Because of the difficult choice we’ve made on the pension age we’ll be able not just to deal with our debt but to raise the basic state pension in line with earnings. Not just for one year, but for every year.

GROWTH

Cutting back on big government is not just about spending less. Getting our debt down means getting our economic growth up.

Let’s be clear where growth will come from. Not big government, with its Regional Development Agencies and National Investment Corporations but entrepreneurs. New businesses, new industries, new technologies.

I get enterprise. I worked in business for seven years. And let me tell you what I learned during that time.

Complicated taxes, excessive regulations they make life impossible for entrepreneurs.

So I will always put the same questions to Ken Clarke and his business team.

What are you doing to make it easier to start a business? Easier to take people on? What are you doing to make regulation less complicated? To make locating a business here more attractive?

Ken Clarke and David Willetts this week helped launch our plan to Get Britain Working.

It is a plan to boost science, skills, self-employment a plan to improve training, technology, tax incentives for entrepreneurs.

This is what it means.

It means the man who’s lost his job and his confidence saying yes, I can set up on my own, I can take responsibility, there’s nothing to stop me.

It means the people he takes on, who thought they were written off, thinking yes I’ve got another chance and I can provide for my family again.

Self-belief is infectious and I want it to spread again throughout our country especially through the poorest places where Labour let hope fade away.

In Britain today, there are entrepreneurs everywhere – they just don’t know it yet. Success stories everywhere – they just haven’t been written yet. We must be the people who release that potential.

FINANCIAL REFORM

And just a quick word to the man who says he abolished boom and bust and then saved the world.

It was you Gordon Brown who designed the system of financial regulation that helped cause the financial crisis. You want to keep it the same. We say it needs to change.

That’s why we will give back to the Bank of England its power to regulate the City powers that should never have been taken away.

BROKEN SOCIETY

But once we’re generating economic growth – what are we going to do with it? What kind of society do we hope to build?

Look at Britain in 2009. It is, in so many ways, a great place to live. Great culture and arts, great diversity, great sport.

And think of the great sport coming up next year England in the World Cup, then the Olympics, then rugby and cricket too. And yes, let’s get the Football World Cup here in 2018 as well.

But in Britain today there is a dark side as well. After twelve years of big government, we still have those stubborn social problems.

Poverty, crime, addiction. Failing schools. Sink estates. Broken homes.

The truth is, it’s not just that big government has failed to solve these problems. Big government has all too often helped cause them by undermining the personal and social responsibility that should be the lifeblood of a strong society.

Just think of the signals we send out. To the family struggling to raise children, pay a mortgage, hold down a job.

“Stay together and we’ll give you less; split up and we give you more.”

To the young mum working part time, trying to earn something extra for her family “from every extra pound you earn we’ll take back 96 pence.”

Yes, 96 pence.

Let me say that again, slowly.

In Gordon Brown’s Britain if you’re a single mother with two kids earning £150 a week the withdrawal of benefits and the additional taxes mean that for every extra pound you earn, you keep just 4 pence.

What kind of incentive is that? Thirty years ago this party won an election fighting against 98 per cent tax rates on the richest. Today I want us to show even more anger about 96 per cent tax rates on the poorest.

And in that fight, there’s one person this party can rely on. He’s the man who has dedicated himself to the cause of social justice…and shown great courage in standing up for those least able to stand up for themselves. Iain Duncan Smith

And I am proud to announce today that if we win the election he will be responsible in government for bringing together all our work to help mend the broken society.

LABOUR AND POVERTY

Labour still have the arrogance to think that they are the ones who will fight poverty and deprivation.

On Monday, when we announced our plan to Get Britain Working you know what Labour called it? “Callous.”

Excuse me? Who made the poorest poorer? Who left youth unemployment higher? Who made inequality greater?

No, not the wicked Tories… you, Labour: you’re the ones that did this to our society.

So don’t you dare lecture us about poverty. You have failed and it falls to us, the modern Conservative Party to fight for the poorest who you have let down.

FAMILY

We’ll start with what is most important to me – and what I believe is most important for the country – families.

I believe that a stable, loving home is the most precious thing a child can have. Society begins at home. Responsibility starts at home. That’s why we cannot be neutral on this.

Now I don’t live in some fantasy land where every family is happily married with 2.4 kids. Nor am I going to stand here and pretend that family life is always easy.

But by recognising marriage and civil partnerships in the tax system and abolishing the couple penalty in the benefits system, we’ll help make it that little bit easier.

But it’s not just about money. It’s also about emotional support, particularly in those fraught early years before children go to school. Labour understood this and we should acknowledge that.

That’s why Sure Start will stay, and we’ll improve it. We will keep flexible working, and extend it. And we will not just keep but transform something that was there long before Sure Start began – health visitors.

But making the country more family-friendly is not just about what government does. Responsibility goes much wider. It’s about what we all do. It’s about the way we live.

Why aren’t we building homes with enough room for a family to sit round a table and actually eat a meal together?

It’s about our culture. Why do so many magazines and websites and music videos make children insecure about the way they look or the experiences they haven’t even had?

And it’s about our society. We give our children more and more rights, and we trust our teachers less and less. We’ve got to stop treating children like adults and adults like children.

It is about everyone taking responsibility. The more that we as a society do, the less we will need government to do.

WELFARE

But you can’t expect families to behave responsibly when the welfare system works in the opposite direction.

In welfare, big government has failed people in a big way. There are two million children in Britain growing up in homes where no-one works. Two million.

That is the highest in Europe. It is one in six children in our country.

We have to break this cycle of welfare dependency.

I got an email from a guy called Viv Williams. He lost his job last year and was desperate to get back into work. But he had a mortgage to pay so he went to register for Job Seeker’s Allowance.

He’d twisted his ankle and walked in with a limp, so you know what they said? They told him he couldn’t register for Job Seeker’s Allowance because he wasn’t fit to work so he’d have to go on incapacity benefit.

He told them there was nothing wrong with him, that he wanted to work. But no – he wasn’t allowed to.

This is a man who wanted to take responsibility for himself and his family and the system said no, you’ve got to depend on the state.

As he says: “I told them, you’re having a laugh.” But it’s not funny. The welfare system today sends out completely crazy signals.

We have got to turn it around and with Theresa May and David Freud in charge we will. We’re going to make it clear: If you really cannot work, we’ll look after you. But if you can work, you should work and not live off the hard work of others.

NHS

So we have to reform welfare and strengthen families. But when I think of my family, in the end there’s only one thing that matters and that is that the people I love are healthy and well.

My family owes so much to the National Health Service. No, it is not perfect. But I tell you, when you’re carrying a child in your arms to Accident and Emergency in the middle of the night and don’t have to reach for your wallet it’s a lot better than the alternative.

So we will never change the idea at the heart of our NHS, that healthcare in this country is free at the point of use and available to everyone based on need, not ability to pay.

But that doesn’t mean the NHS shouldn’t change. It has to change because for many people, the service isn’t good enough. Mostly, that’s not the fault of those who work in the NHS.

The fault lies with big government. With their endless targets and reorganisations, Labour have tried to run the NHS like a machine.

But it’s not a machine full of cogs. It is a living, breathing institution made up of people – doctors, nurses, patients.

This lever-pulling from above – it has got to stop. With Andrew Lansley’s reform plans, we’re going to give the NHS back to people. We’ll say to the doctors: those targets you hate, they’re gone.

But in return, we’ll do more for patients. Choice about where you get treated. Information about how good different doctors are, how good different hospitals are.

Information about the things that really matter, cancer survival times……the rate of hospital infections……your chances of surviving if you have a stroke.

We will give doctors back their professional responsibility.

But in exchange they will be subject to patient accountability. That’s why we can look the British people in the eye and say this party is the party of the NHS now, today, tomorrow, always.

CRIME

The instinct to protect the people we love is so strong. Nearly two years ago it was that instinct – that love – that drove Fiona Pilkington to do something desperate.

When I first read her story in the paper I found it difficult to finish the article – it’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever read.

Fiona was so driven to despair by the vile thugs that bullied her and her lovely disabled daughter Francecca and by the police that didn’t answer her cries for help that she could only see one way out. She put her daughter in her car, drove to a lay-by, and set it on fire.

If no one would protect them then by ending their lives, she was keeping them safe.

No one could hurt them anymore. Just think about what we allowed to happen here in our country. This goes deep and it’s been going on for years.

It is about a breakdown of all the things that are meant to keep us safe……a complete breakdown of responsibility.

A breakdown of morality in the minds of those thugs a total absence of feeling or conscience. A breakdown in community where a neighbour is left to reach a pitch of utter misery. And a breakdown of our criminal justice system.

Every part of it, the police, the prosecution services, the prisons……is failing under the weight of big government targets and bureaucracy. The police aren’t on the streets because they’re busy complying with ten different inspection regimes. The police say the CPS isn’t charging people…because they have to hit targets to reduce the number of unsuccessful trials.

And the prisons aren’t rehabilitating offenders…because they’re focused on meeting thirty-three different performance indicators.

This all needs to change. I’m not going to stand here and promise you a country where nothing bad ever happens. I do not underestimate how difficult it will be to deal with this problem of crime and disorder.

We cannot rebuild social responsibility from on high. But the least we can do the least we can do is pledge to all the people who are scared, who live their lives in fear and who can’t protect themselves, that a Conservative Government, with Chris Grayling, with Dominic Grieve, will reform the police, reform the courts, reform prisons. We will be there to protect you.

TERRORISM

We understand too the grave responsibility we will have to protect our people from terrorism. This party knows only too well the pain and grief that terrorism brings.

Twenty-five years ago, almost to the day on the Thursday night of our party conference in Brighton, the IRA exploded a bomb that injured and killed good friends and colleagues.

Today let us honour their memory and send our thoughts and best wishes to all those, including Margaret Tebbit, who still bear the scars of that terrible night.

SCHOOLS

To build a responsible society we need to teach our children properly. I come at education as a parent, not a politician.

When I watch my daughter skip across the playground to start her first term in year one, I want to know that every penny of the education budget is following her and the other children into that school and that classroom.

So when I see Ed Balls blow hundreds of millions on so-called “curriculum development” on consultancies, on quangos like the QCDA and BECTA like every other parent with a child at a state school I want to say:

This is my child, it’s my money, give it to my headteacher instead of wasting it in Whitehall.

But it’s not just about money. It’s about values. We know that discipline is vital but we overrule head teachers when they exclude a disruptive pupil.

We know that every child has different abilities and different needs but too often we put them all in the same class so the brightest aren’t stretched and those who are struggling fall behind.

We know that competitive sport is important but we’ve had minister after minister promising it and nothing ever happens.

Discipline. Setting by ability. Regular sport.

These are all things you find in a private school. Not because the Government tells them to do it, but because it’s what parents want. Why can’t parents in state schools always get what they want?

With us, they will, because our reforms will create more good schools and more school places. Yes, our plans will increase competition – and no, that is not a dirty word. It means that when a good new school opens down the road, the other ones around it will want to improve. Big government has totally failed in state education and with Michael Gove we will get the radical change we need.

COUNTRY

Family, community, country. In recent years we’ve been hearing things about our country we haven’t heard for a long time. People saying they don’t know what it is to be British, what this country stands for.

People in Scotland who want to leave the United Kingdom and people in England who say let them go.

I am passionate about our Union and I will never do anything to put it at risk. And because of the new political force we have created with the Ulster Unionists, I’m proud that at the next election we will be the only party fielding candidates in every part of the United Kingdom.

Britishness is not mechanical, it’s organic. It’s an emotional connection to a way of life, an attitude, a set of institutions.

Make these stronger and our national identity becomes stronger. To be British is to be open-minded.

We don’t care who you are or where you’re from, if you’ve got something to offer then this is a place you can call home.

But if we want our country to carry on with this proud, open tradition, we’ve got to understand the pressures of mass immigration and that’s why we need to put limits on it.

To be British is to be generous. Whenever there’s a disaster on the other side of the world, British people dig deep into their pockets and give their money. Comic Relief didn’t raise less money this year because of the recession – it raised more.

That says big things about our country, and government should reflect that. That’s why I’m proud that we’ve ring-fenced the budget for international development.

To be British is to be sceptical of authority and the powers-that-be.

That’s why ID cards, 42 days and Labour’s surveillance state are so utterly unacceptable and why we will sweep the whole rotten edifice away.

And to be British is to have an instinctive love of the countryside and the natural world. The dangers of climate change are stark and very real. If we don’t act now, and act quickly, we could face disaster.

Yes, we need to change the way we live. But is that such a bad thing? The insatiable consumption and materialism of the past decade, has it made us happier or more fulfilled?

Yes, we have to put our faith in technologies. But that is not a giant leap. Just around the corner are new green technologies, unimaginable a decade ago, that can change the way we live, travel, work.

And yes, we need global co-operation. But that shouldn’t be difficult. It just takes leadership, and that’s what we need at the Copenhagen summit this December.

POLITICS

But if you care about our country, you’ve got to care about the health of our institutions. And today one of them, more than any other, is in a serious state of decline.

Our parliament used to be a beacon to the world. But the expenses scandal made it a laughing stock.

We apologised to the public, paid back the money that shouldn’t have been claimed……and published all our expenses online to help stop this happening again.

We’ve led the way in other areas too……MPs’ pay and pensions, cutting the cost of politics. But let me make something clear – this is not over.

We are just starting the job of building the new politics we need. Because the anger over expenses reflected something deeper. The sense that people have been left powerless by big government.

So it is time to shake things up. We need to redistribute power and responsibility. It’s your community and you should have control over it……so we need decentralisation. It’s your money and you should know what is being done with it……so we need transparency. It’s your life that’s affected by political decisions and the people who make those decisions should answer to you, so we need accountability.

EU

But if there is one political institution that needs decentralisation, transparency, and accountability, it is the EU.

For the past few decades, something strange has been happening on the left of British politics. People who think of themselves as progressives have fallen in love with an institution that no one elects, no one can remove, and that hasn’t signed off its accounts for over a decade.

Indeed even to question these things is, apparently, completely beyond the pale. Well, here is a progressive reform plan for Europe.

Let’s work together on the things where the EU can really help, like combating climate change, fighting global poverty and spreading free and fair trade.

But let’s return to democratic and accountable politics the powers the EU shouldn’t have.

And if we win the election, we will have as the strongest voice for our country’s interests, the man who is leading our campaign for a referendum, the man who will be our new British Foreign Secretary: William Hague.

WHAT WE CAN PROMISE

Family, community, country.

Recognising that what holds society together is responsibility……and that the good society is a responsible society. That’s what I’m about – that’s what any government I lead will be about.

The problems we face are big and urgent. Rebuilding our broken economy……because unless we do, our children will be saddled with debt for decades to come.

Mending our broken society……because unless we do, we will never solve those stubborn social problems that cause the size of government to rise.

Fixing our broken politics……because unless we do, we will never reform public services……never see the strong, powerful citizens…who will build the responsible society that we all want to see.

This week you’ve heard about our plans, our policies, the changes we want to make and the team to put them in place.

But I know that whatever plans you make in Opposition, it’s the unpredictable events that come to dominate a government.

And it’s your character, your temperament and your judgment, not your policies and your manifesto – that really make the difference.

You can never prove you’re ready for everything that will come your way as Prime Minister. But you can point to the judgments you’ve made. And you can learn from the mistakes that others have made.

I’ve seen what happens when you win and you waste your mandate obsessing about the 24 hour news cycle and fighting each day as if it’s a new general election, ducking the difficult things that would have really made a difference.

That was Blair. And I’ve seen what happens when you turn every decision into a political calculation. That was – that is – Brown.

So I won’t promise things I cannot deliver. But I can look you in the eye and tell you that in a Conservative Britain:

If you put in the effort to bring in a wage, you will be better off. If you save money your whole life, you’ll be rewarded. If you start your own business, we’ll be right behind you. If you want to raise a family, we’ll support you. If you’re frightened, we’ll protect you.If you risk your safety to stop a crime, we’ll stand by you. If you risk your life to fight for your country, we will honour you.

Ask me what a Conservative government stands for and the answer is this, we will reward those who take responsibility, and care for those who can’t.

CONCLUSION

So if we cut big government back. If we move society forward.

And if we rebuild responsibility, then we can put Britain back on her feet.I know that today there aren’t many reasons to be cheerful.

But there are reasons to believe. Yes it will be a steep climb. But the view from the summit will be worth it. Let me tell you what I can see.

I see a country where more children grow up with security and love because family life comes first. I see a country where you choose the most important things in life – the school your child goes to and the healthcare you get. I see a country where communities govern themselves – organising local services, independent of Whitehall, a great handing back of power to people.

I see a country with entrepreneurs everywhere, bringing their ideas to life – and life to our great towns and cities. I see a country where it’s not just about the quantity of money, but the quality of life – where we lead the world in saving our planet. I see a country where you’re not so afraid to walk home alone, where you’re safe in the knowledge that right and wrong is restored to law and order.

I see a country where the poorest children go to the best schools not the worst, where birth is never a barrier.

No, we will not make it if we pull in different directions, follow our own interests, take care of only ourselves.

But if we pull together, come together, work together – we will get through this together.

And when we look back we will say not that the government made it happen…

…not that the minister made it happen…

…but the businesswoman made it happen…

…the police officer made it happen…

…the father made it happen…

…the teacher made it happen.

You made it happen.

Dominic is the Shadow Secretary of State for Justice.

Ladies and gentlemen 12 years ago this autumn, Labour’s newly-elected Prime Minister got up before his party’s conference and pledged ‘zero tolerance on crime.’

Then just two years ago, his successor stood up before the same party conference.

He said his answer to the crime and chaos he inherited would be ‘to both punish and prevent.’

What we got instead of ‘zero tolerance’ was zero

12 years of a government undermining the authority of police, probation and prison officers.

12 years of a government selling off our freedoms for a cheap headline.

12 years of a government content to watch seventy-thousand criminals including the man guilty of the worst terrorist crime in our history let out of jail early.

The only ones truly punished in those 12 long years were the voters of this country.

And the term of their sentence, their collective punishment has been 12 years of Labour!

Consider:

A Conservative government will inherit

Record violent crime,

Record prison overcrowding,

And record public debt.

We face a period of austerity.

So I promise you three things money can’t buy:

Honesty in government not self-defeating spin.

Long-term reform not short-sighted gimmicks.

And above all the leadership to see us through the tough times, and the tough choices we all know lie ahead.

Honesty in Government

If there’s one thing that has destroyed public trust in our criminal justice system it’s this government’s lack of honesty.

Like their claim to have cut the number of young people entering the criminal justice system by 10 per cent slammed as ‘smoke and mirrors’ by the former head of the Youth Justice Board.

Or crime statistics. Did you know a Cabinet Office review last year could only find one person who the public trust less than the Home Office to tell the truth about crime ?

Gordon Brown.

Less than 5 per cent of people trust this Prime Minister to be honest about crime.

Where Labour has been obsessed with spin a Conservative government will restore public faith the only way possible by making crime figures completely independent of government.

What I’m talking about is no pre-release access for Ministers or officials let alone special advisers.

And I’ll make this personal commitment to you today:

If I’m appointed Justice Secretary in the next Conservative administration I will end Jack Straw’s serial, selective and cynical trailing of government policy in the media.

The first place that I will announce any new policy will be in the House of Commons.

So it’s not distorted it’s debated.

So the public get the whole truth not selective snippets.

Because the Justice Secretary should be the first person not the last to respect the role of the House of Commons in holding government any government to account.

Delivery not gimmickery

But, we won’t get rid of the spin unless we also reverse Labour’s culture of government by gimmick.

In the last twelve years, we’ve seen it all:

From marching yobs to cash points, to forcing knife offenders to face their victims in A&E wards Jack Straw’s latest wheeze is giving the public a vote on criminal punishments.

Think about it:

Do people up and down this country want our justice system reduced to some cheap imitation of X-factor?

No people want their elected politicians to sort out the mess.

Like prison overcrowding.

When he was Chancellor, Gordon Brown vetoed the money to build enough prisons. Now that he’s Prime Minister he’s got an even better idea:

To release early thirteen thousand violent criminals.

That’s a thousand crimes committed by criminals who should have been in jail.

With one in seven murders now committed by offenders who’ve been released on probation.

The horrific reality I’m talking about was demonstrated all too tragically when two students at Imperial College London were robbed, tortured and murdered by Dano Sonnex and his accomplice.

Why?

All for a total of £360 in cash and a couple of computer games.

That case isn’t complex. It’s simple.

Sonnex breached prison discipline 40 times.

He should never have been released in the first place.

And when he kidnapped a pregnant woman and put a knife to her throat he obviously should have been instantly recalled to prison.

But what did he get under this Labour Government?

A verbal warning.

These weren’t isolated errors, they were systematic failings.

We won’t fix them overnight.

But we will start taking the difficult decisions on day one.

A Conservative government will build the prison places to address chronic overcrowding, and to make sure dangerous criminals like Sonnex remain behind bars,

Given the state of the public finances we will look at every option: Sale of the older estate to build new prisons. Alternative sites that can be adapted. And the extension of existing prisons.

But building more prisons isn’t enough.

Most offenders are released at some point.

So the question is whether they come out in a better or worse condition than they went in.

At the moment our overcrowded prisons just make criminals worse – we need a radical overhaul.

For a start, we will recognise the tough job prison officers do.

We will restore prisoner discipline by making offenders earn their release by behaving properly.

Then we need a zero tolerance approach to drugs in prison.

Last month, Jack Straw said he wants to control addicts by supervising heroin prescriptions.

What kind of defeatist message does that send?

Well, I’m not prepared to give up prosecuting the dealers, or trying to rehabilitate those with a drug problem.

A Conservative government will expand abstinence-based rehabilitation from existing budgets to get addicts off drugs not left hooked in a cycle of addiction.

Prisoners should also be put to productive work in prison.

If we improve the skills of offenders in our prisons then we improve their chances of getting a job.

And that radically reduces the likelihood of ex-convicts returning to a life of crime.

We will cut the prison bureaucracy that shut down programs like ‘Project Barbed’ at Coldingley Prison.

Where offenders worked for a graphic design business learning new skills and earning money so they could compensate their victims.

A Conservative government will get prisoners learning skills, earning their keep and paying for their crimes.

Leadership Requires Tough Choices

As I said a moment ago none of this will be easy.

But we can begin by taking the difficult decisions that define leadership.

A Conservative government will give frontline probation staff the direction they need.

They won’t be welfare officers for offenders they’ll be the guardians of public safety.

When it comes to legal aid, we will look for savings from the costs of prisoner claims that have soared from one million to nineteen million pounds in just six years.

But if Labour has abdicated tough choices they’ve also fabricated false choices.

Like the so-called trade-off between liberty and security.

We have a government that wants to lock up innocent people for 42 days without charge, but then supports the decision to let the Lockerbie bomber, convicted of murdering 243 people walk free.

And can somebody tell me how counter-terrorism will be served by extraditing Gary McKinnon to the United States for hacking into government computers in search of UFOs?

Ministers say they can’t block his extradition.

They can’t override the law.

But we have proposed a change in that law, sitting in the House of Lords right now that would prevent the McKinnon case ever happening again.

Why hasn’t the government accepted it?

When will Gordon Brown wake up then stand-up for the rights of British citizens?

Our extradition laws are a mess.

They’re one sided.

A Conservative government will re-write them.

There’s no ‘inevitable conflict’ between liberty and law enforcement.

It’s this government’s approach to human rights that has created chaos and confusion.

How many times have we seen police or probation officers say they can’t disclose the identity of a criminal because of his privacy under the Human Rights Act?

Police in Derbyshire refused to disclose photos of fugitive murderers.

And the Serious Organised Crime Agency say they can’t name gangsters.

That’s complete nonsense.

And we’ll end it straightaway.

So today I can announce that a Conservative government will change the rules for people charged with protecting the public on the frontline.

Why?

So it’s clear crystal clear that protecting the public takes precedence over the privacy of criminals!!!

Conclusion

So let’s just think for a minute about the future: The first few years of the next government won’t be easy.

But a Conservative government will be part of the solution, not part of the problem.

We’ll be straight with the public.

We’ll focus on long-term delivery.

And above all: We’ll provide leadership.

Driven by a desire to do what’s right for this country not just right for the next news cycle.

With a sense of humility that recognizes we can’t do it all in the ‘blink of an eye’.

And guided by trust in the common sense of law enforcement professionals to get on with the work they are charged to do without political interference.

Because, when our first term comes to an end.

I want us to be able to say something to the people of this country that Ministers cannot say today ‘Judge us not by our words but by what we have accomplished.’

Michael is the Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. He believes in helping children maximise their potential.

I have a fantastic job.

Every few days I get to visit places which run on undiluted optimism -

I get to spend time in this country’s best state schools – and it just lifts the soul like nothing else

Seeing young lives being transformed by great teaching makes you appreciate that there are people who can change the world -

And we’ve just been hearing from one of them.

Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Mossbourne Academy.

I can’t tell you how much I admire this man.

When he arrived at Mossbourne he inherited what was officially the worst school in England.

Now it’s one of the best.

It’s bang next door to one of Hackney’s most deprived estates.

It has more than its fair share of Hackney’s poorest children – pupils on free school meals, pupils with special educational needs, pupils who come from homes where English just isn’t spoken.

But in just a few short years Sir Michael has ensured that school now has eighty-five per cent of students getting top marks at GCSE – way above the national average – and many are now on course for higher education.

A generation of children born into poverty now destined for the best universities.

It’s been an overused word recently – but Sir Michael is a real hero.

And if you want to know what Conservative education policy is in a nutshell its taking what has made Sir Michael’s school excellent and spreading it to every school.

Because what Sir Michael does is deliver what every sensible parent knows is needed in our schools.

He insists on a proper uniform – with blazer and tie – respect for authority, clear sanctions for troublemakers and no excuses for bad behaviour.

He sets classes by ability – so the brightest can be stretched and the weakest given special support.

He teaches traditional subjects in a rigorous way and when the bureaucrats try to insert the latest fashionable nonsense into the curriculum he tells them where to get off.

There are fantastic extra-curricular activities, proper competitive sports and an amazing team of teachers – who work into the evenings and on Saturdays to give their pupils the best possible chance in life.

Why isn’t every state school like that?

It’s my job to make sure they are.

So where do we start?

Well Sir Michael would tell you – with discipline.

Unless you have good discipline then teachers cannot teach and children cannot learn.

And we know that behaviour in many of our schools at the moment just isn’t good enough.

More than 300,000 children are suspended from school every year for bad behaviour.

Over 300 children are suspended from school every day for assault.

A quarter of teachers have been physically attacked by students.

We have got to change the system – so we protect teachers not troublemakers.

And we’ve got to be on the side of the children who want to learn, by dealing firmly with those who won’t behave.

Which is why a Conservative Government will act.

We’ll give teachers effective power to confiscate banned items and restrain violent pupils.

We will compel the parents of troublemakers to take responsibility for their children.

And we will change the law so that when a head teacher expels a violent pupil– that pupil cannot plead that his human rights have been violated and then stick two fingers up to authority.

We cannot have a system where a student who has pulled a knife on a teacher can swagger back into the school which tried to exclude him because bureaucrats say so.

- under a Conservative Government that will end.

Because we know that no school can succeed unless the head is in control – captain of their ship.

And it’s by solving the problems we have with discipline that we can really start to improve standards.

And they desperately need improving.

Over the last ten years we have been falling behind as a nation.

We have dropped from fourth in the world for science standards to fourteenth.

From seventh in the world for literacy to seventeenth.

And from eighth in the world for mathematics to twenty-fourth.

And what makes this decline worse – at once more tragic and more costly – is the widening gap between the achievement of the richest and the poorest.

This year nearly a quarter of a million children left primary school unable to read, write and add up properly – and they were overwhelmingly children from poorer families.

This year more than half the children leaving comprehensives failed to get the basic requirement of five decent GCSE passes – and they were overwhelmingly children from poorer families.

This year there were hundreds of schools which entered no children for either A level history, or geography, or physics, or chemistry or biology – and the children in those schools were from poorer families.

The fate of these children haunts me for very personal reasons.

I know how the right education can give children – whatever their background – amazing opportunities.

I was adopted as a child – given a second chance – and then – thanks to wonderful parents who believed in the transforming power of education – I was given the opportunity to choose my own destiny.

It’s because I was given a second chance – because I know that where you were born should never determine who you become – that I am so passionate about improving our education system.

And it is why I am a Conservative.

Because it this party which has always been on the side of extending opportunity, advancing social mobility, liberating individuals from poverty – and it is that crusade which will define the next Conservative Government.

Because we will deal with this problem at its heart…

We will tackle head on the defeatism, the political correctness and the entrenched culture of dumbing down that is at the heart of our educational establishment.

For far too long out of touch bureaucrats have imposed faddy ideologies on our schools which ignore the evidence of what really works in education.

Teachers have been deprived of professional freedom, denied the chance to inspire children with a love of learning and dragooned into delivering what the bureaucrats decree.

We know that the countries with the very best education systems are those with the best teachers – and we know that the only way we can deliver real improvements in education is by strengthening the role of great teachers – and diminishing the power of the bureaucrats.

So we will drastically reduce the intrusive regulation which holds back good teachers – and ensure there are many more talented people who choose to become teachers.

We’ll expand Teach First – which has helped recruit the highest performing graduates into teaching.

We’ll develop a Troops to Teachers programme – to get professionals in the army who know how to train young men and women into the classroom where they can provide not just discipline – but inspiration and leadership.

And we’ll ensure that experts in every field – especially mathematicians, scientists, technicians and engineers – can make a swift transition into teaching so our children have access to the very, very best science education –

Nothing matters more to our future economic prosperity than a flourishing science base.

But in no area has the curriculum been more debased by the bureaucrats than in science.

Over the last few years there has been a remorseless retreat from rigour in the exams we set our children.

Let me read you some of the questions we ask our sixteen year olds.

In GCSE science we ask students if nurses leave the room during X-ray sessions in hospital for health reasons

or because their mobile phone might melt

or they might get a tan.

We ask students which is a better argument for nuclear power – creating jobs or creating toxic waste.

We ask students which is healthier – a battered sausage or grilled fish.

These aren’t rigorous tests of scientific knowledge – they’re terrifying evidence of how our educational establishment has presided over a comprehensive decline in examination standards.

What should we do with people who think that this country can become a scientific leader by asking about sausages in batter? They’ve just got to go.

And under a Conservative Government the people who’ve been responsible for dumbing down our examination system will go.

The time is long overdue for us to put rigour at the heart of the curriculum.

And there are few areas of knowledge where that matters more than history.

There is no better way of building a modern, inclusive, patriotism than by teaching all British citizens to take pride in this country’s historic achievements.

Which is why the next Conservative Government will ensure the curriculum teaches the proper narrative of British History – so that every Briton can take pride in this nation.

If the only areas where the education establishment had failed were on science and history then that would be bad enough.

But the failure goes deeper. And starts earlier.

The biggest failure of our education system is the failure to teach children the most important skill of all – the ability to read.

Every year more than 100,000 children – one in five – leave primary school unable to read properly.

Two thirds of working class boys at the age of fourteen have a reading age of seven or below.

One in five – after going through the school system – do not have the language skills to be able to find a plumber under P in the Yellow Pages.

Those children who cannot read are imprisoned in ignorance all their lives.

They are, overwhelmingly, likely to be the difficult and disruptive pupils in class – covering up their inability to follow what’s going on by trying to show how tough and hard they are.

And they are, overwhelmingly, likely to be the truants, the recruits for street gangs, the children who have given up on hope and become trapped in defiance

Nothing is more important than saving these young lives. That is why we will ensure in every primary school there is a renewed and relentless focus on getting every child to read quickly and fluently. We will train a new generation of primary teachers in the skills they need. And we will have a simple reading test for children after two years at primary school to make sure they are reading fluently.

Wanting to teach children to read properly isn’t some sort of antique prejudice – it’s an absolute necessity in a civilized society and I won’t rest until we have eliminated illiteracy in modern Britain.

The failure to teach millions to read is the greatest of betrayals. But I’ll be taking on the education establishment because they’ve done more than just squander talent. They’ve also squandered money.

Your money.

On an epic scale.

The extent of waste in the budgets of educational bureaucracies is a genuine scandal.

The body responsible for writing the curriculum – the QDCA – spends more than one hundred million pounds every year –

and after hiring an army of consultants, squadrons of advisers and regiments of bureaucrats they still wrote a syllabus for the Second World War without any place for Winston Churchill.

Never in the field of public expenditure has so much been spent by so many to distort World War Two.

We need to take education out of the hands of these unaccountable quangocrats and make sure – at a time of austerity – that we use every penny we can to keep teachers in the classroom.

This is your money.

Which should be spent on your children.

And under a Conservative Government it will be.

We will ensure that the quangos are cut down to size, waste is cut out of the system and bureaucracies are cut to the bone…

And when it comes to making money go further our reforms will go deeper.

We will give parents control over the money which is spent on their children’s education. Parents will be able to take the five thousand pounds the state spends on their children to the school of their choice. And we will give the parents of poorer children more money.

Because nobody cares more about a child’s education than their parents. And no parents need our help more than the poorest.

I want to see a radical shift of power in education –

Instead of a system run from the centre which has given us the drift towards bigger and bigger schools, the decline in standards of behaviour, the devaluation of exams and the dumbing-down of the curriculum we will have a shift in power which will ensure the good sense of millions of parents determines our children’s future.

The first thing we will do is apply the policies which have worked so well in Sweden, in America and Canada in bringing great schools to communities which at the moment have none.

We will change the laws – on planning, on funding, on staffing – to make it easier for new schools to be created in your neighbourhood, so you can demand the precise, personalised, education your children need

Just imagine it – within walking distance of your front door.

A small school – where the headteacher knows every child’s name

with smaller class sizes – and personal support for your child.

With higher standards and tougher discipline

The money currently wasted on red tape and management consultants instead invested in books and teachers.

This is step one in a revolution which will see more and more of our schools run by professionals – who are accountable to parents not central or local bureaucracy.

The next step is putting the machinery in place to improve existing schools now.

We know that the fastest improving state schools in our country – like Mossbourne are academies.

Because they’re outside local bureaucratic control they have the freedom to pay good teachers more, to tailor teaching to every child and to ignore government red tape.

So we will dramatically accelerate the number of academies – we have already said that the very best schools in our country should be able to become academies so they can partner under-performing schools and help them improve.

But the scale of the problems we face as a nation mean that we have to go further, faster, sooner…

So a Conservative Government would allow any school that is ready to the chance to become a new academy.

Every state school could have the chance to free itself from bureaucratic control – and get the extra money, freedom and flexibility which schools like Mossbourne have used to dramatically lift standards.

Let me be clear – that means a fundamental change in the role of local authorities – instead of telling parents who’re unhappy with local schools to like it or lump it, local bureaucrats will be on notice to justify their position, their power and their performance. Because we need money where it makes a difference – not on a bureaucrat’s desk but in the classroom.

And because we want to ensure that the benefits of academy status are delivered most quickly where they’re most needed a Conservative Government will act on day one to help those children who’ve been let down most comprehensively.

We will create new technical schools in our major cities to ensure children who need it get the sort of hands-on, practical, vocational education you need in the world of work. These schools will be in the vanguard of providing what our economy desperately needs now – thousands more proper, real-world, apprenticeships.

And we won’t stop there.

We will – in our first hundred days – identify the very worst schools – the sink schools which have desperately failed their children – and put them in rapidly into the hands of heads with a proven track record of success.

We will remove the managements which have failed

and replace them with people who know how to turn round schools

people like Sir Michael Wilshaw

heads who can impose discipline

improve teaching

and rescue the children this system has betrayed.

I will not allow another generation of our poorest children to have their future blighted by failing schools.

Now, I’m going into this with my eyes open.

I understand the scale of this ambition.

I know the changes we need to make will not come smoothly or easily.

There will be problems.

It will be hard, fraught, difficult.

We will be attacked by those who’ve been complicit in decades of failure who see their power, their privileges and their reputations under assault.

But, we face a stark choice in education today

do nothing – and watch as we fall further behind other nations

do nothing – and watch as the gap between those who have and those who have not widens inexorably

- do nothing – and allow the vicious, violent minority to dominate the playground, and the streets.

Well, I simply refuse to stand on the sidelines and allow that to happen

Because we cannot afford to fail in our mission to improve state education.

We know the problems we face in education are a microcosm of the problems we face in all of British society

Over-bureaucratic, over-regulated, over-run by political correctness.

Under-performing, under-achieving, under the control of the wrong people.

It has got to change.

The whole point of politics is to fight for change –

This party is at its best when it’s on the side of change.

This country has never been more in need of change.

So let us work, and fight together, and never give in until we have delivered the change this country deserves.

Chris is the Shadow Home Secretary. He has been Member of Parliament for Epsom and Ewell since 2001.

Let me tell you a story about life in Britain today.

About one of our soldiers in Afghanistan

He was home on leave

In his local town centre on Saturday night.

Out of the blue he was attacked and beaten by two drunk youths.

The police were called.

The two attackers were arrested.

And let off with a caution.

Not tried.

Not put behind bars.

Not even given a community sentence.

Just given a legal slap on the wrist.

Time and again the troublemakers just seem to get away with it.

The gangs, the drunks, even those who commit acts of violence.

They just get away with it.

Criminals aren’t caught because the police are stuck at desks doing paperwork.

Or because they aren’t listening to the communities they are supposed to protect.

Violent offenders, sex offenders and heroin dealers get off with cautions because it’s the least hassle option for police and the Crown Prosecution Service.

And even if they go to prison, the Government releases them automatically after a fraction of their sentence to reoffend on the same streets as before.

People think our criminal justice system is broken.

Worrying too much about the criminals and not enough about the justice.

It makes me furious.

It makes you furious.

And law abiding, decent, people are asking – who’s looking after me?

Well, my message to them is that a Conservative Government will start looking after you.

That’s why need radical reform in every part of the system.

The police. The CPS. The courts. Prisons. Probation.

We need to sort it out, so there’s no more excuses, no more buck-passing, no more nonsense.

We need a criminal justice system that is focused on fighting crime and that is exactly what we plan to deliver.

**

But today I want to focus on the antisocial behaviour that blights so many of our communities.

And the drunken disorder that so often causes it.

No one thinks that the Government’s 24 hour drinking regime has led to the creation of a “continental café culture”.

We’re not talking about stopping people enjoying a few drinks in the pub. But things have gone far too far.

Our town centres on a Friday and Saturday night can be battle zones for our police.

Local parks and local estates are blighted by gangs of young troublemakers….fuelled by alcohol given to them by irresponsible adults.

I have talked to people up and down the country whose lives are being ruined by antisocial behaviour.

It’s time we stood up for them.

Last week in Brighton Ministers announced tweaks to the system so they could claim to be doing something about it.

They aren’t.

We will.

So let me tell you how we’re going to tackle binge drinking and antisocial behaviour.

We’ll start with the problem of fourteen year olds hanging around with bottles of super-strength beers or ciders.

It’s much too easy for them to get very drunk quickly and cheaply.

So let me today give you more detail of our plan to introduce big increases in the tax on super strength alcohol.

We will increase the price of a four pack of super strength lager by £1.33

We will more than double tax on super strength cider.

And our planned increase on alcopops will raise the price of a large bottle by £1.50.

These tax changes will not hit responsible drinkers.

The ordinary pint in the pub will not be affected.

and there’ll be exemptions for some local traditional products.

But we’ll call time on the drinks that fuel antisocial behaviour.

Then there are supermarkets which boost the sales of other products by selling alcohol below cost price. That also fuels Britain’s binge drinking culture.

So we will ban them from doing so.

We’ll tear up this Government’s lax licensing regime.

Right now virtually anyone can get a licence to sell alcohol. We even have all night takeaways selling more drink to people as they stagger home from the pub.

We will change that.

Local councils will have the power to stop town centres being taken over by pubs, clubs and off-licences.

We’ll give communities a right of veto over new licences in their area.

There’ll also be tough new rules for existing licensed premises.

Councils will be able to restrict opening hours.

There’ll be strict penalties for pubs and off-licences that break the rules.

Much bigger fines if they sell to under age drinkers.

If they do it again, we’ll close them for a few days as a penalty.

And if it still happens, we’ll strip them of their licence permanently.

There’s also the huge cost of policing areas that are already dominated by pubs and clubs and off-licences.

Under a Conservative Government late night problem premises will pay more for their licence.

So we can pay more for policing in our town centres to tackle the blight of antisocial behaviour after closing time.

I know some of those in the drinks industry will complain about the impact of these changes.

But I think there are times when it’s right to put the interests of communities ahead of the interests of business.

**

We’ve also got to deal with those who commit the acts of antisocial behaviour and disorder as well.

Right now they can offend again and again and just get away with it.

Our criminal justice system is sending all the wrong messages.

We need real punishments for young troublemakers.

Not to send them home with a rap over the knuckles.

That’s why Dominic and I are working on a range of instant punishments for antisocial behaviour.

Like grounding the offenders for up to a month.

Or making them do community punishments, like cleaning up local parks.

Real consequences for the trouble they’ve caused.

But that’s for low level offences.

For the more serious incidents, things must be different.

We were all shocked by the tragic case of Fiona Pilkington.

But let’s be clear. What happened to her wasn’t antisocial behaviour. It was criminal.

The people who did that to her should be behind bars.

There are too many serious offenders getting away with it.

Our police are too inclined to take the easy option.

Giving someone a caution or a fixed penalty notice means box ticked, case closed, another solved crime.

But we know the system is being misused.

Not just for the young men who attacked that soldier.

Or the others who get violent on a Friday or Saturday night.

But when serious offenders, like people carrying knives, also get off with a caution.

When they should be behind bars.

And would you believe this.

Last week I met the commanding officer of a local PCSO who had been assaulted by a gang member, and then thrown down a staircase.

He was given an eighty pound fixed penalty notice.

That is outrageous.

It is the sign of a system that is bust.

I think anyone who assaults a police officer should end up in court facing time behind bars.

Then there was the extraordinary claim by a senior police officer, at the inquest into the death of Fiona Pilkington, that the police are no longer responsible for antisocial behaviour.

What complete nonsense.

So it’s time for real change.

It’s time for a new deal with our police.

We’ll deal with the things that frustrate them.

We’ll get rid of the mountains of bureaucracy that make it easier to cut corners.

We’ll provide them with proper protection against violence.

We’ll get rid of the target culture that makes it easier to issue a caution than to prosecute.

And we’ll give them back more power to charge criminals themselves.

But in return we want real action against the troublemakers.

And we want them to be more accountable to the communities they serve.

The next Conservative Government will get rid of Britain’s caution culture.

And will demand real moves to tackle antisocial behaviour.

It’s time justice was really done on our streets.

**

Ladies and Gentlemen. There are two other big priorities for a Conservative Home Office.

The first is our immigration system.

For twelve years it has been a complete shambles.

Uncontrolled immigration.

Widespread abuse of our student visa system.

Human traffickers exploiting the vulnerable for profit.

So let me make things clear today.

A Conservative government will be robust in the way it controls immigration.

There will be no open door to Britain.

Instead we will have a system that treats people fairly and decently.

That welcomes those who should be able to come and live here.

Like the Gurkhas who have done so much for our country.

But we’ll close the gaping hole in our student visa system.

We’ll crack down on the traffickers.

Britain will have its own, specialist border police force.

We will set an annual cap on the number of people who can come and live and work here.

I will not tolerate more of the chaos of the past few years.

**

The Home Office has another key responsibility.

The security of our people and of our nation.

To take the lead in the battle against terrorism.

And the fight against an ideology of hate and violence.

An ideology that damages the reputation of decent, law abiding British Muslims as well as threatening life and limb.

And let’s be clear. That ideology wants to destroy the civil liberties that make this country what it is. No Government should allow them to do so, and the way this Government has eroded those liberties is shameful and must be reversed.

Our police and security services have done a magnificent job in protecting us against the terrorist threat.

We owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

But we are still not tough enough on those who spread a doctrine of hate in Britain.

So I will immediately ban Hiz b’ut Tahrir, and any other group that actively incites hatred and violence.

We also have extremists using video links to hold meetings with banned preachers of hate from overseas who urge violence against our society.

If I am Home Secretary the people who organise those meetings will be arrested and prosecuted.

Under this Government the extremists have been free to protest on our streets and incite violence and hatred in the most blatant ways.

We cannot and we will not allow this to continue.

**

Ladies and Gentlemen.

What people want from the Home Office is a no-nonsense approach to the crime and disorder problems in their communities.

They understand that those problems are complex.

That we need to get to grips with the social problems that foster crime ….

….as well as with the crime and antisocial behaviour itself.

But right now they are hugely frustrated.

They feel let down by the police.

They feel let down by the courts.

They feel let down by the Government.

Above all they believe that under Labour those who commit crime and antisocial behaviour are just getting away with it.

They’re right.

They are.

And if we win, it will stop.

This morning, George Osborne the Shadow Chancellor delivered a speech that was clear and unambiguous with an undertone of togetherness repeatedly stating “we’re all in this together”.

Here is the full text:

We know what the task is.

Britain is coming out of the deepest recession since the war.

Our country is facing the largest budget deficit in our modern history.

And we will have no choice but tackle it decisively if we are to stop high interest rates and the unemployment they bring.

Yet at the same time the next Conservative Government is determined to leave public services and society stronger than it finds them.

Put bluntly.

Labour created this mess.

Everything we have done in this Party:

- all the changes we have brought about;

- all the judgements we have made;

- all the leadership that you David have shown us;

all these things have prepared us for this moment – the moment when we ask to take our country forward at a time of enormous difficulty.

Our unwavering commitment to fiscal responsibility as the root of economic stability.

Our understanding that millions of Britons depend on public services and cannot opt out.

Our conviction that precisely because so many depend on them, those services need radical reform.

Our determination as compassionate Conservatives to protect the most vulnerable.

Our hard-headed recognition that, without enterprise and aspiration, compassion comes with an empty wallet.

It is the combination of these values that define the modern Conservative Party.

And there’s something else.

After a year in which trust in Parliament has been rocked to its foundations, we know that politics must change forever.

We have to be open and transparent with the people we serve.

We need to offer a complete change from the double counting, the fiddled figures, the off balance sheet trickery, the stealth taxes and the feckless irresponsibility of the last twelve years.

We must rescue a lost generation from the jobs crisis that afflicts our country.

We must move this economy from one built on debt to one sustained by saving and investment.

The government borrowed too much.

The banks borrowed too much.

Let’s tell the truth – we all borrowed too much.

Were we the only people in the world who did this? No, we were not.

Were we the ones who did it most? Yes, we were.

Now we reap the terrible consequences.

One in five young people cannot find work.

One pound in every four the state spends goes straight on the national debt.

More of our taxes go on paying the interest on that debt than on educating our children or defending our country.

Britain cannot go on like this.

We are sinking in a sea of debt.

I believe it is a terrible mistake to claim, as Gordon Brown does, that there is a choice between getting to grips with the debt and having an economic recovery.

Of course the pace of fiscal tightening has to be determined in co-ordination with the independent Bank of England and monetary policy.

And we will create an independent Office for Budget Responsibility to hold us to our course.

But you cannot have a sustained recovery until you show the world that Britain can pay its way.

And let me tell you, the world is watching Britain at the moment.

It is casting doubt on our country’s creditworthiness.

It is questioning our resolve to deal with our debts.

And when that starts to happen, then long term interest rates rise, and international investment dries up, and businesses fail, and unemployment rises still further, and the recovery is killed stone dead.

We saw it the last time a Labour Government ran out of money.

And we must never allow our country to be dragged there again.

So we need to show political leadership and take the difficult decisions.

What a disgrace that a Chancellor who is borrowing £175 billion this year didn’t even mention it in his Conference speech.

The Prime Minister called him last week ‘a great Chancellor’, conveniently forgetting that three months ago he tried to sack him.

What does it say about Gordon Brown that he got into a trial of strength with Alistair Darling and lost.

And while we’re on the Prime Minister. This man has in front of him confidential Treasury advice that he’s got to cut spending by 10%.

What a disgrace that he spends his Conference speech unveiling a list of new unfunded spending commitments when he can’t pay for the last lot.

When he should have been giving this country a lead, he went shopping on Brighton Pier with the nation’s credit card.

The Iron Chancellor has turned into the plastic Prime Minister.

Free social care. Free hospital parking. Free childcare places.

We would all like those things. But where is the money coming from?

He is treating the British people like fools.

If you want to know why this is the least trusted government we have ever known then look at the nonsense they spouted at their Conference last week and you will have your answer.

Speaker after speaker, Prime Minister after Chancellor, said we opposed the bail out of the banks.

Do they think no one will remember our Party Conference last year in Birmingham?

That none of the journalists, let alone the audience here, would remember when David Cameron interrupted the schedule to come onto the stage and pledge the support of the opposition?

We supported the bank bailouts last autumn.

Not for political advantage, because we knew we wouldn’t get any.

We did it because David and I genuinely believed it was the right thing to do.

And all our big economic judgements come down to that.

The judgement at our Conference three years ago to tell you that we were not going to come up with a list of unfunded tax cuts.

And who doubts that was the right judgement now.

The judgement to tell the British people twelve months ago, when it wasn’t fashionable, that the cupboard was bare.

Or the judgement last November to oppose the VAT cut.

That wasn’t the easy thing to do.

You try being the Shadow Chancellor who tells the Conservative Parliamentary Party that we are going to vote against a tax cut.

But who now doubts that was the right thing to do.

For not a single government in the world followed Britain’s VAT cut.

Hardly a single major retailer thinks it worked.

David Cameron and I have always put sound money and stability ahead of everything. And who now argues against that?

This June we told the truth and said publicly that whoever won the election would have to cut government spending.

The Prime Minister told Parliament week after week that the choice was now ‘investment versus cuts’.

But the public realised the choice wasn’t cuts versus investment.

It was reality versus fantasy.

Prudence versus profligacy.

Truth versus lies.

Never has a government’s economic position collapsed more comprehensively in the face of an opposition’s argument.

We made the right call.

And if anyone still needed proof that we are now in control of the argument on the economy, it came last night.

As we have argued for months, pay restraint is necessary and the debt crisis needs addressing.

But for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to sneak out public sector pay policy in the middle of the Conservative conference, when he didn’t have the guts to announce it to the Labour Party Conference tells you that these Labour politicians are better at writing books about courage than displaying it themselves.

This is about character as well as policy.

Now we face the biggest challenge.

How to build the sort of Britain we want in the face of the largest deficit in the developed world.

Let me tell you the distinctive approach modern Conservatives will take to making that judgement.

I can’t give you the 2010 Budget in 2009.

But I want you to understand the sort of Government we will be, and the sort of decisions we will take.

First, modern Conservatives understand that we are all in this together.

There cannot be one rule for Westminster and Whitehall, and another rule for everyone else.

It is not the quantity of money saved so much as the example set.

We will cut the pay of Ministers by 5% next year and then freeze it for the rest of the Parliament.

We will cut the number of MPs by 10%.

And Parliament will be required to do what so many hard-pressed businesses have been forced to do, and close its unaffordable pension scheme to new members.

And what we ask of Westminster, we will also ask of Whitehall and its quangos.

The excessive salaries at the top have to go.

In the current climate, anyone who wishes to pay a public servant more than the Prime Minister will have to put it before the Chancellor.

I am not expecting a long queue.

The tax relief on private sector pensions is capped, so the time has come to find ways to impose a £50,000 annual cap too on the size of public sector pension payouts.

And a Conservative Britain won’t need such a huge army of regulators, inspectors and central planners second-guessing the professional judgement of every teacher, nurse and police officer.

And we won’t need a huge tier of regional government second-guessing the decisions of elected local councillors either.

I tell you today that the next Conservative Government will cut the cost of Whitehall by one third over the next Parliament.

Westminster and Whitehall subjected to the same disciplines as everyone else.

A £3 billion pound a year saving in bureaucracy alone.

We are all in this together.

Second, modern Conservatives believe in decent public services.

We know that the vast majority of families depend on them and cannot opt out.

The idea that David Cameron and any Cabinet he leads – the idea that the modern Conservative Party – would callously damage those public services is a shameful lie.

Under David’s leadership we have committed to increasing health funding each year.

We have become the Party of the NHS.

Yes, we want to reform public services.

Unless we reverse the dramatic fall in productivity over which this government has presided, one thing is certain – the frontline will suffer.

Progressive Conservative reform or Labour frontline cuts – that’s the real dividing line in British politics.

Departmental budgets will have to be set to get more for less across the public sector.

It’s what successful businesses do everyday.

This constant process of:

- rooting out waste;

- eliminating failing programmes;

- reviewing procurement;

- publishing spending information online

- increasing productivity

- ending the constant stream of pointless eye-catching initiatives;

all this will make the greatest contribution to reducing the budget deficit.

Tens of billions of pounds will have to be saved this way.

The reform of public services will be driven not just by those who manage them, but by the choices of those who use them.

We are all in this together.

Third, modern Conservatives have a huge respect for the many committed public servants.

Conservatives should never use lazy rhetoric that belittles those who are employed by the government.

Our job should be to motivate those people and get the best out of them.

But it is because we treat those who work in our public sector with respect that I want to be straight with you about the choices we face.

At a time of crisis, there is an inevitable and difficult trade off between securing jobs and restraining pay.

Anyone who tells you otherwise when the budget deficit is this big is misleading you.

It is the same trade off that has been made at British Telecom, Vodafone, Jaguar and – incidentally – Channel 4 and the Guardian.

No one should pick on public sector workers.

I will not ask them to make any sacrifice or shoulder any burden that the rest of Britain is not being asked to make.

And government must honour commitments already made.

But today I tell you in all candour that if you look at the nation’s finances.

What the Government announced yesterday will not be enough. It covers less than a fifth of the public sector workforce.

You will see that whoever wins the election is going to have to ask from 2011 each part of the public sector to accept a one year pay freeze.

We shouldn’t include public servants earning less than £18,000.

Because I don’t believe in balancing the budget on the backs of the poorest – and nor do you

Nor of course would anyone want to include those risking their lives for this country in Afghanistan – we owe them so much more.

Indeed, we should double their operational allowance.

I know it is difficult to ask such hard working people to accept this freeze.

But I want to be straight with you.

A pay freeze of the scale I’m talking about is the equivalent to saving 100,000 public sector jobs.

And I say to every public sector worker it is the best way to try to protect your job during this difficult period.

We are all in this together.

And modern Conservatism includes understanding that everyone being in it together involves the rich making their contribution too.

I am no fan of high tax rates.

We know that in the long run they destroy enterprise.

That is why we should not accept Labour’s new 50 per cent tax rate on the highest earners as a permanent feature of the tax system.

But we could not even think of abolishing the 50p rate on the rich while at the same time I am asking many of our public sector workers to accept a pay freeze to protect their jobs.

I think we can all agree that would be grossly unfair.

We will also target tax evasion and off-shore tax havens.

Remember we were the first to ask the non doms to make their fair contribution.

Everyone must pay their share.

I have a tough message to the bankers too.

The support from the taxpayer when you needed it most was there to prop up your banks not your bank accounts.

Don’t forget that.

I hope the new international rules work.

It is the best solution.

But if we find the money that should be going into stronger bank balance sheets is being unreasonably diverted into bigger pay and bonuses – we reserve the right to take further action and that includes using the tax system.

I have given you a fair warning.

For I believe in the free market not a free ride.

And I believe we are all in this together.

But none of this will work unless we do something else modern Conservatives believe.

We will never mend our broken public finances unless we start to fix our broken society.

The cost of broken families and broken communities is paid for by every hard working taxpayer.

That is why we are going to support marriage in the tax and benefit system.

That is why, as you heard yesterday, we are going to devote an enormous effort to help the unemployed and get Britain working.

Along with our reforms to incapacity benefit, we also have to take a realistic look at the benefits the rest of society receives.

We will preserve child benefit, winter fuel payments and free TV licenses. They are valued by millions.

But quite frankly child trust funds have not been as successful as many like myself hoped.

We should continue paying them to the poorest families who often have no savings, and encourage them to use them more – but, let me tell you today, handing out new baby bonds to the rest of the country is a luxury we can no longer afford.

And I can also tell you today, we can no longer justify paying means tested tax credits to families with incomes over £50,000.

A modern Conservative Government will not ask from anyone what it is not prepared to ask from everyone.

Here’s one more part of the modern Conservative approach to putting Britain back on the right financial track.

We want to turn an economy that borrows into one that saves.

At every stage we will support the culture of saving, and for those who show responsibility for themselves and others.

Encouraging savings is why I made my promise that only millionaires would pay inheritance tax.

Of course this financial crisis means it cannot be a priority for our first Budget, but in the lifetime of a Parliament we will honour that pledge.

A savers society is our ambition.

So we are going to stop more and more pensioners being driven onto the means test.

Let me affirm today that in the next Parliament we resolve to restoring the earnings link for the basic state pension.

That means a more generous state pension for all.

But this is another one of those trade-offs any honest government has to confront.

All parties accept that to afford that with an ageing population, the state pension will have to rise.

The women’s pension age is already set to start rising over the next decade to 65. And by 2026 the pension age for men and women will reach 66.

This is already happening.

But most experts – including Lord Turner who made this recommendation – now think that is too far off.

So we will hold the review which Turner’s Report itself proposed and which this government has never held.

Our aim will be to bring forward the date when the pension age rises.

This already is happening in Germany, in Holland and in Australia

We will ensure that no increase will happen until the second half of the next decade – in the Parliament after next.

For men this means the pension age will not start to rise to 66 until at least 2016.

For women this means the pension age will not start to rise from 65 to 66 until at least 2020.

No one who is a pensioner today, or approaching retirement soon, will be affected.

But this is how we can afford increasing the basic state pension for all.

One final thing on a saving society.

I today set this ambition for a future Conservative Government.

It’s an ambition we will only be able to fulfil when we have got on top of the deficit.

It’s an ambition that may well take more than one parliament to achieve.

Gordon Brown’s disastrous tax raid on pensions heralded the start of the age of irresponsibility.

So today I say we will reverse the effects of Gordon Brown’s pensions tax raid and get our country saving again.

That saving will fund investment – investment in real business.

I want to talk very directly to the people at home.

Conservatives have been straight with you today:

- A bigger state pension each year for all paid for by an increase in the pension age of one year

- A one year public sector pay freeze, that does not apply to the lowest paid, in order to protect the jobs of 100,000 people working in frontline public services

- Tackling Britain’s debt crisis to stop higher interest rates and higher unemployment for all

These are the honest choices in the world in which we live and we have made them today.

Anyone who tells you these choices can be avoided is not telling you the truth.

We are all in this together.

Friends, I have done this job for more than four years.

I have done it when no one trusted our Party with the economy, and I do it now when we have earned that trust and when the expectations of millions rest on our shoulders.

I have learned many things along the way.

Trust your values.

Don’t just follow the crowd, or you will end up lost.

Accept there will be hard knocks.

Understand that with the opponents we face, it will only get more personal the more desperate they become.

Above all over the last four years I have learned that you have say the true things that need saying or not bother doing the job at all.

That is what I have done today.

In the new era of politics which we have entered into, after what Parliament has been through this year, nothing else is possible.

I have got two young children.

I want a prosperous Britain where my children can be everything they can be.

I want an optimistic Britain where my children can be part of a strong, tolerant, generous society.

I want my children to think that our generation paid off its debts, valued its savers, rewarded responsibility, invested in their future.

And because I want it for my children, I want it for your children too.

I want it for everyone’s children.

Because we are all in this together.

We changed the Conservative Party to be ready for this moment.

So that when the moment came, people would see us fit to govern.

People would trust us with public services.

People would join us to fix the broken society.

And people would turn to us to lead the economy out of crisis.

We changed the Conservative Party so that:

to a country that says it is time for a change;

we can say we are ready to make the change.

This guest post has been contributed by Julian Bray who writes on his Duckhouse blog. Over to you Julian.

Gordon Brown today marked a new all time televised low in his Premiership as he appeared before House of Commons Select Committees and still refused to answer with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ the questions relating to the number of soldier/ troop recruitment requests by the military [2000] and the numbers they actually got [<700].

But what we got loud and clear was a clear message that money ie the Treasury is regulating the two wars we are hopelessly engaged in and that the squaddie or general in theatre can forget about any practical help or back up in the near future.

Come back in six years lads and we’ll have the aircrew fully trained and plied with booze. The choppers might not be ready though as we chose a cheaper spec. than the Americansd so ours had to be made on a later production batch.

Even simple questions like how many operational Chinooks do we have in Affers [8-10] as the soldiers call it. The answer less than a tenth of the operational Chinooks, the Americans have to service and lift the same number of troops.

So lads when you next walk to your objective in the mind bending searing heat just think of Gordon Brown – on holiday now – trousers rolled up, by the Seaside with his family – simply Gordon does not understand the military, has no idea where the money goes or what it goes on.

But where do we go from here? Gordon has this devine right of sticking his head and genitalia in buckets of sand. Our Boys (as The Sun would have it) also have the devine right of sand, billions of tons of it, only it gets in everywhere.

Imagine the soldiers joy to be given large packs of unlubricated rubbers (Durex etc)but we are a bit short in the body armour locker.. but you have the Durex right? Army Orders 34598765-c might read @Take out an unlubricated rubber roll between thumb and first finger, place over the upright and fully reamed…. then the lights went out. No stop messing around, seriously the durex or rubbers are used to keep sand out of the AK47 barrel and they’ve been using them this way for years now….sigh.

About Julian: Julian Bray is a broadcaster, moderator, speaker, journalist and lectures on leadership, company turnarounds, corporate and recession busting strategies, politics, aviation, travel, the City.

The list; in full

- £22,500 of debt for every child born in Britain
- 111 tax rises from a government that promised no tax rises at all
- The longest national tax code in the world
- 100,000 million pounds drained from British pension funds
- Gun crime up by 57%
- Violent crime up 70%
- The highest proportion of children living in workless households anywhere in Europe
- The number of pensioners living in poverty up by 100,000
- The lowest level of social mobility in the developed world
- The only G7 country with no growth this year
- One in six young people neither earning nor learning
- 5 million people on out-of –work benefits
- Missing the target of halving child poverty
- Ending up with child poverty rising in each of the last three years instead
- Cancer survival rates among the worst in Europe
- Hospital-acquired infections killing nearly three times as many people as are killed on the roads
- Falling from 4th to 13th in the world competitiveness league
- Falling from 8th to 24th in the world education rankings in maths
- Falling from 7th to 17th in the rankings in literacy
- The police spending more time on paperwork than on the beat
- Fatal stabbings at an all-time high
- Prisoners released without serving their sentences
- Foreign prisoners released and never deported
- 7 million people without an NHS dentist
- Small business taxes going up
- Business taxes raised from among the lowest to among the highest in Europe
- Tax rises for working people set for after the election
- The 10p tax rate abolished
- And the ludicrous promise to have ended boom and bust
- Our gold reserves sold for a quarter of their worth
- Our armed forces overstretched and under-supplied
- Profitable post offices closed against their will
- One of the highest rates of family breakdown in Europe
- The ‘Golden Rule’ on borrowing abandoned when it didn’t fit
- Police inspectors in 10,Downing Street
- Dossiers that were dodgy
- Mandelson resigning the first time
- Mandelson resigning the second time
- Mandelson coming back for a third time
- Bad news buried
- Personal details lost
- An election bottled
- A referendum denied

It is clear that #labourlost the chance to announce this Policy during their own conference because at that time they did not have the Policy and that they are trying to steal a march on the Shadow Chancellor’s speech at the conference today.

This is not set to be a make or break conference for the party or for the leadership of the party but it is expected to return some tough decisions. Amongst those tough decisions will be issues affecting those out of work in our country, issues affecting savers, issues affecting homeowners and issues affecting business owners among many others.

This will also be the first conference of the New Media age which includes the tools such as Twitter and other social media platforms. Aligned with the conference the Conservative Party is using the Twitter #hashtags of #Con09 and #cpc09 both are valid, both have separate streams of followers so to gain the most exposure to the discussions of the conference and to interact it is wise to use both thereby limiting your 140 characters even further.

During the Labour Party conference the #hashtag that was in use was #lab09 and it is fair to say that even non-Labour voters used the #hashtag to discuss matters relating to the conference. Such civilized use has not been seen thus far this week.

It would appear in another showing of how #labourlost the idea of fair play the Conservative Party #hashtags are being added to and abused. Already we have seen #bigcon09 #cono9 in what one can only assume is an attempt to play the joker with the former and perhaps sway unsure users with the latter.

I blogged a few days ago about how Labour need to learn their lesson and how they really need to move away from the negativity that has beset them for so long, sadly it appears that even as we move into a New Media age they cannot seem to understand that need.

With that in mind and if unchanged down the line I fear for their existence following the General Election.

Monday’s Agenda in brief

Ready for change:
Policy review chairman Oliver Letwin
Shadow Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude
Mayor of London Boris Johnson

Reforming Politics – Accountability and Transparency:
Shadow Commons leader Sir George Young
Scottish Conservative leader Annabel Goldie
Shadow foreign secretary William Hague

Reforming Politics – Decentralisation and Social Action:
Shadow communities secretary Caroline Spelman
Shadow minister for community cohesion Sayeeda Warsi

The NHS:
Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley

The Twitterati are using the #labourlost hashtag in some interesting ways which can be seen within the daily updates on the site.

This morning I noticed a blog post about #labourlost on a blog that I had previously not read so off I went to discover

Saturday, October 03, 2009
Take a look at the #LabourLost campaign

There’s a campaign to help bring together all those putting evidence for Labour’s failures forward on twitter so its easier for people (& esp voters) to follow.

Its all explained here.

I can see a few problems with the idea, espeically screening referals to cull troll tweets, as if trolls could fly . Still intresting to see how it works out.

The LabourLost web site is here and its twitter feed ( the most intresting part ) here.

However, I’m all for attacking the other side with listing their failures etc, the only thing I don’t like is trying to look like one of their sites ( which the web site does ). Other parties do this and it fools no one, but actually damages the integrity of the message.

Posted by Man in a Shed at 11:54 AM 1 comments Links to this post

Labels: #LabourLost, LabourLost

I have removed the links as that is not the point of this exercise. What is, however, is ensuring the right message is given and then confirm that that message has been received and understood.

I was delighted to note that Man in a shed had written about the campaign but was eager to set the record straight on a couple of points, hence my comment to his blog which is longer than the blog post itself

LabourLost.org said…

Good morning, thank you for your post with regards to the #labourlost campaign

I have 2 points to address with regards to your post if I may:

1) You say ‘especially screening referrals to cull troll tweets’ – it is true, this will be an issue but ‘we’ cannot control how the general public use the #hashtag once we provide them with the avenue of exposure we can only hope that it is used constructively and do our level best to stay on top of the screening process with regards to those that are ReTweeted.

In addition I can confirm that no guest blog post will be accepted unless it has been reviewed by at least 1 of the 2 staff involved in the campaign.

Anything smear related will be removed or the post will not be accepted. As we say on the site:

#labourlost is not officially supported by or affiliated to any Political Party

#labourlost is not a smear campaign against the Labour Party or the Prime Minister

#labourlost is not slanderous in anyway

#labourlost is not partisan, it is not conjecture

It is clear we cannot control use of the #hashtag but we can control what appears within the site.

2) You say ‘the only thing I don’t like is trying to look like one of their sites ( which the web site does )’ – again, this is true but not for the reason you may think.

We had set a launch date of 1st October and had therefore built our site and the template a number of weeks prior to this date.

1 week before launch the LabourList.org site revamped their design and relaunched, it was too close to our launch date to change our plans so we launched as originally planned.

One could deduce from this that LabourList.org got wind of our ideas and proceeded to copy the style though of course this could not be proved ;o).

I hope that helps readers understand a little better and we look forward to serving the general public.

Thank you
Best regards
LabourLost.org

That said, I retired for coffee.

A letter from Gordon Brown

Last week we came together as a party to debate the choice for Britain.

In the next few months I will tour the country, meeting the people of Britain to explain our policies, not just on economic recovery and Afghanistan, but from Sure Start and school standards to social care, the NHS, and action on anti-social behaviour.

I will visit every region and every city to speak to people and discuss with the people of the country the choices we face.

I have already said that we are facing the first General Election of the global age. In it the choices are great: between different directions for our country, different choices about economic progress, different philosophies about the future of our public services, different pathways in our relationship with Europe and the rest of the world.

In momentous times like these, the choices cannot be small choices with small consequences: they are big choices with big consequences. The choices we make in the next year will define the future of our country, not just for five years, but for a generation to come.

So I believe it is also right that the parties debate the issues not just in Parliament but in every arena where the public will join in the discussion.

It is right that we set the issues before the British people. Others can work out the details but what’s important for the country is that there is a wide ranging series of television and radio debates with party leaders that are also able to devote attention to the central issues that matter to families: the economy, public services, how we strengthen our communities, and how we work with the rest of the world.

It is right that there will be a strong focus on the leaders’ debates and it is right that in a Cabinet system of government that ministers and opposition ministers also debate the issues in a series of debates on television and radio too.

I relish the opportunity of making our case directly to the people of this country.

Gordon Brown

Well, that’s clear then, finally (on the face of it) the PM has given the public what they want.

The statement goes on to present a simple form

Tell us what question you want answered by the leaders and we’ll make sure it gets considered.

We’d also welcome your views on what format it should be and where it should take place.

First name *
City
Email *

What question would you like to be answered at the debates?

What format do you think the debates should take and where do you think they should take place?

We’d like to send you occasional updates from Gordon Brown and the Labour Party (you can unsubscribe any time). If you don’t want these, please just untick this box.

The Labour Party and its elected representatives may use the data you have supplied

I have slight reservations about the wording used within the open letter from the PM but that is not for discussion within this forum.

I am also concerned about the opt out strategy employed, this should be an opt in issue but what concerns me more is the last sentence that appears truncated.

Interesting use of the words elected representatives as the PM was not elected.

How will you use this data and for what purposes? Is it in accordance with the DPA? I see no Privacy Policy on this page.

In Brighton in 2009 the Labour Party convened for their last Party conference before the General Election.

Currently, the Labour Party are woefully behind the Conservative Party in every poll imaginable and in some polls they can be found languishing third behind the Liberal Democrats. It is clear they are not in an enviable position.

Given that that is the case would it not be prudent to get your message across of what it is you are actually doing as leaders of the country, what it is you are actually achieving as the Party that has been in office for 12 years?

The Labour Party, headed up by Tony Blair did do some good in the early days, they did have a few successes.

Within 10 years they had halved the average standards achieved in both maths and English for primary schoolchildren, although there are some reports that the grading has changed accordingly. There was the minimum wage and the abolition of hereditary Peers though Tony Blair saw to it that the seats did not remain empty for long.

Conversely though there was the pensions crisis, the sale of our gold reserves whilst at their historic lowest (a quarter of the market value of today), and the continued issue of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Under Gordon Brown the Labour Party, the Government and indeed this country has gone from bad to worse.

The world economic crisis has affected every country but some are weathering the storm better than others.

We may all appear at the other side of the recession at roughly the same time but Britain will be in a worse position financially than most other countries in the world courtesy of Alistair Darling and his decision to emulate Viv Nicholson and Spend Spend Spend.

The mood of the Cabinet has changed since Gordon Brown took power too, whilst there was always the spin and perceived underhanded tactics from a Blair Cabinet there seems to be a survive at any cost attitude within a Brown Cabinet.

All this only serves to undermine the Government and to further weaken their credibility.

Another Brownism that has been allowed to come forth of late is the constant rants of the Leader of the House of Commons, Harriet Harman MP. In the past she has been known to be quite literate but of late and possibly as the mood darkens within the Party this veil has slipped.

Well known for her feminist views she seems to have taken a new stream of late with the following choice quote

the Tories are arrogant for believing it is their time to lead this country

Sorry Ms Harman, you cannot apportion this claim to anyone other than yourself, it was made up by you and you used the same line of attack in the local elections in June.

We are expectant of nothing, everything has to be earnt, a victory has to be fought for.

The British public are aware of what is and is not said, the British public are not ignorant of daily events, the British public are educated to the degree that they can make their own minds up without negative campaigning and untruths.

This is a warning: If you continue with the negativity it will be the undoing of any real chance you have at the General Election.

Here is another instance of the input of Harriet Harman being way-off track when as the Equalities Minister she made the following statement

If you have got two equally qualified candidates, you might actually want to have the woman because she is a woman

Ms Harman, by virtue of positive discrimination you are by default discriminating. There are no two ways about it and no flowery language can get away from it.

Only when the Labour Party move away from the 1970’s style of negative campaigning will they find themselves in a position to challenge for a seat at the table of a hung Parliament which currently is the best deal on the table for the Labour Party.

When something is written down for a Political Party manifesto, you would assume the promise would be kept. Right?

In 2005, Labour, alongside the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives, offered a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty to the British people. Now, less than 4 years later, they have back-tracked on that promise.

After all Parties having made this promise of a referendum, it is now just the Conservative Party who has stuck to the manifesto they set out in 2005. However, the attitude of the Labour Party is to deny the people their rightful voice.

Not only does this show a clear lack of respect for the electorate, but it also symbolises the negligence and disregard Labour have for the electoral process. Promises should be kept. And if you don’t intend to keep them, then don’t campaign to be elected on them.

In 2007, the UK’s contribution to the EU budget was around £11 billion. The fourth highest of any member nation. Yet, we only receive £109 per head from the EU, and moreover, we are only allocated 7% of all spend. (Source: EU Budget 2007 Financial Report).

Shouldn’t people be allowed to decide if they want to be part of such a financial bind?

The message has been sent repeatedly. In the Local Elections of 2007 and in the European Elections this year. The people have spoken, and they don’t want anymore of this tired, deceitful and ignorant Labour Government.

Give us what you said you would.

Declan Lyons

In 1998, whilst working as Trade Secretary and in the days without his peerage Peter Mandelson resigned over the interest-free loan of £373,000 from the Paymaster General Geoffrey Robinson who later accused Lord Mandelson of lying to the Commons about the home loan affair that cost both of them their Government jobs.

In his resignation letter Peter Mandelson was obviously both embarrassed and humbled

I should not, with all candour, have entered into the arrangement.

I should, having done so, have told you and other colleagues whose advice I value and I should have told my permanent secretary on learning of the inquiry into Geoffrey Robinson, although I entirely stood aside from this.

The second resignation came in 2001 over a passport row for the Hinduja family amid their sponsorship of the Faith Zone in the Millennium Dome.

After a number of years in the wilderness Mandelson became a European Commissioner For Trade in 2004 until 2008 when during a particularly rough time for Gordon Brown there was a shock ‘call-up’ for Peter Mandelson who was said to be

surprised but proud

…to be offered the role as Business Secretary.

How is it all to end for Lord Mandelson third time around? Only time will tell but you can rest assured that the British public are less susceptible to his wily ways since his own fallibility was exposed.

Worryingly it helps show the vast amount of money that was poured in to save the banking system from collapse and I urge anyone contemplating what all the parties are saying on expenditure and cuts for the future to spend some time perusing the data on what the realities of our country’s finances currently are.

Download the PDF here