By Alex Smith
Gordon Brown's speech, sprinkled with rhetoric and substance and with nods to the left and the right, seems to have please everybody at party conference.
Some announcements were repeats of already existing policies and some will fall on the deaf ears of an untrusting public (wasn't a referendum on voting reform in the 1997 manifesto?) - but the national care service, free childcare for low income earners, skill internships, people's post office banks and the £1billion innovation fund are exactly where the Labour party should be going into the next general election.
Some of the aspects of Labour policy that the grassroots have long disapproved of - ID cards and nuclear re-armament - were reeled in a little (non-compulsory ID cards is great - but what about the database of biometric data?) and that will please supporters and voters alike.
But the highlight of the speech must have been the Prime Minister's proud list of Labour's achievements, and the huge wave of noise from the delegates.
It may already be too late to completely reverse Labour's fortunes, but this is the speech we wanted. Proud of our record, and building a vision of a better, fairer Britain.
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He promises to allow Councils to stop 24hr drinking, err whose idea was it to bring in 24 hour drinking. The truth is 24hr drinking is not the problem it’s the amount of Supermarket bought cheap booze being consumed before people leave for a night on the town. So responsible drinkers )the majority) will now be punished instead of the 1000s of drunks being treated in A&Es every night.
He promises to scrap compulsory ID cards, but when you look at the detail he proposes to put it on hold. He knows his EU masters are demanding ID cards and he has used lies and spin to force this unwanted Policy on the UK electorate. If as they say "ID cards are urgently needed to stop immigration and to protect us from Terrorists" then how comes now you can put this Policy on hold for 4 years, do you have an agreement in place with all the Terrorists and Asylum seekers promising they will not bother us us?!
He promises to give all patients the right to see their family doctors in the evenings and at weekends, without aknowledging it was his Policies that gave GPs a contract that caused these problems in the first place.
He promises (again) that he will crack down on the Banks and Bonuses, whilst at the same time stopping the EU from introducing laws to actually achieve this. He says we will make a Profit on the Banks...how...by letting them charge us obscene charges and interest rates so they can use these extorted profits to pay back our money! The Banks should be forced to pay back everything now or be nationalised. Then we may actually see them pay for the mistakes.
He blames Conservative thinking for the Bank Crash without aknowledging it was he who introduced the Tripartite system
that was a mjor factor in the collapse.
He promises to halt immigration and at the same time his Gov't advertises all of the free benefits on offer to those that can get here. He will give them full benefits and houses ahead of the British who have paid...idiot!
He promises to defending the Union with Scotland! His Party broke the Union and with so few Labour MPs left in Scotland (not what they planned)how can they influence Policy now? When the Tories win the next Election the Scots will finally vote for Independence. If they win, Labour will most probably never be elected again, without the Scots they can't win, another own goal that will haunt the Labour Party for years to come.
He promises to make the Lords 'democratic', didn't they promise this in 1997? then kick out some Hereditary Peers and stuff the House of Lords with failed Politicians like Martins!
His promise to crack down on Anti Social behaviour when its his own Party who have turned the Police into cowards, banned Parents from smacking and disciplining their children, stopped Teachers administrating punishments and tied up every Public body with Human Rights Legislation so that this lunacy can be achieved. ASBOs that don't work, no prison sentences, useless Community orders and worst of all allowing kids with no future to opt for Pregnacy and a free Council House.
Labour say we will now lock up these single mothers (approx 30,000)where will he put them? Labour have reduced the amount of Prison places so scum can rule the streets, and refuses to build more! But now he is going to build 30,000 cells for single mums...hes potty..attacking single uneducated underage mothers...are these not the people that Labour are in power to help?
Bliar and Browns Gov't have been stealing peoples savings and houses to pay for their health care, even though they have paid N.I for there entire lives, and now promises to end this scandal but no detail how hes going to pay for it all!
The stench of utter failure follows Brown and his Cabinet around, and no matter how many more lies drip from his mouth we all know its game over. The Labour Party have one last chance to save themselves from total obliteration, dump Brown now, instal anyone to lead and call an Election. You will still lose but possibly will save some dignity and possibly still come 2nd and have a chance of being elected again.
Really, can't Labour supporters see that Brown's speech will have no effect at all? The electorate have turned their backs on Brown, but the party is not strong enough to get rid of him.
Today's speech was a collection of empty slogans, the worst of which is the idea of forcing single mothers on benefits to live in approved premises. Unbelievable. I can't think of a better way to stigmatise a single parent...
The day after tomorrow the speech will be forgotten and we will be back to looking at continued recession as the rest of Europe has pulled out of it.
What is this blind belief in rhetoric?
Welcome to labour's Britain where we lock pregnant 17 years olds up in homes in case their families cannot support them, where we promise to spend more than we have and then spend even more. Where we will increase the minimum wage in a recession and push the poorest out of work and small businesses to the wall.
and i dont think it was necessary to do the sarah thing again, been there, done that...
No compulsory cards in the next parliament? That was never going to be the case anyway. The system won't be up and running until part of the way through at the earliest and implementation will be through a softly softly piecemeal approach.
Eventually you won't be able to have a passport without an ID card, so if you don't want to ever go abroad etc. then it's true the ID card isn't "compulsory". But to anyone with a brain, in reality compulsory is exactly what it will be.
It's one thing for Brown to continue the lies and distortion but another for seemingly clever people to fall for it.
Incidentally, do you not see a problem if the highlight of a speech is a list of past achievements?
Pity Kier Hardy was cremated because otherwise I think the clip of him as supposed subliminal support for this bunch of faux Tories would have him birlin' in his grave. This was a 'more of the same' speech full of deceit, mumbo-jumbo and a last 'hurrah'! What the speech did not have was any socialist authenticity, purpose or substance.
Folk wonder why I now vote SNP .... well if yesterday (Murphy and Elmer Fudd) and today's pap doesn't help folk understand, there is no hope for Labour anywhere in the UK. Here's a wee hint; the SNP's main policies are predominantly socialist in principle where as you can not get a fag paper between the Nu Tories or Cameron's Blairites as they rush to sell themselves out to the finance houses, merchant banks and useless multi-nationals like BAE or the EU car industry in the pretence they are 'creating UK jobs' while robbing the tax payer blind.
Another is going to be deferring the compulsory ID card. Remind me: which government was it that first proposed compulsory ID cards? Given that they are a vital tool in the fight against crime and illegal immigration, isn't it irresponsible to delay it?
A third is going to be a network of supervised homes for pregnant teenagers, rather than giving them council flats. Remind me: which government has repeatedly denied that getting pregnant is a way for teenage girls to get council flats?
People really DO have a choice - can anyone imagine this cynical, number-crunching automaton being PM for another SIX YEARS? It beggars belief.
We would have an entire electorate on Prozac.
one of gordon's better speeches - but self-regarding, overlong and disingenuous - with a string of policy bribes to his own tribe that take little or no account of taxpayer cost.
Really?: Well nothing new there then.
But then there was nothing new anywhere.
Uncle Gordon carried on where Auntie Tony left off
Change.....
Choice.....
Change......
Choice......
Change......
Choice.......
And we are going to have communual homes for young mothers. So with one jump to the right, old Brown has taken a step back to the 1940s. Let's bring back all the old stigma. We might as well bring back The National Council For The Unmarried Mother And her Child.
A totally vacuous, totally pointless out of touch speech. And the gimmick of poor Mrs Brown introducing Hubby - AGAIN?
Thirty odd years ago a cmpany called KTel used to bring out a dodgy budget LP - they could come back today with NuLabours Greatest Hits.
We have heard it all before, and, quite frankly, I doubt that anyone outside the real fawning NuLab types will believe a word of it.
I listened to the speech , nothing new , but i will say one of his best speeches, How ever once you look at it like you have its not really much new , It was the same old spin tory cuts v labour investment, So much for telling the truth.
ricki
ps was looking forward to the live chat but i guess you forgot
Can't say I am impressed - delaying ID Cards? Why? They have been delayed for years, just scrap the useless things. And FINALLY sorting out the HoL? There's an admission of failure right there and what makes him think anyone believes him? Its like the boy who cried wolf, about 400 times.
On dishonesty he wants to make sure dishonest MPs get deselected so that the electorate can find decent ones. Well, why not ensure that Tony McNulty resigns before Parliament returns and people like Margaret Moran should be made to stand down NOW before the election so that they don't benefit from even more of our money (they'll get a generous severence package by hanging on of course).
Talk is cheap, and where Jockstrap is concerned words are 10 cents a gallon.