Labour delegates gather for spring conference
The Labour Party’s spring conference opens in Manchester today.
Chancellor Gordon Brown will deliver a keynote address to delegates on next week’s Budget, economic stability and spending plans in the run-up to next year’s General Election.
The conference combines the party’s local government, European and women’s meetings and gives Labour an opportunity to set out its stall ahead of the June local council and MEP elections. However, the official launch of Labour’s local election campaign will not form part of the conference.
The conference is also expected to cover the Labour Party’s Big Conversation consultation, public services and the recent debates on council tax.
Mr Brown will tell delegates: “The reason we put stability first is not because we favour stability for its own sake, but because we know what the short term indiscipline of Tory economics means.”
“When I present my budget next week, the first, the major, the most important theme of that budget will be to lock in stability and invest in science, skills and enterprise,” he will say.
“For it is because we implemented our values of economic responsibility, planning for the long term, building from strong foundations – and not resorting to Tory short-termism and opportunism – that it is Britain that now has the lowest inflation for 30 years, the lowest interest rates for 40 years, the highest levels of employment in our history.”
Party leader Tony Blair, culture secretary Tessa Jowell, deputy prime minister John Prescott and home secretary David Blunkett are all due to speak at the three day conference.
The Stop The War Coalition is planning a demonstration near the conference centre on Saturday
Ahead of the event, Labour chairman Ian McCartney said he wanted activists to leave the conference ready to “take the battle to Michael Howard with confidence”.
He added: “We need to show this weekend that we have moved from being a natural party of opposition to a natural party of government.”
In his foreword to the conference programme, Mr Blair states: “There must be no wavering in our political purpose. We all agree that our party’s mission is to create a future fair to all. The real test for us is whether we have the courage to take the decisions needed to achieve it.”
The Conservative Party held an upbeat annual spring conference in Hove last weekend, the party’s first with Michael Howard as leader.
