Brown pledges ‘New Labour renewed’
Gordon Brown set out his vision for “New Labour renewed”, as he pledged to continue the reform agenda pursued by Tony Blair.
The chancellor said the only future for the Labour party was “as the party of reform”.
And to those activists hoping that a Brown premiership would see a return to old Labour, he said “not only will we inhabit the centre ground, we will dominate the centre ground for years”.
The current Labour conference is the first since Mr Blair revealed his intention to step down before the next general election, and the subject of succession is on the lips of many delegates.
Addressing the conference today, Mr Brown, long seen as the favourite to step into Mr Blair’s shoes, took the opportunity to reaffirm comments made to The Times on Sunday that he believed in Britain becoming “home-owning, share owning asset owning, wealth owning democracy”.
The chancellor, whose relationship with Mr Blair has been the subject of intense scrutiny over the last twelve months, also paid tribute to the Labour leader and recognised the “debt” the party owed him.
Looking to the tasks facing the next leader of the Labour party, he said: “The renewal of New Labour will be as profound a challenge, as rigorous a task and as great an achievement as the creation of New Labour”.
Mr Brown set out his vision of a “progressive consensus”, where the country was “no longer defined and diminished by the divisive ideology of them and us”.
He said the challenges of the future could never be met “by Tory free market dogma, nor Liberal incoherence”.
The Liberals were a party whose sums did not add up, he said; but reserved his strongest words for the Conservatives.
Listing the candidates for the Tory leadership, including former Chancellor Ken Clarke, former foreign secretary Malcolm Rifkind and former Europe minister David Davis, he said: “Their answer to their problems: not new twenty first century Conservatives. Today’s Tory party simply the same old rerun of the same old boys’ network.”
And citing policy ideas such as the flat tax, he added: “It’s clear that they’ve already decided they’ve lost the last three elections not because they were too right wing but not right wing enough.”
He continued: “So when the Tories tell you the next election will be old Labour versus new Conservatives, tell them the truth. The next election must and will be New Labour renewed against a Conservative Party still incapable of renewal.”
Mr Brown spoke passionately about the need to create a society where all children could fulfil their potential, “saying the only way to realise the potential of each of us is to realise the potential of all of us”.
He said it was a generation defining aim, equal to that of the abolition of slavery and an end to child labour: “So let ours be the last generation that developed only some of the potential of some of the people, and let us be the first generation to commit itself to developing all of the potential of all of the people.”
He continued: “Tell them that it was not pessimists and reactionaries who built Britain’s greatness but visionaries, optimists, and idealists.
“And so when it is asked centuries from now who were the people who rid this country of child poverty, who gave every child the best start in life, let it be said it was this Labour party, this Labour government, this generation of dedicated men and women who led the way.”
Elsewhere, Mr Brown heralded the writing off of £55 billion of third world debt as proof that government’s can make a difference, and called for an end to the “scandal and waste of agricultural protectionism”.
And in territory more natural for prime minister, he paid tribute to the efforts of the emergency services following the July 7th bombings in London and stressed the government’s resolve on tackling terrorism.
