I WOULD like to start by saying something very simple: Thank you. Thank you, the Labour Party, for giving me the extraordinary privilege of leading you these past 12 years.

I know I look a lot older. That’s what being leader of the Labour Party does to you. Actually, looking around, some of you look a lot older, too. That’s what having me as leader of the Labour Party does to you.

Something I don’t say often enough — thank you to my family: to the children and to Cherie. At least I don’t have to worry about her running off with the bloke next door.

But, above all else, I want to thank the British people. Not just for the honour of being Prime Minister but for the journey of progress we have travelled together. Leaders lead but, in the end, it’s the people who deliver.

ON ACHIEVEMENTS

In 1994 I stood before you for the first time and shared the country’s anger at crumbling school buildings, patients languishing, sometimes dying in pain, waiting for operations, of crime doubled, of homes repossessed, of pensioners living in poverty; and told you of our dismay at four election defeats and how it was not us who should feel betrayed but the British people.

Now, for all that remains to be done, dwell for a moment on what has been achieved. We have had the longest period of sustained economic growth in British history.

Mortgage repossession, like mass unemployment, are terms we have to be reminded of. The last NHS winter crisis was six years ago.

Heart patients wait on average less than three months. Cancer deaths are down by 43,000.

You are more likely to see a new school building than a crumbling one. There are virtually no long-term young unemployed.

Today we ask, can we meet our ambitious targets on child poverty when, before 1997, the idea of a child poverty target would have been laughable.

We have black ministers and the first woman, and then the first black woman, Leader of the Lords. Not enough women MPs but twice what there were. Free museum entry that has seen a 50 per cent rise in visitors.

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