INTRODUCTION

It’s great to be here in the Symphony Hall. But it’s even better to know that in this party, everyone: the Shadow Cabinet, the Members of Parliament, the council leaders and all our candidates and colleagues. Everyone is playing the same tune.

THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

Today the financial crisis means that all eyes are on the economy and the financial markets and that is absolutely right. As I said yesterday, on this issue, we must put aside our differences and work together with the government in the short-term to ensure financial stability. I am pleased that our proposal to increase the protection for depositors to £50,000 has been taken up. I’m pleased that the European regulators are looking at our proposal to bring stability to the banking system. I repeat: we will not allow what happened in America to happen here, we will work with the government in the short term in order to protect our economy. But as I also said yesterday, that must not stop us telling the truth about the mistakes that have been made. It is our political duty and if we had a written constitution I would say constitutional duty to hold the government to account, to explain where they went wrong, and how we would do things differently to rebuild our economy for the long-term.

So we must not hold back from being critical of the decisions that over ten years have led us to this point. We need to learn the lessons, and to offer the British people a clear choice. It is our responsibility to make sense of this crisis for them, and to show them the right way out of it. We started to do that in Birmingham this week. We’ve had a good conference this week, an optimistic conference - but a sober one. We understand the gravity of the situation our country is in. And our response is measured, proportionate and responsible. The test of a political party is whether it can rise to the challenge of what the country requires and what the times demand. I believe we have passed that test this week and I want to thank George Osborne, William Hague, all my team in the Shadow Cabinet and all of you for making this conference a success. The reality of government is that difficulties come not in neat and predictable order, one by one and at regular intervals. Difficulties come at you from all sides, one on top of the other, and you’ve got to be able to handle them all. So amidst this financial crisis let us not forget that we are also a nation at war.

AFGHANISTAN

In Afghanistan today, our armed forces are defending our freedom and our way of life as surely and as bravely as any soldiers in our nation’s history. Let us be clear about why they are there: if we fail in our mission, the Taliban will come back. And if the Taliban come back, the terrorist training camps come back. That would mean more terrorists, more bombs and more slaughter on our streets. That is why we back our troops’ mission in Afghanistan one hundred per cent. I’ve been to visit them every year since I’ve been doing this job. Earlier this month, up the Helmand River in Sangin I met a soldier in the Royal Irish Regiment, Ranger Blaine Miller. He’d just turned eighteen years old. He was the youngest soldier there. He’s not much more than a boy and he’s there in the forty-five degree heat, fighting a ferocious enemy on the other side of the world. I told him that what he was doing was exceptional. He told me he was just doing his job.

Every politician says it’s the first duty of government is to protect our country, and of course that’s right. But today we are not protecting the people, like Blaine, who protect us - and that is wrong. In Afghanistan, the number of our troops has almost doubled but the number of helicopters has hardly increased at all. American soldiers start their rest and recuperation the day they arrive back home, our troops have to count the days they spend getting home. We’ve got troops’ families living in sub-standard homes; we’ve got soldiers going into harm’s way without the equipment they need we’ve got businesses in our country that instead of welcoming people in military uniform and honouring their service choose to turn them away and refuse them service. That is all wrong and we are going to put it right. We are going to stop sending young men to war without the equipment they need, we’re going to stop treating our soldiers like second class citizens we will do all it takes to keep our country safe and we will do all it takes to protect the heroes who risk everything for us.

GURKHAS

And today there are a particular group of heroes that I have in mind. They fought for us in the slit trenches of Burma the jungles of Malaya and the freezing cold of the Falklands. Yesterday the courts ruled that Gurkhas who want to come and live in Britain should be able to. They risked their lives for us and now we must not turn our backs on them. I say to the government: I know there are difficult questions about pensions and housing but let’s find a way to make it work. Do not appeal this ruling.

Let’s give those brave G urkha soldiers who defended us the right to come and live in our country.

VALUES AND CHARACTER

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