GORDON BROWN CANNOT BE THE

CHANGE THE COUNTRY NEEDS

In September 2007 Gordon Brown gave his first speech to the Labour Party conference as Prime Minister

and Leader of the Labour Party.

Key Message

would tackle the challenges facing Britain today. Instead, all we got was a shopping list of

reheated ideas and re-announcements. That’s not surprising given that he has been at the

centre of all the big mistakes made by this Labour government over the last ten years and that

is why he cannot be the change the country needs.

Brown’s Reheated Speech

NHS that is ‘accessible to all and personal to all’. But he first announced this three years ago

(Speech to the Social Market Foundation, 18 May 2004 and Pre-Budget Report 2004). His

record shows that he has resisted NHS freedom, ending the operational independence of the

NHS and GP control over budgets.

pledged that youngsters would get five hours of sport a week. Yet Brown and the Government

have already announced plans for more competitive sports in schools at least six times

(DCMS Press Releases, 11 January 2001, 21 May 2003, 9 September 2005; Daily Mail, 25

October 2006; The Times, 12 February 2007; Downing Street press release, 13 July 2007).

The small print shows that, as a result of Brown’s raid on the Lottery, the amount of money

going to grassroots sport from the Lottery has been cut from £397m in 1998 to £209m last

times before. Gordon Brown said yesterday: ‘We will use unclaimed assets in dormant bank

accounts to build new youth centres, and we will invest over £670 million pounds so that in

every community there are places for young people to go’. He has already announced this

nearly half a century we will show the imagination to build new towns - eco-towns with low

and zero-carbon homes. And today, because of the responses we have received, we are

announcing that instead of just five new eco-towns we will now aim for ten - building

thousands of new homes in every region of the country’. But he and the Government have

July 2007, pp. 26, 27). The Government pledged to build seven new eco-towns between 1997

and 2001 - then called Millennium Communities. Brown’s Housing Minister, Yvette Cooper,

has admitted that just one in ten of these planned new eco-homes have actually been built

medical research over ten years. But he has already announced similar funding on three

Pre-Budget Report, 6 December 2006).

before. Gordon Brown said yesterday: ‘And so we will make GP hours more friendly to

families, open up opportunities to see a GP near your place of work as well as your home’.

small print reveals that it was Gordon Brown, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, who signed off

728WA) – which allowed GPs to opt out of providing cover before 8am and before 6.30pm.

March 2007, Col. 1680WA).

than double the number of hospital matrons to 5,000. This was announced in the NHS Plan,

published in July 2000. The small print reveals that by 2006 there were still only 1,982

yesterday: We will ‘treat every suspected breast cancer as urgent and guarantee your

consultant can fast track you’. This was announced by Tony Blair in his speech to the Labour

Party Conference in 2000. The small print reveals that Labour’s much-vaunted 18-week

waiting time target excludes all treatments provided after the first treatment patients receive

in hospital. It excludes any follow–up radiotherapy or chemotherapy which is so essential to

treating cancer.

extend the ages for breast cancer screening by six years’. This was announced by Tony Blair

in his speech to the Labour Party Conference in 2000.

first country in the world to write into law binding carbon limits. He has announced this

twice previously (Labour Party Website, 31 October 2006; Speech to the Green Alliance, 12

March 2007). UK Carbon emissions have risen since 1997, from 549 million tonnes to 561.5

yesterday: ‘It is right this year to raise it to nine months for all mothers on the road to 12

months paid maternity leave’. He and the Government have announced this on at least six

February 2005; GMTV, 27 February 2005; Budget 2005; Alan Johnson, DTI Press Release,

pledged ‘British jobs for British workers’. He has previously announced this on three

occasions (Speech to the Labour Conference, 2006; Speech to the GMB Union, 5 June 2007;

over 60 per cent of employment growth results from foreign workers moving to the UK.

again promised an elected House of Lords. He announced this in July (Ministry of Justice,

got to in the cross-party talks… Our intention through the work of the cross-party group is to

formulate a comprehensive reform package that we would put to the electorate as a manifesto

that the Pre-Budget Report would include new measures to meet his goal of abolishing child

poverty. But in 2003 Gordon Brown announced a review of new measures for tackling child

poverty (Budget speech, 9 April 2003) and new figures show that child poverty rose by

100,000 last year (DWP, Households Below Average Incomes, 2005-06).

an extension of the Every Child a Reader programme to 300,000 pupils by 2010-11. He has

announced this on two previous occasions (Pre-Budget Report 2006, Budget 2007) yet almost

‘Instead of education from 5 to 16, we will be offering free universal education to every child

– from nursery school at 3 to advanced studies or training right up to 18’. He previously

he would build millions of new homes and help people get onto the housing ladder. The

is now falling, for the first time since records began. Total owner occupation fell from

March 2007).

ago. Gordon Brown said yesterday ‘And to honour those who raised us, I can affirm our

commitment to restore the link between the Basic State Pension and earnings’. This was first

announced by John Hutton in a statement to Parliament in May 2006. But Brown’s stealth tax

October 2006). And under Brown, nearly half of all pensioners– around 45 per cent in 2004-

Promoted by Alan Mabbutt on behalf of the Conservative Party, both at 30 Millbank, London, SW1P 4DP. Printed by the Conservative Party.

Copyright © 2007, the Conservative Party.