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Tuesday, September 29, 2009

We'll change world again - Brown


Prime Minister Gordon Brown has urged Labour to "change the world again" as he makes his make-or-break speech to the party's annual conference.

He said voters at the election, due to be held by next June, would have the "biggest choice for a generation".

He unveiled a string of policies including in what is being seen as a make-or-break Labour conference speech.

These included more free childcare for poor families paid for by ending tax breaks for better-off families.

In a repeat of last year, wife Sarah delivered a heartfelt tribute to her husband from the conference stage.

She told delegates Mr Brown was "no saint" but they had "been together through some tough times, and some great times, and we will be together forever".

And she added: "I know he loves his country and I know he will always, always put you first."

Tories 'wrong'

Mr Brown set out the differences between Labour and the Conservatives on the economy in an address seen as vital to ending threats to his leadership and lifting party morale.

He said: "Our country confronts the biggest choice for a generation. It's a choice between two parties, yes. But more importantly a choice between two directions for our country."

And in a hard-hitting attack on "right wing" ideology, he told delegates: "The Conservative Party were faced with the economic call of the century and called it wrong."

He vowed to protect the "squeezed middle" of low and middle income earners from global market forces.

"In a crisis what the British people want to know is that their government will not pass them by on the other side but will be on their side," he said.

Before the speech, Downing Street sources said the PM would commit to provide within five years 10 hours of free childcare a week for 250,000 two-year-olds from families "on modest or middle incomes".

The plans would be paid for by scrapping existing tax relief for childcare called the Employer Supported Childcare scheme which can save basic rate taxpayers as much as £962 a year, rising to £1,195 for top rate payers.

The sources refused to say how it defined "middle or modest incomes" and claimed the existing scheme benefited richer families too much saying about a third of the total - went to top rate taxpayers.

Spirits among the Labour delegate in Brighton will not have been boosted on Tuesday morning with the news that an Ipsos Mori survey suggests the Conservatives are on 36%, Labour on 24% and the Liberal Democrats on 25% - the first time since 1982 that this polling firm has recorded Labour in third place.

'Lawless minority'

Mr Brown is continuing the "fight-back" theme of the conference after Business Secretary Lord Mandelson urged the party faithful to be "fighters, not quitters".

On anti-social behaviour the prime minister will tell delegates: "We will not stand by and see the lives of the lawful majority disrupted by the behaviour of the lawless minority.

"Because the decent, hard working majority are getting evermore angry - rightly so - with the minority who who will talk about their rights but never accept their responsibilities."

As part of a wider package of crime measures, he will announce moves to combat "problem families" he will claim are causing misery in communities with fourfold increase in the use of Family Intervention Projects.

These are binding contracts which require parents of children guilty of anti-social behaviour to accept one-to-one support or else lose their benefits.

He will also pledge to force the courts to issue more Drinking Banning Orders - so-called drink Asbos - against anyone convicted of a crime who was under the influence of alcohol at the time.

But Conservative leader David Cameron said the government had made it harder for police to tackle anti-social behaviour.

"They hardly spend any time on the streets," he said. "They spend all their time at their desks, filling in orders from the Home Office.

"We've got to get rid of police paperwork, we've got to get them back on the streets and we've got to make them feel empowered to intervene and clear these people off the streets.

"And [we've got to] make them accountable locally so there are consequences if they don't deliver."

Mr Brown is also thought to be ready to take part in a series of TV debates with David Cameron not just during the general election campaign but before it, the BBC understands.

If the debates took place they would be the first ever televised prime ministerial debates to be held in Britain.

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