Click to get your own widget

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Ed MiliBand's Speech Fisked

Ed Miliband's Conference Speech

I have taken out most of the anecdotes about people who liked him and the "caring" crap which shortens it considerably:

---------------------------------------------------------------------

I want to start today with the simplest of thoughts...Britain can do better than this....a politics that hears your voice rich and poor alike accepting their responsibilities top each other. One Nation, we are going to make it happen, and today I am going to tell you how.


I want to start with leadership...I when I became leader I faced a decision about whether we should stand up to Rupert Murdoch. It wasn’t the way things had been done in the past, but it was the right thing to do so I did it. And together we faced them down. And then the other week I faced an even bigger decision about whether the country should go to war. So I said no.....

And he said to me, "Is anyone ever going to do anything about those gas and electric bills that just go up and up, faster than I can earn a living?" He wanted someone to fight for him. ....For generations in Britain when the economy grew the majority got better off. And then somewhere along the way that vital link between the growing wealth of the country and your family finances was broken.... this goes beyond one party or one government.....

{Cameron} has been Prime Minister for 39 months and in 38 of those months wages have risen more slowly than prices. That means your living standards falling year, after year, after year. So in 2015 you’ll be asking am I better off now than I was five years ago? .... Now of course it would have taken time to recover from the global financial crisis [there never was a global crisis, there was no "world" recession] he thinks for Britain to win the global race you have to lose, lower wages, worse terms and conditions, fewer rights at work. But Britain can’t win a race for the lowest wages against countries where wages rates are pennies an hour and the more we try the worse things will get for you. Britain can’t win a race for the fewest rights at work against the sweat shops of the world and the more we try the worse things will get for you. And Britain can’t win a race for the lowest skilled jobs against countries where kids leave school at the age of 11. And the more we try the worse things will get for you. It is a race to the bottom. Britain cannot and should not win that race.

.... to make Britain better we have got to win a race to the top, not a race to the bottom. A race to the top which means that other countries will buy our goods the companies will come and invest here and that will create the wealth and jobs we need for the future but we are not going to be able to do it easily.... It is going to be tough; it is not going to be easy. And I’m not going to stand here today and pretend to you it is. We are going to have to stick to strict spending limits to get the deficit down. We are not going to be able to spend money we don’t have and frankly if I told you we were going to you wouldn’t believe me, the country wouldn’t believe me and they would be right not to believe me. ... let me tell you how. It is about the jobs we create, it is about the businesses we support, it is about the talents we nurture, it is about the wages we earn and it is about the vested interests that we take on. Let me start with the jobs of the future. The environment is a passion of mine because when I think about my two kids who are 2 and 4 at the moment and not talking that much about the environment ..... In 20 years’ time they’ll say to me ‘were you the last generation not to get climate change or the first generation to get it?’ That is the question they’ll be asking.

But it is not just about environmental care. It is also about the jobs we create in the future. You see some people say, including George Osborne, that we can’t afford to have environmental at a time like this. He is dead wrong. We can’t afford not to have an environmental commitment at a time like this. That is why Labour will have a world leading commitment in government to take all of the carbon out of our energy by 2030. A route map to one million new green jobs in our country. That is how we win the race to the top. [in fact he knows that for every "Green" job created 3.7 jobs in tthe real economy are destroyed so that is a promise to destroy 2.7 million real jobs] we’ve got to support the businesses of the future. Now many of the new jobs in the future will come from a large number of small businesses not a small number of large businesses. And this is really important. If you think 15 years ahead, the rate of change and dynamism is so great that most of the new jobs that will be being done will be by companies that don’t yet exist. Now that changes the priorities for government. When this government came to office, since they came to office they cut taxes for large business by £6 bn but raised taxes on small businesses. Now I don’t think that is the right priority. Yes we need a competitive tax regime for large businesses but frankly they’ve short-changed small business and I’m going to put it right. If Labour wins power in 2015 we will use the money that this government would use to cut taxes for 80,000 large businesses to cut business rates for 1.5 million businesses across our country. That is the way we win the race to the top. One Nation Labour. The party of small business. Cutting small business rates when we come to office in 2015 and freezing them the next year benefitting by at least £450 a year [the AOLs that barely existed 15 years ago didn't grow beccause government returned £450 to them]. ....we’ve also got to nurture the talents of the next generation. The skills of people. There are so many brilliant businesses in our country who provide amazing training for the workforce, but look, we have got to face facts, leading businesses say this to me too which is there aren’t enough of them and we have got to work to change that so we will say if you want a major government contract you must provide apprenticeships for the next generation. And we’ll also say to companies doing the right thing, training their workforce that they will have the power to call time on free-riding by competitors who refuse to do the same.

... If the school system fails our young people they shouldn’t be ending up on benefits. They should be ending up in education or training so they can get back on the road to a proper career.

.... we want every primary school in Britain to have the breakfast clubs and after school care that parents need and that's what the next Labour government will do.[nothing about actually improving education]

To win the race to the top we've also got to deal with the issue of low pay. The National Minimum Wage, one of the last Labour government’s proudest achievements,.. The minimum wage has been falling in value and we’ve got to do something about it.

..... there are some sectors which actually can afford to pay higher wages,... the banks. So we've got to look at whether there are some sectors where we can afford a higher minimum .... the next Labour government will strengthen the minimum wage to make work pay for millions in our country. That’s how we win the race to the top.

.....Rogue landlords, putting 15 people in tied housing - it's a race to the bottom; not under my government.....

Take the gas and electricity companies. We need successful energy companies, in Britain. We need them to invest for the future. But you need to get a fair deal and frankly, there will never be public consent for that investment [which means it will all be state investment] unless you do get a fair deal.....

If we win the election 2015 the next Labour government will freeze gas and electricity prices until the start of 2017. Your bills will not rise. It will benefit millions of families and millions of businesses.....Now the companies aren’t going to like this because it will cost them more but they have been overcharging people for too long because of a market that doesn’t work. [so preumably he accepts the private sector won't invest]... So we will pass legislation in our first year in office to do that, and have a regulator that will genuinely be on the customers’ side but also enable the investment we need.

.......we'll say to private developers, you can't just sit on land and refuse to build. We will give them a very clear message - either use the land or lose the land, that is what the next Labour government will do.

We'll say to local authorities that they have a right to grow, and neighbouring authorities can’t just stop them. [I assume this means high spending Labour Councils will have an automatic right to take over and plunder surrounding councils] We'll identify new towns and garden cities and we'll have a clear aim that by the end of the parliament Britain will be building 200,000 homes a year, more than at any time in a generation.

......National Health Service, the greatest institution of our country....Just putting a £50 grab rail in the home stops somebody falling over, prevents them ending up in hospital

 

we can’t just be a party of 200,000 people. We have got to be a party of 500,000, 600,000, or many more. .... not satisfied that 33% of Labour MPs are women, they want it to be 50% and they are right. ....devolution works.... I’ll be the Prime Minister who repeals the bedroom tax.

the easy path for politics is to divide, that’s the easy part [which is by definition what class war is]. I’ll lead a government that fights for you.

[Which reduces it to a short speech but you aren't missing anything but platitudes and cheesy anecdotes)

Labels: , ,


Comments: Post a Comment

<< Home

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

British Blogs.