That Blair Speech Part 3

Oh Christ.... what the feck has he said this time?

He continues….. and so do I…. Christ the man is a tedious twat isn’t he?

Skills. I say to business: you have a responsibility to train your workforce. To trade unions: here is the chance to be the learning partners for the workforce of the next generation. Take the chance.

Actually I say to business “the state has a responsibility to let you employ people who have the skills to do your jobs and should be grateful that you are providing jobs at all given the rate at which we’ve taxed and regulated you. The state has a responsibility to make sure that suitable provision is in place that our people are educated to you requirements”. Sadly this does not appear to be the case.

To the trade unions I say “just fuck off”.

In the future, as people live longer, we can't afford good pensions and help for disabled people who can't work, with 4 million people on benefit, many of whom could work. Almost a million less than there were. But too many. That is why we need more radical welfare reform, getting more disabled people, more lone parents, more on unemployment benefit, into work, not to destroy the welfare state. But to preserve it.

No… destroy the welfare state as it destroys us.

And why is reform so important in public services?

Errr…. Because they don’t fucking work?

Over the past 10 years Britain has invested more in our public services than any comparable nation in the world. From near the bottom in Europe to the average in a decade. 300,000 more workers, treble the money, 25% more pay in real terms and the largest ever hospital programme; that is an NHS being re-built not privatised.

One of the many reasons that our schools and hospitals don’t work is that all that extra money went on paying people more to do the same job. Those of you with teenagers in your homes imagine the following. You have a son or daughter that doesn’t do what you want them to do… in return for this you treble their pocket money. Are they now going to work harder and smarter? Or are they just going to take your money and piss it up the wall? I think the latter.

Refurbishing or rebuilding every state secondary school in the country. 92,000 more classroom assistants, 36,000 more teachers, pay also up 17% in real terms. This isn't privatising state education; it's producing the best schools results ever.

But sadly not the best educated children ever.

But what happens? Expectations rise. People want power in their own hands.

Especially since we can’t trust it in your hands since you sell it to the highest donation

Two thirds of the country has access to the internet. Millions of people are ordering flights or books or other goods on-line, they are talking to their friends on-line, downloading music, all of it when they want to, not when the shop or office is open. The Google generation has moved beyond the idea of 9 to 5, closed on weekends and Bank Holidays. Today's technology is profoundly empowering.

Yup…. It can expose Prescott’s affairs, and it can get right up the noses of the government. It can publicise the unfortunate side effects of the Legislative Reform Bill, it can get Roger Helmer reinstated and so on. Of course in political circles you can view porn in a whole new way.

Of course public services are different.

Yeah.. they don’t work.

Their values are different.

Yes.. they’re worth a lot less now that they were 10 years ago.

There will be no selective Trust Schools or City Academies.

So what you are saying is that you will empower people to make the choices about their own child’s education but that choice will be made from a whole range of places that offer only one style of education… your style of education.

Actually its not your style of education is it Tone? You were educated at Fettes, so in effect you’re empowering people so much you’re making sure that their children cannot get the education you had.

But if, as at the Academy I visited in Lewisham, good GCSE results doubled in a year, and a school once under-subscribed, now five times over-subscribed, how is that a denial of public service values?

Maybe because a five times oversubscribed school is failing its pupils?

And if an old age pensioner who used to wait 2 years for her cataract operation now gets it on the NHS in an independent treatment centre, in 3 months, free at the point of use, that is not damaging the NHS; it is fulfilling its purpose.

Fair point…. And I congratulate you if this is the case, I don’t however believe that’s the full story. But either way, as soon as the trade unions decide they don’t like it it will stop happening.

My advice: at the next election, the issue will not only be who is trusted to invest in our public services, vital though that is. It will be who comes first. And our answer has to be. The patient; the parent.

But really it will be the Labour Party. When you guys are in power the only time you even see patients and parents is when you look to see what you’re stepping on.

Meeting the 18 weeks maximum for waiting in the NHS with an average of 9 weeks from the door of the GP to the door of the operating theatre. Booked appointments. The end of waiting in the NHS. Historic.

Or to put it another way… juggling the waiting times and areas so that targets are met and headlines are grabbed without actually improving the service given because frankly where else is the patient who can’t afford private treatment going to go? Dr. Crippen can talk about this for some time and given he’s on the front line and you’re not I’m inclined to believe him. In fact when was the last time you went near a waiting list?

Transforming secondary schools in the way we have done for primary schools. Schools with three quarters of children getting good results the norm. Historic.

Historic as in it happened in history, it doesn’t happen now. I don’t want secondary schools transformed in the way they have for primary schools. Ever since they “transformed the schools” literacy and basic skills have plummeted. Why is this a trend I want to keep up?

Do this and we will have earned the right to be custodians of our public services for the next generation.

Do this? You have had 9 years to do this and you haven’t done it. You haven’t made anything better. You had the right to be custodians of our public services and you squandered it. You have lost that right now and I for one will be happy to take it away from you.

I always said the Home Office was the toughest job in Government. It hasn't got easier. We should get a few facts straight. Crime has fallen not risen.

BOLLOCKS!

We are the only Government since the war to do it.

Which war exactly? You might be the only government since the Iraq War to do it but I believe the Conservatives achieved this under Michael Howard’s watch as Home Secretary. Maybe it had something to do with imprisoning criminals instead of letting 150 or so of them out without knowing where they are.

Asylum applications are dealt with faster, removals are greater, the system infinitely better than the chaos we inherited in 1997.

Because frankly we didn’t need 10% of the controls we now need in 1997.

30 million people now come to Britain every year. Visitors, tourists, workers, students. Our economy needs them. 227 million pass through our airports. Yet we have no means of checking who is here lawfully.

Well you have had 9 years to produce one. In fact we have been getting bombed for a year now and you’re still no closer to monitoring this.

The fundamental dilemma: how do we reconcile liberty with security in this new world?

This is leading up to ID Cards isn’t it?

I don't want to live in a police state, or a Big Brother society or put any of our essential freedoms in jeopardy
Of course not, we should have the right and freedom to say… wear a Bollocks to Blair T-Shirt, protest outside Parliament, get on public transport without it detonating, not be detained without charge or trial. You know basic freedoms, basic liberties, fundamental human rights.

But because our idea of liberty is not keeping pace with change in reality, those freedoms are in jeopardy.

Or is it because you don’t like us being free?

Immigration has benefited Britain.

Maybe but multiculturalism certainly hasn’t.

But I know that if we don't have rules that allow us some control over who comes in, goes out, who has a right to stay and who has not, then instead of a welcome, migrants find fear. We can only protect liberty by making it relevant to the modern world. That is why Identity Cards using biometric technology are not a breach of our basic rights, they are an essential part of responding to the reality of modern migration and protecting us against identity fraud.

NO NO NO NO NO! If we cram all the data into one card biometric or not then it raises identity fraud. All this information will be stored electronically and can therefore be stolen. Haven’t you heard the phrase? You know the one…. It’s about eggs and baskets.

I remember when I introduced the DNA database. On it go all those who are arrested. We were told it was a monstrous breach of liberty.

And it is when you’re keeping files on people who have committed no crime such as all those children.

But it is now matching 3,000 offences a month including last year several hundred murders, and thousands of rapes and other violent offences.

And yet still the violent crime rate rises…

In the next Parliamentary Session, the centre-piece will be John Reid's immigration and law and order reforms. I ask people of all Parties to support them. Let Liberty stand up for the Law-abiding.

Remember this? 100 days to sort out the Home Office? Is it sorted? These law and order reforms will be control orders, detention without trial, ID cards, Big Brother surveillance. Vote against it… vote against it with all your might.

And of course, the new anxiety is the global struggle against terrorism without mercy or limit. This is a struggle that will last a generation and more. But this I believe passionately: we will not win until we shake ourselves free of the wretched capitulation to the propaganda of the enemy, that somehow we are the ones responsible. This terrorism isn't our fault. We didn't cause it.

Your immigration policy and twattish idea of multiculturalism hasn’t helped though has it?

It's not the consequence of foreign policy.

No… it’s a consequence of your immigration policy and twattish idea of multiculturalism

It's an attack on our way of life.

Which you’re not defending us against. If all the freedom loving people of this country marched down the streets of London shouting “Behead those who insult Christ” and “Muslims, your 9/11 is coming” how hard would your police have come down on us eh?

It's global. It has an ideology. It killed nearly 3,000 people including over 60 British on the streets of New York before war in Afghanistan or Iraq was even thought of. It has been decades growing. Its victims are in Egypt, Algeria, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Turkey. Over 30 nations in the world.

And we’re only asking you to take care of it in this country. You cannot seem to do that, why not bring peace and democracy to Britain before you start exporting it?

Not a day goes by or an hour in the day when I don't reflect on our troops with admiration and thanks - the finest, the best, the bravest, any nation could hope for.

Not a day goes by that they are not wounded and killed either. I never see you visiting the wounded, or attending a military funeral though.

They are not fighting in vain. But for this nation's future. But this is not a conventional war. It can't be won by force alone. It's not a clash of civilisations.

Yes it is.

It's about civilisation, about the ideas that shape it. From 9/11 until now I have said again and again. If we want our values to be the ones that govern global change, we have to show that they are fair, just and delivered with an even hand.

I don’t want Britian shaping the world just yet. I want Britain governed in Britain’s interest. I want the domestic agenda working. I want foreign policy pointed at our security and economic interest. Not America’s, not the EU’s and I couldn’t give a rat fuck whether there is peace in the Middle East until I choose to live there. I did not vote any British politician into power so that someone in Basra can have a better life.

From now until I leave office I will dedicate myself, with the same commitment I have given to Northern Ireland , to advancing peace between Israel and Palestine. I may not succeed. But I will try because peace in the Middle East is a defeat for terrorism.

No mention of dedicating himself to furthering Britain I see.