He didn’t mention the fact that business investment has been falling.
Or that we have had a trade deficit for every single month for nearly five years.

He ignored the 400,000 manufacturing jobs lost under Labour.
And he didn’t say a word about his economic forecasts.
Mind you his spin doctors did. The minute Gordon Brown sat down, his spin doctors were scampering around telling the world that in fact the Chancellor’s forecasts would not be met. What a demeaning way to conduct this country’s economic affairs.

And there was one other thing that Gordon Brown didn’t mention in Blackpool. He didn’t say a word about the collapse of the Stock Market
Just a few weeks ago Tony Blair was boasting that the stock market was massively up under Labour. 

Now that it’s down - £850 billion down from its peak – it’s got nothing to do with him. It’s just an international phenomenon.

Well let’s look at the facts. Yes, it’s true, there have been falls elsewhere. And of course I’m not saying that this is all a result of Government failure. But since May 1997 the Financial Times 100 share index has fallen by 15 per cent. The Dow Jones in New York has, over that same period, gone up by 6 per cent. So since Labour came to office, the Dow Jones has outperformed the FTSE by over 20 per cent.

Now I hope that no one is under any illusion that the stock market fall only affects those people who own shares directly.

It matters – and matters greatly – to everyone. It matters to business and to workers. It matters to everyone saving for their pensions or to pay off their mortgage. It matters to us all.

We know, from our own experience and that of our families and friends, the plight of those who thought they had saved to provide for their retirement. Now they find the value of those savings has crashed, the value of the annuities they can buy has plummeted, and daily they read newspaper reports of the possible demise of the companies in whose care they have placed their savings.

I repeat. I’m not saying that this is all a result of Government failure. But does anyone seriously think it has nothing to do with the policies of this Government?

Nothing to do with Gordon Brown?

Nothing to do with the burdens of red tape and tax which he has heaped on British business?

How many new regulations do you think this Government introduced last year? One thousand? Two thousand? Three thousand?

Last year alone the Government introduced 4,642 new regulations. One for every 26 minutes of every working day. At that rate, while we’ve been here this evening, the Government will have introduced two new regulations. 
The Institute of Directors have estimated that the extra cost to business of this red tape is £6 billion a year. This is on top of the extra taxes heaped on business – another £6 billion a year.

Do you remember the international league tables that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were once so fond of quoting – whenever they showed the slightest blip?

We don’t seem to have heard so much about them lately.
And do you know why?

I suspect you can guess.

Take the World Scoreboard of Competitiveness. We’re no longer in the top ten. We were in 1997. Now we are sixteenth.
 
As business tries to win orders and create jobs, Labour keep putting obstacles in their path.

Is it any wonder that productivity growth has halved under Labour?
And is it any wonder that the Financial Times said last week: `… it becomes increasingly clear that Labour’s leaders still have little understanding of what makes business work’?

Well, we do understand. And we shall respond to their concerns.
I can tell you today that in a couple of weeks’ time, Tim Yeo and I will host a `Regulation Summit’ to take this work forward. Business, think tanks, unions and those with experience of public services will be there. We want to listen to their views.

And I can tell you today that we will act.

We want the total regulatory burden imposed by each government department to fall year by year. We believe that can be done.

We want sunset clauses for new regulations, so that after a time they lapse unless they are introduced again. We believe that can be done.

And we want to ensure that small firms are protected from those onerous burdens. We know these things can be done.

We must show people there is a better way. 

Unlike Gordon Brown, I’m happy to tell the whole story. Of course it is true that unemployment, inflation and mortgage rates are low. We have been living through a period of worldwide prosperity. But now, worldwide, the clouds of uncertainty are gathering.

Let me put it this way. When times are good, you can manage the extra burdens. But when times get tough, those burdens are more difficult to bear. 

Yet Gordon Brown seems oblivious to the dangers.

Last week, Digby Jones, the head of the CBI, said that we were sleepwalking. “Sleepwalking to decline”. Just think about that phrase. Doesn’t it perfectly sum up the attitude of this Government, blind to the dangers ahead and the consequences of its own decisions?
What’s Gordon Brown’s response to all these deep and real causes for concern?

His speech was a masterclass in complacency.

His response to all these difficulties is more tax.

Next April, we’ll start paying the extra national insurance contributions. It is a tax on you and on your employer. A tax on income and a tax on jobs.
Not a tax on profits. Not a tax on turnover. A tax on jobs.

Who does the Chancellor think will be laid off first when firms have to fire people – or decide not to take new people on – because they have to pay his new tax on jobs?

The weakest. The most vulnerable. The very groups who thought they could rely on Labour.

The teenager hoping for a start in life. 

Those nearing retirement, with their pension already hit.
And when business has to spend its time and energy coping with another batch of regulations, who does he think will get left behind in pay, or in training?

Those at bottom of the pay scale. The vulnerable. The very people who Labour claimed could trust them.

And it’s not as though these extra taxes will make the difference we all want to see.

Gordon Brown’s speech last week was a catalogue of extra public spending. He’s totally forgotten what Labour said in their 1997 manifesto. Let me remind you – and Gordon Brown – what that said.

`The level of public spending is no longer the best measure of the effectiveness of government action’

I agreed with that at the time and I still do. Does Gordon Brown?

Of course we agree with spending more on services such as the NHS. And we have made it clear that improving the public services is our priority. 

But the truth is that you won’t improve health or education or law and order just by taxing and spending more and more. Without real reform the money alone just won’t do it. 

Every year the Government promise us better public services in return for higher taxes. 

But every year we just get the higher taxes.

This Government is now taking nearly £40 more every week for every man, woman and child in Britain.

And yet:

In our health service, patients are waiting longer in Accident and Emergency than before, more than 77,000 operations were cancelled last year – a 54 percent increase on 1997 - and for the first time, there are now more bureaucrats than beds in the NHS.

In our schools, the Government's own targets for literacy and numeracy have not been met while our examination system has been brought into disrepute and the future of 90,000 young people has been needlessly blighted.

And on our streets, crime is rising again – with street crime up 31 per cent this year - as my wife and daughter and no doubt many of you know only too well.

Of course the National Health Service and other services need more resources. But they also need change. Decentralisation. Modernisation. A readiness to set aside dogma and prejudice. A readiness we will never see from this Government.

We want to see an education system which leaves no child behind. We believe that can be done.

We want to see a modern health service, one which starts to live up to the fine ideals on which the NHS was created. We believe that can be done.
We want cities where people feel safe on their streets and in their homes. And I know that can be done.

And we will do it by giving power to patients and parents and freedom to doctors, nurses and teachers.
 
These are the powers and freedoms that Gordon Brown doesn’t want them to have. He wants to control everything from the centre. He wont let go of his tight grip. He can’t see there is a better way.

There’ll never be real reform of our public services because Gordon Brown will always block it. Make no mistake, the Gordon Brown way is the Labour way. And there is plenty of Gordon Brown in Tony Blair too.

So the rhetoric may be bold, but the reality is Brown.

The film we saw tonight reminds us why a better way is needed. The people in the film remind us why we’re here, why we care about things, and why we passionately want things to get better.

Some people might ask: what have the people we saw in the film got to do with a discussion on the economy?

The answer is simple. The economy is at the centre of everything we want to achieve. We must speak up for those that generate wealth in this country. Because the prosperity they create has a purpose. It creates jobs. It gives people the chance to do something with their lives. And it helps to pay for the schools and hospitals we need.

Some people think there is something new about ‘compassionate conservatism’. But I can tell you it has been around for some time. I have been around for some time too and I still remember a party conference in the mid-sixties when Iain Macleod told us that the Conservative Party stood for `humanity as well as efficiency, for compassion as well as competition’ – that we appealed to the heart as well as the head.
Did you hear what Bill Clinton said in Blackpool last week? Well, I am sending a copy of my speech to Bill Clinton. Because for us, Bill, it’s not just the economy, stupid.

Conservatives must set our sights high. Britain is the fourth largest economy in the world. Our prosperity was hard-won. Many people suffered hardship on the way.

We want to preserve and enhance that prosperity. And we want it for a purpose.

We want a society in which everyone is able to fulfil their potential.

We want a society where there is a helping hand for those who need it.

We want a society in which people are encouraged to look after their neighbours as well as themselves.

Last month, on September 11th, there was a Service of Commemoration at the National Cathedral in Washington. Archbishop Tutu delivered the address.

He said: `We are bound to one another. We can be human only together. We can be free only together. We can be safe only together. We can be prosperous only together’.

These are words we would do well to remember. 

Government, too, should work together with people. Together:

- with doctors and nurses

- with teachers

- with police officers 

Government must do all it can do to help people give of their best. Too often today government does not help. It hinders. 

Far too often today, government gets in the way.

We must change that. We must work together with the people of our country. 

Under Iain’s leadership we are once again rising to the challenge set to us all those years ago.

We must stand for humanity as well as efficiency. We must stand for compassion as well as competition. We must appeal to the heart as well as the head. 

That is the challenge. That is the goal. For the sake of our country, we must make all this come true.