Prime Minister, Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends:
Thank you, John MajorJohn, for those kind words. It is good to know that the affairs of this nation are in such safe hands.
It is also good to be at the Conference of a Party which believes what it says and does what it promises.
The Labour Conference in Blackpool, if you listen to the spin-doctors, was one big revivalist rally of born-again Tory converts.
Yet one thing just doesn't seem to strike them. If they'd had their way at the past four elections they'd now have nothing to convert to at the fifth. For they fought us every inch of the way.
Our Conservative convictions inspired us to cut tax rates—taxes that Labour had raised to 83 per cent at the top rate.
Our Conservative convictions inspired us to tame the power of the trade unions—unions that bank-roll the Labour Party.
Our Conservative convictions inspired us to privatise industries—industries that drained the Exchequer of money for schools and roads and pensions.
And our Conservative convictions inspired us to fight and win the Cold War against communism—the Soviet system that so many Labour fellow travellers admired. [end p1]
But now the Labour Party's new claim to govern is that they can be trusted to put into practice not Socialist but Tory policies—on spending, taxation, law and order, defence and even the welfare state. And most of the time they're very good at playing Conservative. But it's still an act.
There are three simple things wrong with it.
First, if you want Conservative policies the best way of getting them is clear: it is to re-elect a Conservative Government. Why settle for second best?
Second, I would say of the Tony BlairLabour Leader, as I once said of his Neil Kinnockpredecessor: if it's that easy for him to give up the principles in which he DID believe, won't it be even easier for him to give up the principles in which he does NOT believe? And I can tell him, from long experience, that when the going gets tough—and it does—it's only your real convictions that can keep you on the right course.
Third, even if Mr. Blair has seen the light—what of his Party? A more unlikely group of converts than his back-benchers—and some of his front-benchers—it's difficult to imagine. At present, faced with an election, he controls them. But if he were to gain power, they would control him—and we know what to expect: socialism, red in tooth and claw. And in that case all the efforts we've made to restore Britain's prosperity and reputation would be thrown away. It would take a decade to recover.
Ladies and gentlemen, that makes three risks too many.
You and I, John, have put our principles—our Conservative principles—into practice year after year. Not just when they were popular, but when they were unpopular. We did it because we knew they were right. [end p2]
We still have work to do. We alone have the principles and policies, the experience and the resolve, to take Britain into the next millennium. I have fought more elections than I care to recall. But it has never been more important to see the Conservatives returned to office—and you to Downing Street.