Grant Shapps speech in full
Thank you for joining me today.
I know the summer is not a traditional time for political speeches…
…so apologies for rousing you from your deck chairs…
…but there is a certain urgency to what I want to say and less than two years left to get this message across.
Since the beginning of this parliament, we’ve been working relentlessly to sort out the mess…
We've cut a third off the deficit…
… created 1.3million jobs in the private sector…
… and cut tax for 25million working people.
We’re supporting a nation that wants to get on.
Making tough decisions now…
…so that we can help not just this generation…
…but the next.
– Next five years –
That’s the story so far.
But what if the next five years told a very different tale?
I’d like you to imagine for a moment that it’s the day after polling day…
… the 8th May 2015.
The sun is rising over the Thames…
… the longest night of the political calendar is over…
… and a new government is formed.
History in the making.
As the city starts another day, a car travels up Whitehall.
In it are Ed Miliband…
…and Ed Balls.
Len McCluskey's there too, of course…
… After all, he paid for that car…
… chose the passengers…
… and put fuel in the tank…
…In every sense, the back seat driver.
Now, as the car slowly approaches the gates of Downing Street.
The Skycopter hovers above…
… capturing live the unthinkable nightmare that so many have dreaded.
Yes – that’s right.
After years of fighting off their radical left-wing policies…
…And despite a gruelling, hard-fought campaign stretching back a generation…
…It’s finally over for the Blairites.
– Life Under Miliband –
Because they know, as we do…
…how the bungling premiership of Miliband, driven by Balls, would inevitably pan out.
And so I invite you to imagine…
…if indeed your power of creativity can stretch this far…
…that it’s the two Eds’ first day on the job.
One man and his tempestuous Chancellor.
A new day has dawned, has it not?
You can picture the scene for yourself…
Weak Ed Miliband cuts short his first bilateral to hurriedly address the irate calls of his Chancellor…
…that it was a skinny latte, not a cappuccino that he ordered.
And imagine Miliband sigh as the Downing Street switch connects the soon-to-be Lord McCluskey of Anfield…
…with his third set of policy demands for the day…
Because after all those rigged MP selections…
…And the tens-of-millions of pounds in union funding…
…Today – is payday for Unite…
…And it’s gonna come with 1,000% interest.
Because now, it’s starting to sink in for Ed…
… he'll be lucky if he gets to choose his own sandwich at lunchtime…
…let alone his Cabinet.
Meanwhile – there’s Ed Balls…
Yes, think for a moment of Ed Balls.
There he is next door…
…unpacking his portrait of Gordon to hang on the wall…
…and already thinking about measuring up for the Number 10 curtains…
…As the country braces itself to relive the torrid nightmare of a Chancellor…
…who is once again demanding to know…
…when it will be his turn.
On that first day they waste no time in enacting their manifesto.
And it’s a package that comes with a sense of inevitability…
Since Labour have already committed to billions more in unfunded spending this year alone…
… in government, the deficit quickly begins to grow…
…foreign investors soon take fright…
…and mortgage rates – for millions of ordinary people – start to rise.
In opposition, Labour opposed all the changes to tighten border controls.
They’ve even proposed going further – planning a higher target for immigration.
So back in government, immigration goes up…
…bringing new pressure to our public services…
… and fresh strains on health, housing and education.
In Opposition Labour have opposed…
…every single measure introduced to fix the welfare state.
So in addition to reversing our own measures…
…Messrs Miliband and Balls follow through on Labour’s pledge…
…to make benefits a human right.
Now, I’m not making this up –
… Labour has actually been working on this policy…
Which, taken to its logical conclusion…
…could allow prisoners – serving a life sentence at Her Majesty’s Pleasure…
…To be entitled to housing benefit.
As they…and thousands more…
…exploit the Human Rights Act…
…to secure their newfound human rights to claim welfare, regardless of personal circumstances…
… The implications for public finance are immense.
Gone the fairness brought to the welfare system…
… gone the incentive to get back into employment…
… and gone the assurance that work will always pay.
Forget the cost to the state…
…or to hardworking taxpayers…
…because with the Welfare Party…
…benefits always come first.
But they’re not done yet…
Next up, they implement their pledge…
…to get rid of medical professionals examining care standards in our hospitals.
As if to learn nothing from the NHS tragedies of Morecambe Bay…
…or the appalling conditions at Mid Staffs…
…Labour once again hand the most crucial role in patient safety…
…back to those with no qualifications whatsoever in healthcare.
So – they’ve returned uncertainty to the Health Service…
They’ve brought the benefits system to its knees…
… they’ve spent more…
…borrowed more…
…and created more debt.
And after a while, these decisions –
…real choices that Labour have committed to or worked up during this parliament…
…come back to bite them…
…and the rest of us.
Imagine the concern of hardworking people…
…as their council tax bill doubles – just as it did under the last Labour government …
… leaving those on fixed incomes – like the elderly – financially vulnerable.
And imagine the angst of parents as they start to attack – and close down – popular Free Schools…
…even though people in their own party – like Lord Adonis – have praised them as some of the country’s best.
Meanwhile, as the deficit creeps back up to double digits…
… the Paris based Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development issue a bleak warning on the state of Britain’s economy…
…With the economic news worsening, in scenes reminiscent of some of our Eurozone neighbours…
… the International Monetary Fund meets in Washington to draft its UK bailout demands.
A nation is pushed to the brink once more…
… Britain firmly back in the danger zone.
Yet inside Downing Street the mood is only worsened…
…by the endless television rounds of Lord Mandelson…
…keen to offer his view.
As they say in the Labour party –
Things Can Only Get Better…
…if only because they’d struggle to get any worse.
-Present –
Right, I think that’s enough dystopian torture for one day…
So let’s get back to reality.
While we’ve been working to get Britain back on track…
Labour are on the wrong side of every major argument.
They said that, under this government, crime would soar…
… It hasn’t.
… Crime has fallen by 10%.
They said there’d be a double – or was that triple – dip recession…
… There wasn’t.
We now know the only actual recession took place under Labour –
… and at 7.2% it was the biggest in this nation’s history.
They said the private sector wouldn’t create jobs –
… meaning a million more unemployed by today…
… But they were wrong…
… private sector employment is at an all-time high.
The sad fact is, Labour loves doing Britain down.
In every case it’s almost as if they’ve been willing the country to fail…
You could almost sense palpable disappointment for Ed Balls just last week…
… as, through gritted teeth, he acknowledged stronger than expected growth.
It’s the single biggest difference between our outlooks.
We can see a vision of this country beyond the boom and bust of Brown.
A future where we continue to generate employment…
…adding to those 1.3million jobs created in the private sector.
A future where we drive up apprenticeships…
…adding to the record number created since 2010.
… And a future where we help businesses trade around the globe…
…continuing record rises in exports to China, India and Brazil.
– Technology means change –
We recognise that times have changed.
And as a nation we can harness the opportunities this brings to our citizens.
Take the humble phone in your pocket for example…
Just a few years ago it was good for making an emergency phone call.
Or perhaps sending a text…
But today here in Britain, there are more mobile phones than there are people…
These sophisticated online devices are changing everything about our lives.
The built-in cameras capture events…
… as three-quarters of Britain’s 34m facebook users access their news-feeds through their mobiles…
They enable us to share projects and thoughts through social media, no matter where we are.
Now, we can just as easily access TV and Radio from across the globe…
… as we can discover what’s happening in our own back yard.
Just this month, new payment technology means that if you leave cash and your credit cards at home…
…you can still pay by simply touching your phone on a contactless reader in quarter-of-a-million UK shops.
You can bring colleagues together for meetings using Skype or Facetime – from London to Bejing.
…Who here shares my appreciation of the phone’s flash – which doubles as a torch – when you’ve come home late and dropped your keys?
… and this morning maybe you blamed your phone – rather than your alarm clock –
…when you overslept and missed the Deputy Prime Minister’s press conference!
Today it’s a reality that we carry the world around with us.
Of course this raises all sorts of complex questions for society and public administration.
But as a government, we must be at the epicentre of the opportunities this brings.
That means removing the digital-divide for all our citizens…
…with the most ambitious rollout of fibre-optic broadband in Europe.
And the faster deployment of 4G, which just this week saw 15 UK cities upgraded to a staggering 60megabits per second…
…that’s a high-definition film downloaded in just 3 minutes.
It means helping young people fresh out of education to set up their own e-businesses…
… backing world-beating innovation from aerospace to computing…
…and hi-tech engineering to pharmaceuticals.
Yet in this changed environment,
Labour leaders remain inextricably bound up with the past.
Their addiction to wholesale union funding means they maintain an old fashioned, skewed relationship with trade union barons…
… demanding policies…
… fixing candidates
and installing their leader.
It’s a dinosaur world, that time forgot…
…which would lead to them governing in response to the demands of a few.
Instead, we’re governing for the many…
… unencumbered by narrow interest and restrictive practice.
…We look to the advances and opportunities from technology…
… to unleash new jobs in brand new industries.
It’s part of our overall package to rebalance our economy and get Britain moving.
But it’s something which the same old Labour party…
… wedded to their old ways and beholden to their union paymasters – will never match.
– Securing the recovery –
Now, the last few years have been a struggle for people in this country.
But they’ve led the way in sacrifice to get this economy back on track.
Of course, down the line they’ll hear the false promises of Labour’s soft options and easy credit.
But this country has been there before…
… and it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
So today, I’m here to remind all of us –
…that if we give up on our recovery now…
…we’d be handing the keys right back to the people who crashed the economy in the first place.
Same Old Labour…
…forcing Brits to live the pain again.
– Finishing the Job –
So on that morning of the 8th May 2015…
…I want to make one thing certain.
Ed Miliband and Ed Balls must drive past those gates of Downing Street – without turning in.
They're off to the commiseration party at Labour HQ.
It’s a vision we need to make a reality.
Because if we don’t see this through…
We’ll be condemning our citizens to relive the austerity gains of the past few years.
And if we do that – we’ll be letting Britain down.
I've absolutely no intention of doing so…
…and nor does this Prime Minister.
– Building Britain Up –
That’s why, during this summer, Cabinet colleagues will be outlining what we’ll be doing next.
You’ll be hearing from our excellent Home Secretary Theresa May…
… the redoubtable Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith…
… and ministers from across the government.
Because we’ve got to continue the bold steps to recovery…
…so that we can go to the British people in two years' time…
…and ask for their permission to finish the job.
And we won’t throw away a single minute…
…not even a single second in getting our country back on track.
So when parliament returns this September…
It will be clearer than ever that we have the right programme to take this country forward.
We’re determined to do what’s right for our nation in the long term, rather than what’s popular in the short.
We’re advancing to a brighter and better future.
Because we’re on the side of hardworking people the length and breadth of this country…
…And we must not let them down.
…because they are relying on us to succeed.
Thank you.
