What follows is a copy of the speech (including notes) that David Cameron will give to the Conservative Party conference, next week. How it was obtained, only Snowden knows!
Conference, thank you for that rousing welcome! It is always good to visit Manchester (note to self, ask Grant why we are meeting in Manchester, other than Gid's do we have any seats up here?)
Well what a year it has been, since we last met. Andy Murray won Wimbledon (pause for applause) and in spite of Alex Salmond's buffoonish behaviour with the Saltire, didn't come out in favour of Independence for Scotland, the British Lions, the epitome of the Union at its best, plus the Irish , of course, beat the Aussies, down under and England won the Ashes - Hope that doesn't sound like Aussie bashing! After all Australia has just elected a solidly Conservative party, led by Tony Abbot.
Sporting triumphs aside, we have also seen progress on the home front.
Our Conservative Chancellor, George Osborne has managed to get the economy stoked-up enough so that we are seeing a growing economy (not to self, don't ad lib about green shoots, in fact don't mention horticulture, at all!). He has managed to do this without making the so called 'savage cuts' that our opponents in the Welfare Party accused us of. Make no mistake though, we have turned a corner but there is still a long way to go.
We do need to do a lot more to roll back the state;
Iain Duncan-Smith is pushing forwards with reforms to Welfare which will mean that those in work are better-off than those out of work. Also, as recently announced, that those out of work, will now have to work for their welfare handouts (pause for applause) - I know, many of you and much of the country think - about time! But you know we now have to contend not just with the opposition Welfare Party, but also with our Coalition partners and now the United Nations.
Yes, Conference it seems that the United Nations, the organisation that did such a great job in Rwanda and Srebrencia feels compelled to lecture the UK government on our welfare policies. The same organisation that appointed Gaddafi as a member of the UN Human Rights Council, now thinks it knows enough about the UK to pronounce on our democratically approved policies! (Pause for applause). Well, Grant Shapps told them where to get off, didn't he! (Pause for applause)
We haven't been inactive on the home front either.
Theresa May persevered and succeeded where countless Labour ministers failed and finally got Abu Qatada extradited to Jordan. (Pause for applause). We need to ensure that people like him are never allowed to abuse our judicial systems in the future. So, our next election manifesto will include a commitment to repeal all of the Human Rights legislation that has so hampered our country. Our people have said Enough is Enough!
We have heard the people and we will act accordingly! (Pause for applause).
A former Prime Minister once talked of being 'tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime'. Well we know where that led. Decent, honest people afraid to walk the streets because of anti-social yobs, our town centres made no-go areas and overrun with drunken mobs on weekends and killers and rapists getting light sentences and being let out to re-offend. Well Conference, this must and will stop! Our election manifesto will include policies designed to appropriately punish these people and protect you and the millions of others who are fed-up to the back teeth with a softly softly approach.
We have heard the people and we will act accordingly! (Pause for applause).
Thinking of that former Prime Minister and his successor, I must say that I now understand why we inherited such an economic shambles! Reading all of the various diaries and memoirs, it was clear that these tribunes of the Welfare Party were much more concerned about stabbing each other in the back and smearing and leaking against themselves, than in running the country! (Pause for applause).
And they had the cheek to call us the nasty party! (Pause for applause). Well no more! The great people of Britain, know that it is the Conservative Party and its economic policies that have pulled the country back from the brink of economic ruin - a minister in the last Labour government thought it a joke to leave us a note saying 'there's no money left'.
How can it ever be funny that you have fairy-tale policies and unsustainable economics that bring your country to the edge of the precipice? The British people didn't see it as a joke! We have all had to 'tighten our belts' over the last few years and let's not pretend it was easy. It wasn't! Many good, decent, hardworking people have had to scrimp and save and stretch the family budget just to get by.
They know, as do we, that the country is now on the path to recovery. I have no doubt that some of our people have been hurt in this period and for now, they may blame the Coalition but the overwhelming majority of people understand that the Conservatives had to do what needed doing, hard as that was. The great British people know that truth and hard facts, however unpalatable are always better than spin and lies and taking money from A to give to B and then giving A tax credits and such.
We have heard the people and we will act accordingly! (Pause for applause).
One of the people helping me put this speech together said ' Well Prime Minister, I suppose you can't get away without mentioning Europe' (Pause for laughter?)
Of course I want to talk about Europe. The Conservative Party is the ONLY party, yes the ONLY party to offer a referendum to the great British people. I have said, and I do stand by my commitments, that if re-elected, the Conservative Party will engage with the EU and seek a re-negotiation of our terms of membership and then we will put the results of the deal, to a vote by the people of Great Britain. People tell my ministers, MPs and I of their concerns about the EU, so I think I have a good idea of what it is we need to get from these talks - I suppose the over-arching theme is for Britain to regain control over many areas of our lives and to act like the sovereign nation which we are.
We have heard the people and we will act accordingly! (Pause for applause). And we are the ONLY ones who will do so!
The Welfare Party met in Brighton last week. I am not sure who to feel sorry for. The smearers and back-stabbers that nominally lead the party? How can all of this loathing of supposed colleagues be good for you? It certainly wasn't good for Britain.
Or should we all feel sorry for Unite Union members? They are led by Len McCluskey and he, having elected a leader that he chose - of course then the back-stabbing was even more brutal - your own brother, imagine - had to take all sorts of threats from this jumped-up party leader who had the temerity to question vote-rigging and such. Fortunately Len was able to remind his party - well he does pay for so much of it, it is only fare to call it his party - that he holds the purse strings and is quite prepared to sit on his money if needed! If he doesn't get his own way!
To coin a phrase. The Welfare Party has heard Len McCluskey and their other Union masters, and will act accordingly.
The big idea from the Welfare Party, other than spending money we don't have - and spending the same money multiple times, if their tax and spend policies are to be believed - well the big idea was a freeze on energy prices.
Now consider what that means. We have already heard from the energy companies that this would stifle much needed investment (and the jobs that go with it) and could lead to black-outs and so on.
But leave that aside, for now. Consider just how much profit is made by the energy companies. The average home energy bill is around £1,200 a year. Of this, around £50 is the company's profit, which is used to fund investments and dividends to shareholders - including pension funds! Of the rest of the cost, more than £110 is so called Green Taxes.
These Green Taxes are a DIRECT result of the last Labour Government's legislation on Climate Change. They put in place taxes that cause far more hardship for people than the profit that is made by energy companies. AND, the policy doesn't work - these taxes penalise the British people and British companies by giving us higher energy costs and then make an infinitesimally small contribution to reducing so called greenhouse gases, which is more than wiped out by the emissions from the economically emerging countries!
And so Conference, I can today announce that, as part of our next manifesto, we will include a commitment, to immediately repeal the punitive and tax affecting parts of the Climate Change Act. This will have the immediate effect of PERMANENTLY abolishing the Green Taxes - not for twenty months - PERMANENTLY.
We have heard the people and we will act accordingly! (Pause for applause).
Staying with the environment and industry, we will scrap the HS2 and we will use the money saved to fund a tax cut for married people and to promote more and more Free Schools.
The tax cut will be two fold - firstly to allow the sharing of unused tax allowances, between married couples and then to provide a specific deduction for married couples. We, in the Conservative Party, recognise marriage as the bedrock of a stable society.
Free Schools? Michael Gove has quietly led a revolution and people are seeing that we can have an education system that delivers quality teaching without the constraints of local control - local control that more often than not pays more attention to political correctness and the teaching unions than it does to parents.
We have heard the people and we will act accordingly! (Pause for applause).
Remember all those ads about the NHS isn't safe under the Conservatives? History will judge whether they were right. What we do know is that the PEOPLE using the NHS weren't safe under Labour. People died, unnecessarily because the layer upon layer of management fostered a culture of hiding from the truth. They were so focused on statistics and charts and status and their own compensation, that they forgot about the people they were hired to serve. People died in appalling and shaming conditions. That can never happen again, never!
Safe in their hands? I don't think so and neither do the British people!
We have heard the people and we will act accordingly! (Pause for applause).
Finally Conference, three things.
Firstly, I want to congratulate all of the Conservative members of the Coalition. Listening to our Coalition Partner's recent conference, you might get the idea that THEY did everything either pushing this or that policy through parliament or stopping the Conservatives pushing a policy through but the fact is, that we have got on with doing the job. Coalition isn't easy. I won't pretend it isn't frustrating when changes to electoral boundaries are sacrificed in a petulant fit of pique but the great British people want us to get the country right, so we just have to suck it up and do the bigger job!
We have heard the people and we will act accordingly! (Pause for applause).
Secondly, I want to address the voters in Scotland. You need to know that all of the people of Britain and at this Conference passionately hope that you will vote No in next year's referendum. Together we are better - better-off, better placed in the world and better able to enjoy our shared history and a prosperous future.
Thirdly, I want to talk about something that everyone says I shouldn't discuss - UKIP. More specifically I want to talk to people that are considering supporting UKIP. Simply put, I want you to think about which party can really give you a voice on Europe? Which party can really address welfare abuse and has already introduced a benefits cap? Which party can continue the curbs that the Conservatives have introduced on immigration? Which party is most concerned about repatriating powers from Brussels?
Ask yourselves these questions and you will know that it is only the Conservative Party that can and will deliver what you want.
Conference,
The great British people have made sacrifices and together we have turned back from the edge of economic ruin. We have started to address welfare and make the great British tradition of honest and hard work pay again. We make no apology for not wanting to reward fecklessness. We will, just as the great British people have always done, continue to help those in need. We will continue to put Britain's interests at the forefront of our international dealings and in the EU.
Why?
Because that is what we are about and that is what the great British people want us to be about.
We have heard the people and we will act accordingly! (Pause for applause).
Conference, thank you for that rousing welcome! It is always good to visit Manchester (note to self, ask Grant why we are meeting in Manchester, other than Gid's do we have any seats up here?)
Well what a year it has been, since we last met. Andy Murray won Wimbledon (pause for applause) and in spite of Alex Salmond's buffoonish behaviour with the Saltire, didn't come out in favour of Independence for Scotland, the British Lions, the epitome of the Union at its best, plus the Irish , of course, beat the Aussies, down under and England won the Ashes - Hope that doesn't sound like Aussie bashing! After all Australia has just elected a solidly Conservative party, led by Tony Abbot.
Sporting triumphs aside, we have also seen progress on the home front.
Our Conservative Chancellor, George Osborne has managed to get the economy stoked-up enough so that we are seeing a growing economy (not to self, don't ad lib about green shoots, in fact don't mention horticulture, at all!). He has managed to do this without making the so called 'savage cuts' that our opponents in the Welfare Party accused us of. Make no mistake though, we have turned a corner but there is still a long way to go.
We do need to do a lot more to roll back the state;
Iain Duncan-Smith is pushing forwards with reforms to Welfare which will mean that those in work are better-off than those out of work. Also, as recently announced, that those out of work, will now have to work for their welfare handouts (pause for applause) - I know, many of you and much of the country think - about time! But you know we now have to contend not just with the opposition Welfare Party, but also with our Coalition partners and now the United Nations.
Yes, Conference it seems that the United Nations, the organisation that did such a great job in Rwanda and Srebrencia feels compelled to lecture the UK government on our welfare policies. The same organisation that appointed Gaddafi as a member of the UN Human Rights Council, now thinks it knows enough about the UK to pronounce on our democratically approved policies! (Pause for applause). Well, Grant Shapps told them where to get off, didn't he! (Pause for applause)
We haven't been inactive on the home front either.
Theresa May persevered and succeeded where countless Labour ministers failed and finally got Abu Qatada extradited to Jordan. (Pause for applause). We need to ensure that people like him are never allowed to abuse our judicial systems in the future. So, our next election manifesto will include a commitment to repeal all of the Human Rights legislation that has so hampered our country. Our people have said Enough is Enough!
We have heard the people and we will act accordingly! (Pause for applause).
A former Prime Minister once talked of being 'tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime'. Well we know where that led. Decent, honest people afraid to walk the streets because of anti-social yobs, our town centres made no-go areas and overrun with drunken mobs on weekends and killers and rapists getting light sentences and being let out to re-offend. Well Conference, this must and will stop! Our election manifesto will include policies designed to appropriately punish these people and protect you and the millions of others who are fed-up to the back teeth with a softly softly approach.
We have heard the people and we will act accordingly! (Pause for applause).
Thinking of that former Prime Minister and his successor, I must say that I now understand why we inherited such an economic shambles! Reading all of the various diaries and memoirs, it was clear that these tribunes of the Welfare Party were much more concerned about stabbing each other in the back and smearing and leaking against themselves, than in running the country! (Pause for applause).
And they had the cheek to call us the nasty party! (Pause for applause). Well no more! The great people of Britain, know that it is the Conservative Party and its economic policies that have pulled the country back from the brink of economic ruin - a minister in the last Labour government thought it a joke to leave us a note saying 'there's no money left'.
How can it ever be funny that you have fairy-tale policies and unsustainable economics that bring your country to the edge of the precipice? The British people didn't see it as a joke! We have all had to 'tighten our belts' over the last few years and let's not pretend it was easy. It wasn't! Many good, decent, hardworking people have had to scrimp and save and stretch the family budget just to get by.
They know, as do we, that the country is now on the path to recovery. I have no doubt that some of our people have been hurt in this period and for now, they may blame the Coalition but the overwhelming majority of people understand that the Conservatives had to do what needed doing, hard as that was. The great British people know that truth and hard facts, however unpalatable are always better than spin and lies and taking money from A to give to B and then giving A tax credits and such.
We have heard the people and we will act accordingly! (Pause for applause).
One of the people helping me put this speech together said ' Well Prime Minister, I suppose you can't get away without mentioning Europe' (Pause for laughter?)
Of course I want to talk about Europe. The Conservative Party is the ONLY party, yes the ONLY party to offer a referendum to the great British people. I have said, and I do stand by my commitments, that if re-elected, the Conservative Party will engage with the EU and seek a re-negotiation of our terms of membership and then we will put the results of the deal, to a vote by the people of Great Britain. People tell my ministers, MPs and I of their concerns about the EU, so I think I have a good idea of what it is we need to get from these talks - I suppose the over-arching theme is for Britain to regain control over many areas of our lives and to act like the sovereign nation which we are.
We have heard the people and we will act accordingly! (Pause for applause). And we are the ONLY ones who will do so!
The Welfare Party met in Brighton last week. I am not sure who to feel sorry for. The smearers and back-stabbers that nominally lead the party? How can all of this loathing of supposed colleagues be good for you? It certainly wasn't good for Britain.
Or should we all feel sorry for Unite Union members? They are led by Len McCluskey and he, having elected a leader that he chose - of course then the back-stabbing was even more brutal - your own brother, imagine - had to take all sorts of threats from this jumped-up party leader who had the temerity to question vote-rigging and such. Fortunately Len was able to remind his party - well he does pay for so much of it, it is only fare to call it his party - that he holds the purse strings and is quite prepared to sit on his money if needed! If he doesn't get his own way!
To coin a phrase. The Welfare Party has heard Len McCluskey and their other Union masters, and will act accordingly.
The big idea from the Welfare Party, other than spending money we don't have - and spending the same money multiple times, if their tax and spend policies are to be believed - well the big idea was a freeze on energy prices.
Now consider what that means. We have already heard from the energy companies that this would stifle much needed investment (and the jobs that go with it) and could lead to black-outs and so on.
But leave that aside, for now. Consider just how much profit is made by the energy companies. The average home energy bill is around £1,200 a year. Of this, around £50 is the company's profit, which is used to fund investments and dividends to shareholders - including pension funds! Of the rest of the cost, more than £110 is so called Green Taxes.
These Green Taxes are a DIRECT result of the last Labour Government's legislation on Climate Change. They put in place taxes that cause far more hardship for people than the profit that is made by energy companies. AND, the policy doesn't work - these taxes penalise the British people and British companies by giving us higher energy costs and then make an infinitesimally small contribution to reducing so called greenhouse gases, which is more than wiped out by the emissions from the economically emerging countries!
And so Conference, I can today announce that, as part of our next manifesto, we will include a commitment, to immediately repeal the punitive and tax affecting parts of the Climate Change Act. This will have the immediate effect of PERMANENTLY abolishing the Green Taxes - not for twenty months - PERMANENTLY.
We have heard the people and we will act accordingly! (Pause for applause).
Staying with the environment and industry, we will scrap the HS2 and we will use the money saved to fund a tax cut for married people and to promote more and more Free Schools.
The tax cut will be two fold - firstly to allow the sharing of unused tax allowances, between married couples and then to provide a specific deduction for married couples. We, in the Conservative Party, recognise marriage as the bedrock of a stable society.
Free Schools? Michael Gove has quietly led a revolution and people are seeing that we can have an education system that delivers quality teaching without the constraints of local control - local control that more often than not pays more attention to political correctness and the teaching unions than it does to parents.
We have heard the people and we will act accordingly! (Pause for applause).
Remember all those ads about the NHS isn't safe under the Conservatives? History will judge whether they were right. What we do know is that the PEOPLE using the NHS weren't safe under Labour. People died, unnecessarily because the layer upon layer of management fostered a culture of hiding from the truth. They were so focused on statistics and charts and status and their own compensation, that they forgot about the people they were hired to serve. People died in appalling and shaming conditions. That can never happen again, never!
Safe in their hands? I don't think so and neither do the British people!
We have heard the people and we will act accordingly! (Pause for applause).
Finally Conference, three things.
Firstly, I want to congratulate all of the Conservative members of the Coalition. Listening to our Coalition Partner's recent conference, you might get the idea that THEY did everything either pushing this or that policy through parliament or stopping the Conservatives pushing a policy through but the fact is, that we have got on with doing the job. Coalition isn't easy. I won't pretend it isn't frustrating when changes to electoral boundaries are sacrificed in a petulant fit of pique but the great British people want us to get the country right, so we just have to suck it up and do the bigger job!
We have heard the people and we will act accordingly! (Pause for applause).
Secondly, I want to address the voters in Scotland. You need to know that all of the people of Britain and at this Conference passionately hope that you will vote No in next year's referendum. Together we are better - better-off, better placed in the world and better able to enjoy our shared history and a prosperous future.
Thirdly, I want to talk about something that everyone says I shouldn't discuss - UKIP. More specifically I want to talk to people that are considering supporting UKIP. Simply put, I want you to think about which party can really give you a voice on Europe? Which party can really address welfare abuse and has already introduced a benefits cap? Which party can continue the curbs that the Conservatives have introduced on immigration? Which party is most concerned about repatriating powers from Brussels?
Ask yourselves these questions and you will know that it is only the Conservative Party that can and will deliver what you want.
Conference,
The great British people have made sacrifices and together we have turned back from the edge of economic ruin. We have started to address welfare and make the great British tradition of honest and hard work pay again. We make no apology for not wanting to reward fecklessness. We will, just as the great British people have always done, continue to help those in need. We will continue to put Britain's interests at the forefront of our international dealings and in the EU.
Why?
Because that is what we are about and that is what the great British people want us to be about.
We have heard the people and we will act accordingly! (Pause for applause).
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