In the closing speech of the 2008 Conference, David Cameron outlined our plan for change and promised that a Conservative Government will rebuild our battered economy, renew our bureaucratised NHS and repair our broken society.
He stressed that in these difficult times, Britain needs leadership, character and judgement:
“The leadership to unite your party and build a strong team. The character to stick to your guns and not bottle it when times get tough. The judgment to understand the mistakes that have been made and to offer the country change.”
He repeated his promise to work with the Government in the short term to protect our economy, but attacked Gordon Brown for making two massive mistakes that are at the heart of the current crisis: increasing government borrowing and taking away the Bank of England’s powers to regulate financial markets and blow the whistle on the levels of public debt.
David pledged that a Conservative Government would rein in government borrowing and create an independent Office of Budget Responsibility to assess the public finances and hold the Government to account:
“There will be no hiding place, no fiddling the figures – for all governments, forever.”
He made it clear that the problems facing this country go beyond the economic downturn, though, and slammed Labour’s handling of the NHS:
“Labour have taken our most treasured national institution, ripped out its soul and replaced it with targets, directives, management consultants and computers.”
He promised to improve the NHS by empowering patients and ensuring doctors answer to patients rather than Whitehall.
“We are the Party of the NHS in Britain today and under my leadership that is how it’s going to stay.”
David also pledged to be “as radical in social reform as Margaret Thatcher was in economic reform”, and laid out a series of measures to repair our broken society:
-
Strengthening families with more home health visitors and flexible working
-
Reforming our school system by establishing 1,000 new Academies
-
Ending the ‘something for nothing’ culture with radical welfare reform
He ended his speech, and our 2008 Conference, by saying, “We now have the opportunity, and more than that the responsibility, to bring our country together. Together in the face of this financial crisis. Together in the determination that we will come through it. Together in the hope, in the belief, in the knowledge that better times will lie ahead."