BRITISH PRIME minister David Cameron yesterday urged the public to unite behind plans to bring Britain’s finances under control, promising this would clear the way for a return to growth in the lifetime of the current government.
Telling the public “your country needs you”, Mr Cameron acknowledged people are anxious about the cuts to be announced by the chancellor of the exchequer, George Osborne, in three weeks – particularly after this week’s furore over cuts to child benefits, but insisted there is “no other responsible way”.
“I promise you that if we pull together to deal with these debts today, then just a few years down the line the rewards will be felt by everyone in our country,” said Mr Cameron, the first Conservative leader to speak to a party conference as prime minister since the final chapter of John Major’s administration in 1997, told several thousand delegates gathered in Birmingham.
Emphasising the successful co-operation that has marked the coalition since its formation in May with a warm tribute to Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, Mr Cameron nevertheless reassured his grassroots by making it clear the Conservatives will campaign strongly against next year’s voting reform referendum, along with negative rhetoric about the European Union.
Seeking to draw a line under this week’s controversy about cuts to child benefits from 2013 for one-income families earning more than £44,000, Mr Cameron said: “I’m not saying this is going to be easy, as we’ve seen with child benefit this week. But it’s fair that those with broader shoulders should bear a greater load.”
To loud applause, he repeatedly attacked the Labour Party, saying it had added “more debt in 13 years than previous governments did in three centuries” and wanted now “to spend more money on ourselves, today, to keep racking up the bills today and leave it to our children – the ones who had nothing to do with all this – to pay our debts tomorrow”.
“These Labour politicians, who nearly bankrupted our country, who left a legacy of debts and cuts, who are still in denial about the disaster they created, they must not be allowed anywhere near our economy, ever, ever again,” he said, adding that the cuts to come will see jobs being lost, while “there are things government does today that it will have to stop doing”.
Conscious of the dangers of offering too negative a message, Mr Cameron said he was leading “a new kind of government because it is realistic about what it can achieve on its own, but ambitious about what we can all achieve together. A government that believes in people, that trusts people, that knows its ultimate role is not to take from people but to give, to give power, to give control.” But the public must play its part, too: “Your country needs you. It takes two. It takes two to build that strong economy. We’ll balance the budget, we’ll boost enterprise, but you start those businesses that lead us to growth. It takes two to build that big society. We’ll reform public services, we’ll devolve power, but you step forward to seize the opportunity.
“Don’t let the cynics say this is some unachievable, impossible dream that won’t work in the selfish 21st century – tell them people are hungry for it. I know the British people and they are not passengers – they are drivers,” said Mr Cameron, in one of his clearest explanations yet of his dream to build a “big society” in the UK, one which the Conservatives have struggled to convey up to now.
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