Gordon Brown: No to ID cards in the next Parliament
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They've deliberately held their cards close to their chest.
They've done their best to conceal their policies and their instincts.
Gordon Brown today ruled out introducing ID cards if Labour win the next election as he vowed to “fight, not walk away, not give up...but fight to win” in a rousing final conference speech before the poll.
The Prime Minister said the controversial cards would not be brought in during the next Parliament if the party won a fourth term in office.
Mr Brown, who was introduced by his wife Sarah for the second successive year, told delegates in Brighton: “We have changed the world before and we are going to change the world again.
He added: “We need to fight, not walk away, not give up...but fight to win.”
Mr Brown told supporters in the make-or-break speech on the day a poll put Labour in third place, behind the Liberal Democrats, that the UK is facing its “biggest choice for a generation.”
He said the difference for people was between Labour which offers “prosperity and hope” and the Conservatives, who have “no hearts.”
Mr Brown rounded on David Cameron’s Tories of dishonesty in not concealing their policies and their instincts, which he said would risk the future of jobs, schools, hospitals and communities.
He said Mr Cameron’s party “want people to believe that the ballot paper has an option marked change without consequence - that's it's only a change of the team at the top.”
Mr Brown added: "They've deliberately held their cards close to their chest. They've done their best to conceal their policies and their instincts. But the financial crisis forced them to show their hand and they showed they had no hearts.
"And so I say to the British people the election to come will not be about my future - it's about your future. Your job. Your home. Your children's school. Your hospital. Your community. Your country."
He described the choice facing voters will be between "Conservatives who embrace pessimism and austerity and progressives like Labour who embrace prosperity and hope.”
Along with the ID cards pledge, which could draw away some of the criticism of the policy from human rights groups, Mr Brown said the next Labour government would introduce free personal care for elderly people with the greatest needs and new measures to crack down on anti-social behaviour.
It came hours after a police force and two local authorities were criticised in the case of Fiona Pilkington, who was driven to commit suicide and kill her disabled daughter after they were terrorised by thugs in Leicestershire
He also offered voters a referendum on voting reform and a new power for constituents to recall misbehaving MPs.
Mr Brown accepted that Labour will have to make tough choices on tax and spending if the party wins a fourth term, but he warned the Conservatives would cut front-line services to reduce the deficit caused by the massive bail-out of banking instututions.
He added: "There are only two options on tax and spending - and only one of them benefits Britain's hard-working majority.
"One is reducing the deficit by cutting front-line public services - the Conservative approach. The other is getting the deficit down while maintaining and indeed improving front-line public services - the Labour approach."
Mr Brown said Labour would reduce the deficit by raising tax "at the very top" putting up National Insurance by 0.5%, cutting costs and having "realistic" public sector pay settlements.
Meanwhile, the Prime Minister said the Conservatives would take "a different approach" of cutting spending on front-line services and giving tax breaks to the rich.
He said: “These are not cuts they would make because they have to - these are spending cuts they are making because they want to. It is not inevitable - it is the change they choose.”
Mr Brown also took an opportunity to contrast his “ordinary” upbringing as the son of a Church of Scotland minister in Fife to that of Eton-educated Mr Cameron’s early life. Although he chose not to name his opponent, the Scot said that he was brought up in "an ordinary family in an ordinary town" with parents who "could not easily afford to put me through fee-paying schools"
Mr Brown contrasted the banking community who had "lost sight of basic British values of acting responsibly and acting fairly" and the lives of ordinary people in the UK which he said are “my values.”
The Prime Minister added: "that works not just by self-interest but by self-discipline, self-improvement and self-reliance... a Britain where we don't just care for ourselves we also care for each other."
He said: "Call them middle class values, call them traditional working class values, call them family values, call them values to live by, call them all of these; these are the values of the mainstream majority; the anchor of Britain's families, the best instincts of the British people, the soul of our party and the mission of our government.
"And I say this too; these are my values."
Mr Brown pledged to protect and improve frontline services for every year of the next Parliament, if elected, and will invest more money in schools.
In a slogan designed to draw clear defining lines with David Cameron's Tories, Mr Brown repeatedly promised that Labour would always choose "the change that benefits the hard-working majority, not the privileged few."
Despite the prediction of electoral defeat following polls, including an Ipsos Mori survey which put the Tories on 36%, the LibDems on 25% and Labour on 24%, Mr Brown said his party was “united and determined to fight for the future.”
He described the Labour Party as composed of "the fighters and believers who change the world. We have changed the world before and we are going to do it again".
Mr Brown said he had acted "decisively and immediately" when Britain was "looking over a precipice" as banks teetered on the brink of failure last year, while Conservatives had taken decisions on the economy which were "consistently wrong".
He added: "The Conservative Party were faced with the economic call of the century and they called it wrong.
"And I say a party that makes the wrong choices on the most critical decisions it would have faced in government should not be given the chance to be in government."
He also warned the government will use ‘tough love’ to tackle problems families who terrorise their neighbours as he delivers his final conference speech before the general election.
The Prime Minister had been introduced on stage by his public relations executive wife Sarah, who talked of the tough times that they had been through and conceded that Mr Brown was not a saint.
In his keynote speech to a Brighton conference under the banner “Operation Fightback”, the Prime Minister will announce £36 million of additional funding to roll out “tough love” Family Intervention Projects to all 50,000 of the country’s most difficult families over the coming five years.
Any parent of a child issued with an Asbo will automatically be subject to a parenting order requiring them to go through a project.
FIPs, which have been piloted in areas including Dundee, deliver what the Government terms “intensive, one-on-one, hard-edged support” for families where drugs, drink, bad parenting and persistent joblessness are a problem.
Parents could be required to attend literacy and parenting classes or even being moved into supported accommodation.
Mr Brown will also give the green light for courts to start handing down so-called drink Asbos to offenders who commit crimes while under the influence of alcohol.
The Drinking Banning Orders - which could see boozy criminals barred from off licences and pubs or referred for treatment - were unveiled last month but have not yet been put into force.
Courts throughout England and Wales will be required by April 2011 to consider them in all cases involving offenders over 16 where alcohol is a factor.
Mr Brown will tell delegates: “Whenever and wherever there is anti-social behaviour, we will be there to fight it. We will not stand by and see the lives of the lawful majority disrupted by the behaviour of the lawless minority.
“Because the decent, hard-working majority are getting ever more angry - rightly so - with the minority who will talk about their rights but never accept their responsibilities.”
The last four years have seen FIPs extended to cover up to 5,000 families a year. Mr Brown will say he wants to see a “step change” so that all of those needing it - estimated to be 50,000 families with 100,000 children across the country - will go through a project by the end of the next Parliament.
He will announce £26 million in additional cash for the scheme in 2010-11, with a further £10 million the following year, funded by scaling back other youth crime and parenting projects which have proved less effective.
While the average cost per family for FIP support is put at between £8,000 and £20,000 a year, Mr Brown will say the scheme could save Britain £3 billion over five years by cutting the estimated £250,000-£350,000 annual bill of police, court and council action to deal with each failing family.
Mr Brown will say: “Most mums and dads do a great job but there are those who let their kids run riot and I’m not prepared to accept it as simply part of life.
“There is an approach which has had a real impact on anti-social behaviour, is slashing welfare dependency and is cutting crime. Family intervention projects are a tough-love, no-nonsense approach with help for those who want to change and proper penalties for those who don’t.”
Mr Brown will cite the case of a young single mother in Dundee who had got involved in drugs and was in danger of having her children taken into care but was going to college and aiming to find a good job within months of taking part in a FIP.
“By cracking down on bad behaviour and preventing trouble escalating, family intervention partnerships could save Britain up to £3 billion in the long run,” the Prime Minister will say. “But more than the money we could save, I’m excited by the lives we could change.”
-Will post a link when the papers catch up but is he cancelling them or will he introduce a "compulsory" voluntary ID card system. 