2 October 2012
Last updated at 16:42 GMT
By Brian Wheeler
Political reporter, BBC News, in Manchester
Ed Miliband on Disraeli and the One Nation speech
Ed
Miliband has attempted to snatch the centre ground of British politics
by declaring that Labour is now the "one-nation" party.
The phrase - normally associated with moderate Tories - was
repeatedly used by the Labour leader as he roamed the conference stage
at Manchester.
He spoke for more than hour, without notes, in a highly personal speech that contained few new policies.
He vowed to unite the nation and lead it through tough economic times.
BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson described the speech as an
"audacious" attempt to "steal a traditional Tory slogan" and "fill the
space he believes has been vacated by David Cameron in the centre ground
of British politics".
He said it was greeted by Labour activists in the hall with
what seemed to be a sense of relief that they had chosen a leader who
might yet take them to Downing Street.
During his 65-minute address to the packed hall, Mr Miliband
invoked the spirit of the Olympics and World War Two as examples of what
Britain can do when everyone pulls together, while criticising the
Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.
'Change the medicine'
He got a standing ovation when he called Prime Minister David Cameron and the coalition government a "U-turning shower".
But he also went out of his way to court disillusioned Tory
voters, telling them he understood why they had voted for Mr Cameron in
2010.
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
The aim of the speech was clear: to
shift Labour into the middle ground of British politics, a space that Mr
Miliband claims the Conservatives have vacated”
He said Mr Cameron had let them
down and he mounted a sustained attack on the coalition government's
efforts to stimulate an economic recovery.
He said: "When David Cameron says to you 'Let's just carry on
as we are and wait for something to turn up', don't believe him, don't
believe him. If the medicine isn't working, change the medicine.
"And I tell you what else to change - change the doctor too, and that is what this country needs to do."
Mr Miliband said the country could not carry on as if it
were, "as two nations, not one, the bankers and the rest of the
country".
"We must have a one-nation banking system as part of a one-nation economy."
The Labour leader cited as his inspiration a former
Conservative Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, who made a famous speech
on One Nation Conservatism in Manchester's Free Trade Hall, now a
luxury hotel opposite Labour's conference venue.
'Forgotten 50%'
He said Labour would not be able to reverse all of the
coalition's spending cuts if it won the next election but promised a
fairer approach to cuts and policies to promote growth.
Continue reading the main story
BENJAMIN DISRAELI AND ONE NATION CONSERVATISM
- Conservative politician Benjamin Disraeli is the UK's only
Jewish prime minister, having served twice in the office in 1868 and
between 1874 and 1880
- A best-selling novelist, he was a favourite of Queen Victoria and was ennobled as the Earl of Beaconsfield in 1879
- In a speech at the Manchester Free Hall in 1872, he said the
"wellbeing" of all citizens, including the working classes, should be
improved
- Although he did not use the phrase "one nation" in the speech,
he became widely associated with it and a particular brand of
conservatism adopted by future prime ministers
- Years earlier, in his novel Sybil, he had warned of the dangers
of "two nations" where rich and poor lived on "different planets"
The speech contained few new
policy announcements but Mr Miliband did unveil proposals for a new
qualification - the technical baccalaureate - to be taken at 18.
This would transform the lives of the "forgotten" 50% of
young people in England who do not go to university, the Labour leader
said.
Mr Miliband, who praised the work of the police and armed
forces, also talked about growing up as the son of Jewish refugees who
fled the Nazis.
"My family hasn't sat under the same oak tree for the last 500 years," he said.
"I was born at my local NHS hospital, the same hospital where
my two sons were born. And I went to my local school with people from
all backgrounds.
"My school taught us a lot more than just how to pass exams:
it taught people how to get on with each other, whoever they are and
wherever they were from."
Mr Miliband declared that the next Labour government would
reform education and apprenticeships - in partnership with business - to
create a more highly skilled and highly paid workforce.
The new certificate would replace the dozens of existing
vocational qualifications with a single "gold standard" exam, which
would also include maths and English.
Labour would also reform apprenticeships, giving control of
the £1bn budget for on-the-job training to business and allowing firms
more of a say in setting the standards for vocational qualifications, he
said.
'Labour isn't learning'
Continue reading the main story
“Start Quote
The extraordinary message in Ed Miliband's speech is that Labour now amounts to nothing more than a party of one nation Toryism”
Angus Robertson
SNP
Mr Miliband also stressed that
being a one-nation party meant fighting to preserve the United Kingdom
in the forthcoming Scottish independence referendum - prompting scathing
response from the Scottish National Party.
"The extraordinary message in Ed Miliband's speech is that
Labour now amounts to nothing more than a party of one nation Toryism,"
said SNP MP Angus Robertson.
A Lib Dem spokesman said Mr Miliband had "attempted to airbrush out his and Labour's record in power".
"On taxes, youth unemployment and taking on vested interests,
Liberal Democrats in the coalition government are delivering where
Labour failed," he added.
Conservative Party Chairman Grant Shapps also accused Mr
Miliband of failing to learn "from the mistakes that Labour made in
office".
"Instead he failed to back our welfare cap, failed to back
our immigration cap and still stands for more spending, more borrowing
and more debt - exactly what got us into this mess in the first place.
Sadly, Labour isn't learning." COPY www.bbc.co.uk
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