“There’s no place for the old orthodoxies of no-go areas for Labour”

Harriet Harman speech to Labour Party Conference 2011.

It’s been great to be in Liverpool this week.

On behalf of everyone here at our Conference I want to give a huge thank you to all the people of Liverpool.

You gave us such a warm welcome.

You’re rightly proud of your magnificent city.

And we’re proud of Labour’s role in its transformation.

But people are worried – here and throughout the country.

Worried:

About their job.

The prospects for their kids.

About what’s going to happen in their local area.

And there is only one party leader who understands that.

It isn’t Nick Clegg.

And it certainly isn’t David Cameron.

It’s our Labour Leader – Ed Miliband.

He spoke up for the squeezed middle and he’s right.

He’s understood people’s fears for their children – and their ambition for them too.

He shares the anger that the bankers are getting off scot-free and he’s said that as Prime Minister he would end reckless irresponsibility from the bottom right to the top.

And Ed was the first party leader to speak up against the abhorrent phone hacking.

Ed took on Murdoch and won.

There will be change now.

“David Cameron promised to protect Sure Start. But Sure Start centres are closing”

Hilary Benn speech to Labour Party Conference 2011.

Good morning Conference. Can I begin by thanking my team Helen Jones and Paul Blomfield – Paul it’s great to see you back fit and well – and all our MPs for the work they do taking the fight to the Government in the House of Commons.

Ed’s great speech on Tuesday reminded us that politics – like life – is about the choices we make. It’s about the values we uphold. And nothing matters more right now than the economy.

Where we got it wrong – like on bank regulation – we’ve held our hands up. But everyone else got it wrong too. George Osborne used to complain not that we weren’t doing enough on the banks but that we were being too tough on them. He was wrong then and we’ll take no lectures from him.

And he was wrong again when those frightened people were queuing up outside the branches of Northern Rock to ask for all their money back. Now when that happens – your banking system is on the point of collapse.

And the real test of politics is not what you do when times are easy but the choices you make when times are tough. And we made the right choice. I rang my father up that day and said “Dad, you know you always told me that we should nationalise the banks. Well I’ve got some news for you”.

“Conference, the Tories have sucked the life out of our economy”

Caroline Flint speech to Labour Party Conference 2011.

Conference, nearly 45 years ago, in this great city, the Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral opened.

Built from the donations of ordinary people, when they had so little to give.

As the dedication reminds us, they did it by touting the streets and pubs and knocking on doors like their own.

They did it with dolls and raffle tickets.

They did it with pools and bingo.

They did it with silver paper and tuppenny legacies.

They did it with cigarette and Green Shield stamps.

They did it with old newspapers and wedding rings.

They did it.

And the day it opened was their day.

That is the history of our party.

From the Christian socialism of the Welsh valleys.

To the self-help tradition of the Rochdale pioneers and the co-operative movement.

And visionary trade unionists like Doncaster railwaymen Thomas Steels and Jimmy Holmes, who moved the motion that persuaded the trade unions to create our great party.

“We share the ambition to rebalance the economy in Northern Ireland”

Shaun Woodward speech to Labour Party Conference 2011.

Conference, when history looks back on the great achievements of Labour in Government, the Peace Process in Northern Ireland will rank high.

The visit of the Queen this year – the first by a British monarch since 1911 – marked both the end of one chapter and the start of the next.

An enormous symbol of healing. Reconciliation. The new Bargain.

The visit where, with President McAleese, the Queen laid a wreath in the Garden of Remembrance, which marks the Easter uprising of those who fought for Irish freedom.

The visit which took in Croke Park, where 14 people were slaughtered by British troops in 1920.

Highly symbolic. Deeply moving. Historic.

Unimaginable twenty years ago.

A reality in May this year.

And Conference, can we take this opportunity to thank President McAleese for all she has done to build the bridges of peace. She leaves a great legacy. We wish her and Dr McAleese well.

But there are new challenges. New troubles.

For the whole island.

The crisis faced by the economy of Ireland.

Compounded by austerity cuts by the Tory Coalition, felt as harshly in Northern Ireland as any other part of the UK.

“Young people who want to head towards work or an apprenticeship are left to fend for themselves”

Andy Burnham’s speech to Labour Party Conference.

Conference.

What do you think of my home city?

Brilliant isn’t it?

So welcome to Liverpool – or at least it was Liverpool last time I checked, before the Boundary Commission came along.

I’ve had a great week.

It started with a goal at the annual MPs versus Press football match.

Last year, Ed Balls and I were rivals.

This year we were united up front together – and, he must be doing a good job, because if you’ve seen the photos, there was certainly no ’squeezed middle’.

But it’s not all been good news.

Recently GQ voted me the fourth worst-dressed man in Britain.

My brother said at least it showed I was trying to fit in with teachers.

In this job, there’s one thing you notice.

How, on an almost daily basis, people who didn’t go to state schools, and don’t send their children to them, pop up in the media to tell us all how awful they are.

Is there any country in the world which runs down its schools, its teachers and its young people in the way we seem to do?

“The Tories and the Lib Dems are throwing away Labour’s golden legacy to NHS patients”

John Healey’s speech to Labour Party Conference.

Conference.

We’ve heard powerful testimonies today in defence of our NHS from our panel, and in our debate. Thank you.

Today we reject the Tories’ plans.

We back the founding principles of our NHS.

And we dedicate ourselves to winning a Labour government to protect the NHS.

It has been a real privilege to work with an outstanding shadow health team; with many of you in our health unions; and with Norma Stephenson and the Party’s policy commission.

But the greatest privilege has been meeting the men and women of the NHS, and hearing patients’ experiences.

Last week I was with Margaret Pritchard – a long-time community campaigner for Whiston hospital.

She’s never forgotten the NHS under the Tories: “People were waiting hours on trolleys in the corridor. I know”, she told me, “I was one of them”.

Or Anne McCormack, who I met at Conference this week. Doctors found breast cancer and she said “Thanks to the NHS and what Labour did, I’m here today and not an obituary”.

LABOUR’S RECORD
We take great Labour pride in the creation of the NHS. And in the great improvements people saw during the last 13 years of Labour investment and reform.

Hundreds of new hospitals and health centres.

Thousands more doctors, nurses and specialist staff.

Millions of patients with the shortest ever waits for tests and treatment.

“Every Tory government since records began has seen crime go up not down”

Yvette Cooper’s Speech to Labour Party Conference.

POLICE TRIBUTE
Thank you to Paul McKeever from the Police Federation for speaking to us today.

For many years when our Party has gathered, we have heard from nurses, teachers, business leaders, scientists, athletes and thanked them all for the work they do.

But until this year, we have never heard from the police, the people who work tirelessly to protect our communities. We pay tribute to them now.

To the officers who respond to the 999 call, no idea what they will find when they arrive, or whether they will return home safe at the end of their shift.

The officer who explains to a teenager that carrying a knife means his own life is in danger.

Or the eight riot police who stood on St John’s Road in Clapham Junction that August night as 350 rioters swarmed towards them down Lavender Hill.

We will not always agree with the police and Labour Ministers have had disagreements with the Police Federation in the past.

But our party believes strongly in respect for the police, and in backing the work they do.

So we say thank you through Paul to police officers up and down the country who work so hard to keep us safe.

And Conference. North Yorkshire police were among the emergency services to attend the accident at Kellingley Colliery on the edge of my constituency where a miner tragically died yesterday. Thank you for your tributes to the miners this morning. All our thoughts are with the families today.

“Advice deserts being created as law centres and CABs close down”

Sadiq Khan’s speech to Labour Party Conference.

Conference.

It’s a privilege and a pleasure to be here today for the first time as your Shadow Secretary of State for Justice.

This past 12 months the challenges of our criminal justice system have become all too apparent.

The groups and campaigning organisations; I’ve met the prisons, young offenders institutions and courts; I’ve visited the judiciary and legal professionals I’ve listened to; and the victims whose experiences I’ve heard.

Take Barry and Margaret Mizen who, following the tragic and unprovoked murder of their young son Jimmy, have channelled all their energies into working towards a safer community for young people across London through the Jimmy Mizen Foundation.

I’m honoured to have Barry advising my policy review.

And the probation officer in Preston with 30 years of experience who spoke of her frustration and disappointment at seeing several generations of the same family come into conflict with the law.

These experiences have shaped my thinking and have reminded me of the progress we made in government but highlighted the hard work that still needs to be done.

“Our centres of local life are under threat”

Tessa Jowell’s speech to Labour Party Conference.

Conference, we meet today over a year since David Cameron told us he wanted to create the Big Society.

How do we think he’s getting on?

Are our local communities thriving? No.

Have people got more power? No.

Are people giving more of their time? No.

Because David Cameron’s problem is ideological.

He thinks you can either have the state or society, but that you can’t have both.

Cuts too fast and too deep, have cost so many communities, so much.

Our centres of local life are under threat.

A small state obsession that gives us a small society in practice.

And what we lose in the next two years may be impossible to rebuild in ten.

“We still have a system where reward for work is not high enough”

Ed Miliband MP, Leader of the Labour Party, speech to Labour Party Conference.

Thank you Conference.

It’s great to be in Liverpool.

Labour Liverpool.

A generation ago a Labour leader came to Conference to condemn the behaviour of a Labour Council in Liverpool.

Today I come to Liverpool, proud to hold our Conference in this great city.

Proud of the work our Labour council is doing.

Conference, it’s been a busy year for me.

There’s one person I want to thank more than any other.

For her love, her support, for her encouragement.

My wife Justine.

Ask me the three most rewarding things I’ve done this year.

Being at the birth of our second son Sam.

Then getting married.

It is 2011 after all.

And starting to tell Daniel, my older son, the stories my Dad used to tell me.

My kids, Daniel and Sam.

A new generation of Miliband brothers.

I know what you’re thinking.

But just to reassure you.

We’re really hoping they become doctors too.