----------------- ----------------- |  | | Last Updated: Thursday, 25 September, 2003, 12:48 GMT 13:48 UK |
Key points: Charles Kennedy's speech
| Election battles to comeHe called on the party to "go for it together" and take the Liberal Democrat message to the country
"The time is running out for our opponents. And a great moment of opportunity stands there for us to work towards."
He warned Labour and the Conservatives preparing for the next local elections: "We are coming after you both and the voters are coming with us."
In London he said that the party had in Simon Hughes the best candidate for next year's mayoral elections, and warned Mayor Ken Livingstone: "Watch out, Ken. You are sitting on squatters' rights as far as polling day in London is concerned." Predicting success against the Conservatives Mr Kennedy said he would not like to be in Tory Chairman Theresa May's shoes After criticising the Tories and Labour, he described the nationalist parties as rebels without a cause because the better devolution works, the more irrelevant independence becomes
Policies The party would be campaigning hard on the issue of scrapping the council tax, in next year's local elections
It would be replaced by a tax based on people's ability to pay
Major constitutional changes should be the subject of referendums
It is left to the Liberal Democrats to make the positive case for Europe
Mr Kennedy re-stated his party's call for free personal care for the elderly
Polluters must pay he said, and those who are environmentally friendly must be encouraged
The economy must work for the environment
For every new function of government his party proposed one other function would be scrapped Proposals for fewer government departments and fewer ministers Turning on Labour On the prime minister he said: "We should start thinking about Tony as a future former prime minister."
"People have given up trusting Labour."
"Two words this government doesn't understand - liberal and principle."
"My warning, my challenge to Labour MPs: they should examine their consciences and listen to constituents and join us in the House of Commons lobbies and defeat once and for all Tony Blair's bad ideas for top-up fees being applied to students in this country." On the Conservatives "This year be in no doubt we are overtaking the Conservatives, be in no doubt we are the only credible challenge to the government." Mr Kennedy called the Conservatives Britain's third party Tories want tax cuts to benefit the better off, which will damage public services, he said
"They are a party of defeat and they are in retreat. Increasingly they are not truly a national party any more."
"The Tories remain paralysed by feuds and rifts, the government has lost its way; it is tired and fractious."
Giving Iain Duncan Smith advice he said that the Tories had thrown in the towel in Brent East before the end of the campaignOn Iraq "If the Commons had known then what it knows now about the events leading up to that fateful parliamentary vote, the outcome could and should have been fundamentally different."
"This is to be supposed to be a parliamentary democracy that we are living in, what we have seen instead is a small clique driving us into war." Mr Kennedy criticised the Conservatives for cheerleading the case for war, and then criticising the result
He has called for the publication of the full advice of the attorney general on the war and he repeated his call for a broader, full independent inquiry into "the basis on which this country was led into war"
The voters did not ignore the Lib Dem stance against the Iraq war, he said
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