Tory 'threat' to services - Brown

Mr Brown said "unity matters" for Labour

A Conservative government would threaten public services by "depriving" people of support they now took for granted, Gordon Brown has said.

Mr Brown told the GMB union that Labour must "fight" for the future of public services against what he said was Tory "dogma" over tax and spending.

Labour accuse the Tories of planning "massive" cuts in public spending after the next election, claims they deny.

Mr Brown also appealed for Labour to pull together, saying "unity matters".

'Working together'

Reflecting on the troubles surrounding his leadership in the past two weeks, Mr Brown said that unity meant "working together through difficult times".

In recent days, the prime minister has tried to shake off questions about his own position by making announcements on constitutional reform and an Iraq war inquiry while focusing attention on Tory policies.

Mr Brown devoted the bulk of his speech to the GMB's annual congress in Blackpool to attacking the Conservatives over what Labour claims are plans for a 10% cut in spending in many areas after 2011.

We must fight as we have never fought before for our public services Gordon Brown

The Conservatives say that Labour is also planning to cut future public spending and have mismanaged the economy.

Mr Brown said Labour had a "fundamentally different" view of society than the Conservatives, accusing the opposition of putting "dogma" before fairness in their plans for spending cuts and proposal to reduce inheritance tax.

"These are the wrong policies and we will expose them every day," he said.

A Tory victory at the next election would threaten investment in the NHS, schools and social care, he said, and endanger the significant improvement in public services since 1997.

"We must fight as we have never fought before for our public services," he said.

Mr Brown said he understood public anger over MPs expenses, saying the recent disclosures amounted to "the worst parliamentary scandal for 200 years".

'Moving forward'

He apologised again for the behaviour of some Labour MPs, who he said had acted "totally irresponsibly", and pledged to clean up Parliament in the coming months.

On the economy, he acknowledged that people continued to feel "insecure" about their jobs and the government had not produced all the answers that people wanted.

But he insisted that Labour would get the economy "moving forward" and said the "conditions" were in place for the party to win the next election.

The prime minister also turned his fire on the BNP after their success in the European and local council elections.

He said he would not rest until the party's representatives were "removed" from all elected positions in the country.

"They have no role to play in the democratic politics in this country," he said.

E-mail this to a friend

Printable version