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Last Updated: Tuesday, 27 September 2005, 07:57 GMT 08:57 UK
'Labour will deliver' - Morgan
Rhodri Morgan and Peter Hain at an eve of conference briefing in Brighton

First Minister Rhodri Morgan has told Labour's conference that only his party can deliver for the people of Wales.

He said that, despite running a minority administration in Cardiff Bay, the party had a mandate to deliver.

He and his colleagues would work "with unswerving purpose", sticking to their assembly election manifesto pledges.

Mr Morgan told delegates in Brighton the Welsh Assembly Government had achieved lower unemployment, record exam results, and better health care.

Sharing the platform with Welsh secretary Peter Hain, Mr Morgan turned his attention to the question of further devolution.

He said that a new Government of Wales Act should be on the books by this time next year and that extra powers were not "a bit of status-seeking".

Instead, they were the tools that he and his government needed "to get a particular job done - in health, or education, or environmnet or local government".

Away from the main stage, critics of Mr Morgan's government were launching a demonstration.

Around 150 aircraft workers travelled from St Athan in the Vale of Glamorgan with hopes of saving their jobs at the Defence Aviation Repair Agency (Dara).

Rhodri Morgan speaking at Brighton
Mr Morgan paid tribute to former leader Neil Kinnock

Hundreds of jobs are expected to to be lost if the MoD switches maintenance work on jet fighter aircraft away from Dara - a civilian arm of the MoD - to an RAF base in Norfolk.

Staff took a giant toilet, stuffed with money, to Brighton - a symbolic gesture designed to draw attention to what they claim is a waste of public money.

The south Wales plant was officially opened in April, at a cost of �80m, and employs about 1,300 people.

Key Labour figures, past and present are attending the conference.

Former Labour leader Neil Kinnock - now Lord Kinnock - was moved to tears by a touching tribute.

Neil Kinnock speaking to the Labour conference in 1985
Mr Morgan recalled Neil Kinnock's landmark speech 20 years ago

At a reception for Welsh delegates, Rhodri Morgan told members that it was 20 years since Kinnock's "epoch-making" speech to the 1985 party conference.

'Proud'

In that speech in Bournemouth, the then Labour leader attacked militant elements of the party in an address which has been viewed as a landmark moment in the creation of New Labour.

Delegates watched the famous Hugh Hudson-directed party political broadcast which became known as "Kinnock - The Movie".

Lord Kinnock wept while watching the film, and recounted stories from his time as a young Labour activist, campaigning for Jim Callaghan in Cardiff.

He told Welsh party members that the Labour Party was intrinsically "new", and said that, if he had played a part in creating the party which had won three successive elections, then he was proud of the achievement.



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