Brown: When I'm PM
- 13 Dec 05, 05:55 PM
Get unstitching those banners, comrades. Egality, Fraternity, Solidarity won't do any more. They're so 18th century.
Gordon Brown tonight unveils three new words to hold aloft in the fight with the forces of conservatism - Cameron and, whisper who dares, perhaps Blair too. Liberty, Responsibility and Fairness are the three words in question.
In a weighty speech in memory of the late great Hugo Young of the Guardian, the Chancellor argues that "the surest way in which our nation can succeed economically and socially in the 21st century will be by building a society in which there is liberty for all, responsibility by all and fairness to all".
He also begins to outline "ideas that should in my view be the foundation for a new agenda of political, economic, social and constitutional reform, a new settlement that will enable us to face up to the scale and size of the global challenges".
That's code - though not very coded code - for "what I would do when I finally get to be prime minister".
Naturally, as he's not yet PM, Gordon Brown is a little coy about giving us much detail. However, the Chancellor does remind us that in order to underpin liberty he would give Parliament a vote before going to war, complete the reform of the House of Lords and revive local government.
As for responsibility, he points to his recent announcement of funding for the first British youth national community service and says he wants to "energise a new debate on the vital future role of the voluntary charitable and community sector in our country".
Finally, and most importantly, he turns to fairness and makes clear that government and government alone can guarantee - even if they don't provide - childcare and the New Deal's training for the unemployed.
I say that fairness is the most important. That's because it is - in a favourite phrase of his - the real "dividing line" between New Improved New Labour and New Conservatives - between, in other words, Brown and Cameron.
"Britain can retreat," he argues tonight, "into the old narrow view of liberty as a form of libertarianism, responsibility as little more than paternalism, fairness as just formal rights before the law - leaving people and communities not only ill-equipped for challenges ahead, but with too little liberty, too little responsibility, and too little fairness."
Translated, that means that Cameron would not invest in child care, the New Deal or the environment. What though if Cameron says he would? Then Gordon believes that will split the Tories - or be simply less attractive to the public than sticking with the guys who really believe it.
