Диссертация (1168845), страница 97
Текст из файла (страница 97)
The mess this country is in – it's not all because of Labour.Of course, they must take some of the blame. Alright - they need to take a lot of the blame.Let me just get this off my chest. They left us with massive debts, the highest deficit, overstretchedarmed forces, demoralised public services, endless ridiculous rules and regulations and quangos andbureaucracy and nonsense.They left us a legacy of spinning, smearing, briefing, back-biting, half-truths and cover-ups,patronising, old-fashioned, top-down, wasteful, centralising, inefficient, ineffective, unaccountablepolitics, 10p tax and 90 days detention, an election bottled and a referendum denied, gold sold at halfprice and council tax doubled, bad news buried and Mandelson resurrected, pension funds destroyedand foreign prisoners not deported, Gurkhas kept out and extremist preachers allowed in.Yes, they deserve some blame, and we'll never let them forget it.But the point I want to make is this.
The state of our nation is not just determined by the governmentand those who run it. It is determined by millions of individual actions – by what each of us do andwhat we choose not to do.Yes, Labour failed to regulate the City properly. But they didn't force those banks to take massive riskswith other people's money.Yes, Labour tried to boss people around and undermined responsibility. But they weren't the onessmashing up our town centres on a Friday night or sitting on their sofas waiting for their benefits.Yes, Labour centralised too much and told people they could fix every problem. But it was the rest ofus who swallowed it, hoping that if the government took care of things, perhaps we wouldn't have to.Too many people thought: "I've paid my taxes, the state will look after everything."But citizenship isn't a transaction in which you put your taxes in and get your services out.
It's arelationship – you're part of something bigger than you, and it matters what you think and feel and do.So to get out of the mess we're in, changing the government is not enough. We need to change the waywe think about ourselves, and our role in society.Your country needs you, and today I want to tell you about the part we've all got to play, and the spiritthat will take us through.It's the spirit I saw in a group of NHS maternity nurses in my constituency who told me they wanted toform a co-op to use their own ideas and their nous to help new parents.It's the spirit you see just down the road in Balsall Heath, where local residents' street patrols haveturned a no-go area into a place where people can once again feel safe.It's the spirit that, just today, has seen some of our leading social organisations come together to set upa new Citizen University, to help give people the skills they need to play a bigger part in society.It's the spirit of activism, dynamism, people taking the initiative, working together to get things done.504Sometimes that spirit gets taken a little too far.
I got a letter from a six-year-old girl called Niamh witha pound coin stuck to it. And there was a note from her mum, which said: "Dear Mr Cameron ... afterhearing about the budget, Niamh wanted to send you her tooth fairy money to help."There we are, George – nearly there. Niamh: thankyou.What I'm talking about, the spirit we need, is the big society spirit – and here's why I think its time hascome.All over the world, governments are wrestling with the same challenges. Not just building prosperous,competitive economies, providing good public services and paying for pensions but creating strongsocieties, improving quality of life, ensuring that everyone feels they belong.The countries that succeed will be those that find new ways of doing things, new ways of harnessingthe common good, better alternatives to the old-fashioned state, and we're on the right side of thatargument.Here at home, at this year's election, the result may not have been clear-cut when it came to thepolitical parties.
But it was clear enough when it came to political ideas.The old way of doing things: the high-spending, all-controlling, heavy-handed state, those ideas weredefeated. Statism lost ... society won. That's what happened at the last election and that's the changewe're leading.From state power to people power. From unchecked individualism to national unity and purpose.
Frombig government to the big society.The big society is not about creating cover for cuts. I was going on about it years before the cuts.It's not government abdicating its role, it is government changing its role.It's about government helping to build a nation of doers and go-getters, where people step forward notsit back, where people come together to make life better.Of course the cynics and the defeatists will say it can't be done, that we're stuck in some inevitabledecline.
But that's what they said in the 70s. They were wrong then – and we'll prove them wrongagain.We can build a country defined not by the selfishness of the Labour years but by the values of mutualresponsibility that this party holds dear.A country defined not by what we consume but by what we contribute. A country, a society where wesay: I am not alone. I will play my part. I will work with others to give Britain a brand new start.Over the coming months, we will need that spirit as we face up to our financial responsibilities.Everyone knows that this government is undertaking a programme of spending cuts.I know how anxious people are. "Yes", they say: "of course we need to cut spending.
But do we haveto cut now, and by this much? Isn't there another way?"I wish there was another way. I wish there was an easier way. But I tell you: there is no otherresponsible way.Back in May, we inherited public finances that can only be described as catastrophic. This year, wewill borrow more money than we spend on the NHS. Just think about that.Every doctor's salary. Every operation. Every heating bill in every hospital. Every appointment. EveryMRI scan. Every drug. Every new stethoscope, scalpel, hospital gown.Everything in our hospitals and surgeries – paid for with borrowed money, much of it from abroad.And then think about the interest.This year, we're going to spend £43bn on debt interest payments alone.
£43bn – not to pay off the debt– just to stand still.Do you know what we could do with that sort of money? We could take 11 million people out ofpaying income tax. We could take every business in the country out of corporation tax.That's why we have acted decisively – to stop pouring so much of your hard-earned money down thedrain.505And it's stopped us slipping into the nightmare they've seen in Greece, confidence falling, interest ratesrising, jobs lost and in the end, not less but more drastic spending cuts than if you'd acted decisively inthe first place.Our emergency budget showed the world that Britain is back on the path of fiscal responsibility.It took us out of the danger zone – and the man we have to thank for that is George Osborne.The world has backed us.
Our credit rating – the mark of trust in our economy – has been preserved.The International Monetary Fund, the G20, yes even the EU. They support what we're doing.There's just one group of people who don't. You guessed it, the people who mortgaged Britain to thehilt in the first place – Labour.Labour's plan is just to halve the deficit over four years. Let me tell you what that means.It means that even after years of cuts, not only would the national debt still be growing, it would begrowing as a share of our national income.The problem would still be getting worse.
And as a result, the cuts would be bigger, not smallerbecause the interest payments on that debt would be higher.That's why it's right to deal with this problem now, and right to deal with it properly.And I promise you that if we pull together to deal with these debts today, then just a few years downthe line the rewards will be felt by everyone in our country.More money in your pocket.
More investment in our businesses. Growing industries, better jobs,stronger prospects for our young people. And the thing you can't measure but you just know it whenyou see it, the sense that our country is moving forwards once again.The big society spirit means facing up to this generation's debts, not shirking responsibility. And here Iwant to say something to the people who got us into this mess. The ones who racked up more debt in13 years than previous governments did in three centuries.Yes you, Labour. You want us to spend more money on ourselves, today, to keep racking up the bills,today and leave it to our children – the ones who had nothing to do with all this – to pay our debtstomorrow?That is selfish and irresponsible.I tell you what: these Labour politicians, who nearly bankrupted our country, who left a legacy ofdebts and cuts, who are still in denial about the disaster they created.
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