Conservative Party annual conference 2009: William Hague speech

Conservative Party annual conference 2009: William Hague speech; And even at times when we seem well ahead, and polls say we are on our way, let us resolve that we will still waste no hour, neglect no voter, lose no argument, and leave nothing to chance, for we are facing a government that has left our pensions funds devastated, our national debt vastly inflated, our young people unemployed in record numbers, and our country devoid of hope and confidence for the future and when we have one chance on one day, one shot to remove it from power we must make sure we are not going to miss. Last week Gordon Brown read out a list of what he thought Labour had achieved. Imagine how I felt when I heard him proudly list among Labour’s achievements the Disability Discrimination Act, and watched the Labour conference slavishly applauding it, when as many at this conference will know the Disability Discrimination Act was passed under the premiership of John Major and was designed, written and taken through parliament by me. That tells you something about the Prime Minister and it tells you a lot about his list. If he wants lists I’ll give him a list. This is the real list of the last twelve wasted years: - £22,500 of debt for every child born in Britain - 111 tax rises from a government that promised no tax rises at all - The longest national tax code in the world - 100,000 million pounds drained from British pension funds - Gun crime up by 57% - Violent crime up 70% - The highest proportion of children living in workless households anywhere in Europe - The number of pensioners living in poverty up by 100,000 - The lowest level of social mobility in the developed world - The only G7 country with no growth this year - One in six young people neither earning nor learning - 5 million people on out-of –work benefits - Missing the target of halving child poverty - Ending up with child poverty rising in each of the last three years instead - Cancer sur...