Following is a speech from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown delivered to the Labour Party Conference.
And so today, in the midst of events that are transforming our world, we meet united and determined to fight for the future.
Our country confronts the biggest choice for a generation. It's a choice between two parties, yes. But more importantly a choice between two directions for our country.
In the last eighteen months we have had to confront the biggest economic choices the world has faced since the 1930s.
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It was only a year ago that the world was looking over a precipice and Britain was in danger. I knew that unless I acted decisively and immediately, the recession could descend into a great depression with millions of people's jobs and homes and savings at risk.
And times of great challenge mean choices of great consequence, so let me share with you a little about the choices we are making.
The first choice was this: whether markets left to themselves could sort out the crisis; or whether governments had to act. Our choice was clear; we nationalised Northern Rock and took shares in British banks, and as a result not one British saver has lost a single penny. That was the change we chose. The change that benefits the hard working majority, not the privileged few.
And we faced a second big choice - between letting the recession run its course, or stimulating the economy back to growth. And we made our choice; help for small businesses, targeted tax cuts for millions and advancing our investment in roads, rail and education. That was the change we chose - change that benefits the hard working majority and not just a privileged few.
And then we had a third choice, between accepting unemployment as a price worth paying, or saving jobs. And we in Britain made our choice, it's meant half a million jobs saved. And so Conference even in today's recession there are 29 million people in work. 2 million more men and women providing for their families than in 1997.
And then we faced the mortgage choice -to do nothing as repossessions rose or save the family homes people have worked so hard to buy. 200,000 homeowners given direct government support to stay in their home. That was the change we chose - change that benefits the mainstream majority and not just a few.
And then we faced another choice; between going our own way, or acting with other countries. And everybody knows the choice we made - we picked internationalism over isolationism, leading the G20 to a global deal that will save 15 million jobs.
Every government across Europe made the choice to act. Every government across the G20 chose to act. Almost every major political party across the world chose to act.
Only one party thought it was best to do nothing.
Only one party with pretensions to government made the wrong choice; the Conservative Party of Britain.
They made the wrong choice on Northern Rock.The wrong choice on jobs and spending.The wrong choice on mortgage support.The wrong choice on working with Europe.
The only thing about their policy that is consistent is that they are consistently wrong.
The opposition might think the test of a party is the quality of its marketing but I say the test for a government is the quality of its judgement.
The Conservative Party were faced with the economic call of the century and they called it wrong.
And I say a party that makes the wrong choices on the most critical decisions it would have faced in government should not be given the chance to be in government.
And what of the big choices that this country has to make now - to help young people into work or to see, like the 80s, a wasted generation. And I'll tell you the choice we're making. To reject every piece of Conservative advice and instead we will ensure school leavers training, guarantee the young unemployed work experience, expand university places and to increase, not cut the apprenticeships we need. I'm sorry to say that by opposing these measures conservative policy would callously and coldly return us to the lost generation and cardboard cities of the 1980s - we say never again. That's the change we choose, the change that benefits the many, not the few.
Every day we are facing the business choice - to support our companies from car manufacturers to the self-employed or simply let great British businesses go to the wall. And we are making our choice. Labour believes in the businesses and enterprise of Britain. More than 200,000 agreements signed to give direct support to small businesses.
That was the change we chose; change that benefits the enterprising backbone of Britain. In opening up planning in improving transport, in opting for nuclear energy it is Labour that is the party of British business and British enterprise and the Conservative Party's whose policy has been to walk away.
And the Conservatives were wrong on all these choices, because they were wrong about something more fundamental still.
Because what let the world down last autumn was not just bankrupt institutions but a bankrupt ideology. What failed was the Conservative idea that markets always self-correct but never self-destruct. What failed was the right wing fundamentalism that says you just leave everything to the market and says that free markets should not just be free but values free.
One day last October the executive of a major bank told us that his bank needed only overnight finance but no long term support from the government.
The next day I found that this bank was going under with debts that were among the biggest of any bank, anywhere, at any time in history. Bankers had lost sight of basic British values, acting responsibly and acting fairly. The values that we, the hard working majority, live by every day.
Like the small businessman who came to see me when his credit dried up at the bank. He was crying with the shame of missing some payments, but so responsible was he, that he was determined that every penny he owed would be paid. Or like the woman who wrote to me and said that when we announced our decision to rescue Icesave and her family's savings it was the first night's sleep she'd had since the crisis started.
When markets falter and banks fail it's the jobs and the homes and the security of the squeezed middle that are hit the hardest. It's the hard pressed, hard working majority - the person with a trade, the small business owner, the self-employed. It's the class room assistant, the worker in the shop, the builder on the site.
It's the millions of people who do their best and do their bit and in return simply want their families to get on not just get by.
It's the Britain that works best not by reckless risk-taking but by effort, by merit and by hard work.
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