So that's the reality in Britain today. It is a rebate for the top. It's rip-off for everybody else. It's a recovery for the top. It's a recession for everybody else. This Prime Minister said: ‘We are all in it together.' Don't let him ever tell us again we are all in this together.
And friends I say this. You can't be a One Nation Prime Minister if you raise taxes on ordinary families and cut taxes for millionaires. You can't be a One Nation Prime Minister if all you do is seek to divide the country. Divide the country between north and south. Public and private. Those who can work and those who can't work. And you can't be a One Nation Prime Minister if your Chief Whip insults the great police officers of our country by calling them plebs.
But there is one thing that this Government might have claimed to be good at, and that is competence. Because after all, they think they're born to rule. So maybe they'd be good at it. Have you ever seen a more incompetent, hopeless, out of touch, u-turning, pledge-breaking, make it up as you go along, back of the envelope, miserable shower than this Prime Minister and this Government?
There's more there's more, not quite Disraeli but there is more. What have we had. We've had the caravan tax, we've had the churches tax, we've had the pasty tax, we've had the granny tax, we've had panic at the pumps, we've had dinners for donors, we've had country supers with Rebekah Brooks. He even rode the horse. He sent the texts, he sent the texts. Remember LOL.
And now what do we have. We have the Minister for Murdoch becoming the Minister for the National Health Service. We have an International Development Secretary; she says she doesn't believe in international development. And get this, we've got a Party Chairman who writes books about how to beat the recession, under a false name. Really, I'm not making this up; I'm really not making this up. I mean I have to say if I was Chairman of the Conservative Party, I'd have a false name too.
But here is my favourite one of all. There's one more, here's my favourite one of all. There is even a bloke, and I think they call him Lord Hill who went to see the Prime Minister. He made an appointment during the last reshuffle in order to resign. But David Cameron was too incompetent to notice that he wanted to resign. So Lord Hill is still in the Government. This lot are so useless they can't even resign properly.
So they're not going to build One Nation, so it is up to us.
And let me say to you, One Nation is not a way of avoiding the difficult decisions, it is a way of making the difficult decisions. And I've just got to be very clear about this and about what we face as the next Labour government. You see I think it is incredibly important that to be One Nation we must show compassion and support for all those who cannot work. Particularly the disabled men and women of our country. But in order to do so, those who can work have a responsibility to do so. We can't leave people languishing out of work, for one year, two years, three years. We've got a responsibility to help them and they've got a responsibility to take the work that is on offer.
To be One Nation, we have got to give much greater dignity to our elderly population because you know, we're going to have to tackle the care crisis that faces so many families up and down this country. And look, living longer should be one of the great virtues of the 21st century. But friends, in order to be able to afford to do that, we are going to have to work longer; have a later retirement age than we do now.
To be One Nation, we have got to live within our means. And because borrowing is getting worse not better, it means there will be many cuts that this Government made that we won't be able to reverse even though we would like to. And that's why we've said in this Parliament that we'd put jobs before pay in the public sector. And in the next Parliament we will have tough settlements for the public services and that will make life harder for those who use them and harder for those who work in them.
