For those who care, Will Straw has a “word cloud” which shows which words cropped up the most.
3.33 Well, that’s it folks. The prime minister has kissed his wife. The delegates are on their feet. They’ve been told that their “abiding duty” is to “stand, and fight, and win, and serve”. They’ve been shown the sunny uplands and been told to “never stop believing in the good sense of the British people”. Because the task is difficult “the triumph will be even greater”, he promises. It seems to have all gone down well in the hall.
3.29 Brown is already nabbing ideas from Obama. Curtis Mayfield’s ‘Move On Up’, which was used in Brown’s introductory video, was part of the Obama campaign. Great tune though. There is also a bit of Nixonian campaigning in the speech where you wouldn’t expect it. The pledge to “cure cancer in a generation”. Vintage Nixon, 1971.
3.24 (Jim) Labour will put a referendum on Proportional Representation in its election manifesto (to be held early in the next Parliament). This is interesting. My sources had told me there would be a cabinet-level meeting next week to discuss the issue. Alan Johnson had been among those calling for the referendum to take place on the same day as the election itself. Some of his colleagues thought this was bonkers. Clearly the home secretary has been over-ruled.
3.20 (Jim) Brown promises to combine the National Health Service with local care provision to make a new “National Care Service”. Our public policy editor Nick Timmins looks utterly baffled: “Does it actually mean anything,” he asks plaintively.
3.10 (Jim) I’m wondering about food analogies for the Brown delivery. If Mandelson was lemon sorbet yesterday, is Brown porridge? It’s all very worthy and fact-filled but I’m not feeling the feelgood factor.
3.16 (Jim again) Brown makes the pre-announced policy about a new right for cancer patients to have diagnostic tests carried out and completed within a week. Incidentally, do normal people ever use the phrase “general practioner”?
3.09 (Jim again) Gordon is promising to preserve our security while “never undermining our liberties”. It sounds like he is making a new policy pledge (”I can say to you today….”) as he says there will be no compulsory ID card for British citizens in the next Parliament. Cry freedom! Except that this policy is old. The home secretary in March (Jacqui Smith) said that the ID card would be voluntary.
3.05 It looks like he has sought inspiration from his father’s classic sermons to the kirk. He’s announced U-turn on 24-hour drinking. He said “markets need morals”. He wants “tough love” for “chaotic families”. Let’s see what he says about cleaning up politics.
3.03 So far this is shaping up to be a policy greatest hits speech. Very little about Gordon the man. The policy shopping-list is quite Clintonesque — a nod to every micro-group of voters. But you have to wonder whether he needs to open up more.
3.00 (Jim again) I thought the recent row over whether the UK needed to cut public spending had been resolved. But this seems to have passed Gordon by. “These are not cuts they would make because they have to,” he says of the Tories. “These are spending cuts they are making because they want to. It is not inevitable.”
2.58 We’re intrigued by the words on schools spending. “We will not cut support to our schools. We will not invest less, but more.” Now this could be a significant move to increase the education budget in real terms, which has big knock on effects for other departments. Or it could mean ring-fencing the schools budget.Or he could just be increasing spending in cash terms, while making real-terms savings. We’ll have to wait and see.
2.55 (Jim here) Brown claims that Britain is leading the charge on having a “green” economy. “We are already global leaders in wind power, green cars, clean coal and carbon capture”, he claims. The truth is somewhat different. Sorry to be difficult, but Britain is behind every other EU country on renewable energy - bar Malta, Cyprus and Belgium. Gordon has just promised to create “over a quarter of a million new green British jobs”. In previous months he has made similar pledges; for 100,000, 160,000 and 1m jobs. Which if any is true? Does the prime minister have the faintest clue?
2.54 Brown sings the virtues of a £1bn innovation fund. It’s not new.
2.53 “Any director of any banks who is negligent will be disqualified from holding any such post.” Seems stating the obvious. But how many bank directors have been disqualified?
2.51 (Jim here) I told you it was getting a tad Biblical. Gordon is now the Good Samaritan: “What the British people want to know is that their government will not pass by on the other side but will be on their side.”
2.48 Gordon is now lovebombing middle England. “Call them middle class values, call them traditional working class values, call them family values, call them all of these; these are the values of the mainstream majority; the anchor of Britain’s families, the best instincts of the British people, the soul of our party and the mission of our government.”
2.46 (Jim here) Gordon is moving into preacher territory with a string of parables. “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.” I myself have been having a few problems with my credit card - will the PM help me?
2.44 Tory government would bring back the cardboard shanty towns of the 1980s.
2.36 Oh how he loves big numbers. “A global deal that I can tell you will save 15m jobs!”
2.35 (Jim here). Brown praises his chancellor, Alistair Darling, saying “Alistair, you are doing an absolutely brilliant job.” Is this the same Darling that the PM tried to move out of the Treasury in June but was unable to because of his political weakness? Or another one.
2.34 This is a new Brown technique. He started with fighting talk — fight, fight, fight. Then he moves to a list of Labour’s achievements — but it’s deliberately long this time, rather than just poor speechwriting. The crowd love it. I can even hear whoops.
2.33 “My husband, my hero”. Groans in the press gallery.
2.32 This is so heavy with sugar it would rot your teeth. It moves seamlessly from herograms from Bono and Stiglitz to pics of kids in the playground. Labour aren’t pulling their punches.
2.31 The second propaganda video rolls. Younger people this time. And Curtis Mayfield, Move on Up…
2.30. “I know he loves our country”.
2.30 Sarah Brown is up. It’s her second turn at the Labour conference. The hot topic is already her dress.
2.28: Welcome to our live blog on the Gordon Brown speech. The queues for sandwiches have wound down and the faithfaul have taken their pews. Brown should be appearing soon. The propaganda video is rolling. Lots of shots of Sptifires and 1940s doctors. Oh, and Gordon smiling. This should be fun.