ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

Adam Boulton: "One does begin to wonder if Gordon Brown is cut out for the top job. He does not have a great deal of natural charisma and at times seems a little, well, plodding."

I can't disagree with Mr Boulton but I'm surprised to read Sky's Political Editor writing it openly.

Mr Brown certainly lost friends in Sky, ITN and the bulk of BBC Westminster when he gave Mr Marr the non-election exclusive.

The week it all went wrong for Gordon Brown

A public row with David Miliband...

Alistair Darling is roasted for the Government's mishandling of Northern Rock...

Darling is back in the Commons to tell the nation that the personal data of 25 million people has been lost...

All of the newspapers turn on Labour for incompetence...

Another Ratner moment for Mr Brown at PMQs as he tries to play politics with 'datagate'...

Government borrowing has reached its annual limit only seven months into the financial year...

Former Defence chiefs mount coordinated attack on Labour underfunding of the armed forces...

New leak of the foot-and-mouth virus has been reported...

MoD's rushed sale of research arm has cost taxpayer tens of millions says National Audit Office...

The number trusting Labour to deal with economic problems collapses from 61% to 28% in two months...

It couldn't have happened to a more deserving man.  I'm sure Tony Blair agrees.  It probably won't be long before there's lots of speculation about Brown's future.

PS Just to rub salt in the wounds, Sky publishes this photo of Mr Brown...

Scary.

Mr Brown can't play within a team, can't pick a team and can't manage a team

One good way of judging any leader is the quality of their appointments.  All of Brown's big appointments are looking suspect.

Most of his 'big tent picks' are backfiring:

• Alan West disagrees with the Government's detention-without-trial plans (before u-turning).
• Lord (Digby) Jones won't take the Labour whip and has failed to vote in 22 of 23 divisions since he was enobled.
• The Spectator reveals that Mr Brown is himself regretting appointing Lord Malloch-Brown to the Foreign Office.

More significant are the failings of Mr Brown's most senior appointments...

• Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has had a terrible fortnight.  David Davis humiliated her in the Commons last week and this week her stock fell further after her attempts to cover-up the extent to which illegal immigrants had been cleared for security jobs were revealed.  In today's Daily Mail Amanda Platell concludes that Ms Smith has no real intellect, courage or integrity.  Brown is desperate to keep The Mail onside and will worry at Ms Platell's judgment.  She is seen as a growing influence on Editor Paul Dacre's thinking.
• Chancellor Alistair Darling has introduced changes to Capital Gains Tax that have upset entrepreneurs in every corner of Britain.  He has even upset leading Brown donor, Sir Ronald Cohen.  Sir Ronald has called for a change of policy.  A deeper problem for Mr Darling is Northern Rock.  Vince Cable asked the right questions at PMQs on Wednesday.  The scale of taxpayer lending to this troubled bank is worryingly high.
• Foreign Secretary David Miliband had to suffer scorn from his own benches during his poor performance in Monday's foreign affairs speech.  In the last twenty four hours he has had to suffer the humilation of Downing Street briefing against him (Martin Kettle writes about it here).  Milibandites are, in turn, suspected of briefing against Malloch Brown to The Spectator.

Mr Brown can neither pick a good team nor manage one.  Peter Oborne writes about Mr Brown's reluctance to seriously back ministers in trouble (Jacqui Smith this week), his eagerness to steal their most high profile work (his decision to give Wednesday's terror plans statement) and his pampering of favoured colleagues (Ed Balls).  Oborne's conclusion:

"[Gordon Brown] was always extremely divisive in Cabinet. He concentrated only on his own successes, and always gave the impression that he did not take pleasure in the achievements of others, even when they benefited the Government.  This narrow and ruthlessly selfish attitude can carry a man or woman right to the top in politics.  But once the summit has been reached, such characteristics undermine those qualities needed for successful leadership.  I very much hope this is not the case with Gordon Brown, but there are some worrying signs. One thing is, however, quite certain.  If he is to restore his increasingly fragile and battered premiership, then he must attend as a matter of extreme urgency to his deeply flawed methods of man management."

Paint Brown as The Great Waster

So, who is Gordon Brown?

The weak Clucking Fist of Chicken Saturday?

The 'Stalinist' control freak who surrounds himself with yes men?

The scheming sulker who plotted constantly against Tony Blair?

The political calculator who nicks Tory ideas and does everything for political advantage?

The untrustworthy guy who broke his promise on the EU Constitution?

The Scot who is denying the English a fair share of the UK's taxes?

The party leader who gets his bills paid by the unions?

Yesterday's man who cannot escape the shadow of Tony Blair and who does not understand today's challenges?

He's probably all of these things but I would suggest that - more than anything else - he's an incompetent waster.

This is the man (building on what I wrote yesterday) who sold gold at the wrong price... crafted the tax credit system that is so riddled with fraud and complexity... is responsible for the £14bn cost over-runs for the NHS supercomputer... has overseen the weakest-growing economy in the English-speaking world and the slippage of Britain down the global competitiveness league table... had to admit that his Government's statistics on immigrant workers were out by 300,000... so underfunded the prison service that hundreds of foreign prisoners were released wrongly...

You get the idea.  If we get a 'Brown Is The Great Waster' campaign right - and it needs to be a campaign with creative YouTube videos and a bank of facts constantly fed to journalists - it won't matter if he continues to steal our best ideas.  Noone will believe that he is capable of doing anything half-properly.

The US Democrats recently ran this Halloween video which asked American voters to say which Republican scared them the most.  CCHQ could run a competition as to which Brown failure appals them most...

Related link: This Government couldn't organise a booze-up in a brewery

Idea 5: Promising nationally, acting locally now

Gove on Brown

Just back from Michael Gove's speech to the Bow Group.  It was terrific stuff.  Read the full text here.

Mr Gove paints Mr Brown as someone afraid of the future, untrusting of all but a small clique of protégés, unable to reform himself or the centralised state that he has created.  He is living in the shadow of Blair, he argues:

"Whether it's been Neville Chamberlain after Baldwin, Eden after Churchill or Bush senior after Reagan, the successor model has never quite recaptured the excitement of the first. They have been Roger Moores cast to replace the original Sean Connery - with the best will in the world the same quality isn't there."

In a clever passage he ridicules the Prime Minister's promise of "personalised" public services:

"Like those letters from direct mail companies that begin with our Christian name but have the same centrally-generated content, or cold calls from marketing companies which affect intimacy but operate to a tightly-ordered script, the Government's "personalised" public services offer just the level of distinctiveness the centralised bureaucracy consider necessary to make us feel looked after. But without that proper responsiveness to our needs which puts us in control."

Michael Gove's most compelling insight into Brown is, however, to understand him as a calculating, obsessive politician (the same message that William Hague delivered at the Party Conference).  Gove said:

"The Prime Minister and his closest colleagues spent the summer not preparing for the next century but positioning themselves for an electoral contest.  That's why we had the opportunism of a trip to Iraq where our soldiers were used to dress the set for a pre-election announcement on troop numbers, the co-option of slogans such as British jobs for British workers which a man as intelligent as the Prime Minister must wince every time he deploys and Jack Straw's shameless embrace of proposals to give individuals the right to self-defence which he spent all his time rubbishing when he was Home Secretary. These were tactical feints, designed to throw the media, and the Conservatives, off-balance rather than win converts for a newly-refurbished politics of the left.  And that's because there is no newly-refurbished politics of the Left, simply an itch to centralise and a faith in bureaucratic control which speaks of nothing so much as an attachment to power itself."

Before Gordon Brown became Prime Minister Fraser Nelson told me that the best way to understand Gordon Brown was as an obsessive politico - he thinks of his political advantage from the moment that he wakes until the moment he goes to sleep.  He schemes and calculates all day long.  If you don't believe Michael or Fraser, just ask Tony.

PS I'm quite proud of my photograph of Michael Gove!  Early next week CH will have uploaded the best photographs we've taken of Tory politicians over the last two years for public use.

Will voters ever trust Brown again?

As expected, last night in Portugal, Gordon Brown has approved the EU Constitution (for that is effectively what it is).  He won't give the people the referendum that the Labour manifesto promised to them but will force his own parliamentary party to back it in the Commons - early next year.  The Lords may now be our best hope of stopping Mr Brown.

This morning's Sun warns the Prime Minister that he "will live to regret breaking his promise" and that it will fight on this issue "right up to and into the next general election".

The Mail reports that "the Prime Minister went ahead with the most fundamental transfer of power to the EU for at least 15 years - still insisting British voters wouldn't have a say on the matter."

William Hague issued this statement in anticipation of Brown's giveaway of British powers:

"Gordon Brown is still treating the British people like fools. His spin has reached new depths of cynicism. He still claims that because the name 'Constitution' has been dropped this Treaty is somehow different, even though the European Scrutiny Committee has specifically told him his argument is 'misleading'. He claims that this Treaty is about making a free-trading Europe work better, when he knows that it downgrades the importance of free competition.

Every poll shows that the vast majority of the British people want the referendum he promised and do not believe his arguments. No wonder. His spurious red lines do not cover most of the renamed EU Constitution and can easily be got round. Now that all his arguments against a referendum have crumbled he is desperately trying to change the subject.  Gordon Brown bottled out of a general election. Now he won't listen to voters on Europe either. Why should they trust him when he so clearly does not trust them?"

Just speaking on Radio 4 William Hague focused on the trust issue.  This is a Government, he said, that attempts to mislead the British people.  It hasn't delivered on its referendum promise.  Gordon Brown claimed that opinion polls didn't determine his decision to abandon election plans.  He said that he was considering cutting inheritance tax before George Osborne's IHT cuts transformed the political scene.  This Treaty, the Shadow Foreign Secretary continued, is about sixty British vetoes being abolished and a permanent EU Presidency.  Mr Hague declined to say whether the Tories would reverse approval of the Treaty if it is approved.

Related links: Louise Bagshawe on the electoral implications of Gordon Brown's broken promise and the Tory poster campaign on Brown's surrender.

11am update:

Smiler

Gordon Brown isn't known for his smile but towards the end of Mr Darling's statement - when the IHT changes were being announced - our PM couldn't stop grinning.  Watch the news bulletins tonight.  He appeared to be taking enormous, childish pleasure in the theft of Tory ideas.

Not just Macavity, not just a scaredy cat but a copy cat, too

This afternoon Alistair Darling has stolen more Tory ideas - on the taxation of flights rather than passengers and on cutting inheritance tax.  The graphic above summarises just a few of the policy ideas that Labour has stolen from the Conservatives since Mr Brown walked into Number Ten.

If Labour actually took our policies and implemented them properly we would be wrong to complain too much.  It might be politically annoying for us but at least the country would benefit.

Unfortunately Labour steal our ideas but don't implement them properly.  Just like cheats at school - they copy from another kid's exercise book but they do so without understanding or insight.  They miss important details.  The uniformed border police force is a key case in point.  Labour's imitation of David Davis' idea gave existing staff new uniforms but didn't deliver the integration of border policing that was at the heart of the Conservative idea.

Labour's copy catting therefore brings good ideas into disrepute.  Voters can be forgiven for thinking that our ideas have already been implemented and therefore discount the importance of the things we are still proposing.  The end result - as we've seen throughout the Brown-Blair years - is more cynicism towards everything said by politicians.

6.45pm: Ben Brogan is calling him Burglar Brown.

Brown's old politics versus Cameron's next generation politics

Gordon Brown's old politics has been on show in the last 24 hours.  He promised to tell Parliament about troop withdrawals but made his announcement in Iraq.  He implied 1,000 more troops would be home by Christmas when only 250 extra troops would be returning from Iraq.  He failed to take print journalists with him to his Basra photo opportunity - unwilling to expose himself to their scrutiny.

In his speech today - drawing on the themes of this video - David Cameron will attempt to contrast Brown's old politics with his own programme of long-term change.  This extract from David Cameron's speech has been released to the media by way of preview:

"This is a new Conservative Party with new priorities. There's been a lot of talk about lurching, so let me make it clear - no lurch to the right, no lurch to the left.  There's only one direction for me and that's forward to the future. A clear balanced programme of change for the long term, optimism about what Britain can be, hope for the next generation.  That means understanding that we live in a new world and that the old politics isn't working."

I've written about my own hopes for the big speech in today's Guardian.  I'll judge the speech by its ability to (1) rally the grassroots; (2) demonstrate that David Cameron hasn't abandoned his change programme but that recent events have been a rebalancing not a rightwards lurch; and (3) present David Cameron as the candidate of hope and progress.

Attack Gordon Brown's record - not his personality

Earlier today George Osborne joked (in remarks that did not appear in the text issued to the press) that anyone would be as cynical about human nature as Gordon Brown if they had spent so long working with Ed Balls.  He then went to make a joke about Alistair Darling's charisma.  Later today, I understand, Chris Grayling - whose energy I admire - will call Gordon Brown a "liar".  It's not the biggest deal in the world but I'm not convinced that this sort of name-calling does us any favours - particularly when the personal jibes aren't particularly funny.  This is not to say that Labour doesn't deserve a kicking.  It does.  But Labour deserves a kicking for its record - not because one or two Cabinet ministers lack charisma or have other personality failures.

Alan Duncan got it right this morning in his speech to Conference.  Here are two key sections:

"Brown is the man who has doubled your council tax and destroyed your pension.  He is the man who has presided over a collapse in saving and an astronomical explosion in personal debt.  He is the man whose budgets - don't ever forget - were an exercise in trickery and deceit. He is the man who will tax anything that moves and everything that doesn't. He is the man who has turned the Revenue & Customs into a force for nasty aggression. He is the man in whose country 5.3m adults of working age do not have a job. And he is also the man whose personal decision has cost us billions because against all the best advice, he sold our gold reserves for tuppence, and has missed out on what are now the highest gold prices for 27 years. Gordon Brown has fiddled with the pension rules, taxed house sales, set up useless investment funds, complicated the tax codes, hidden PFI debt, concocted the bankruptcy of Railtrack, and demanded tax credit refunds from some of our poorest people in the country. He is the man who has squandered a decade of growth and has set aside nothing for a rainy day."

"But it's worse.  Over the last few weeks we have seen a shameless attempt on his part to pull every trick in the book to woo the voters of Britain.  We are living in the world predicted by George Orwell. Gordon Brown was elected in 1983.  I feel it all started in 1984.  The central control of that novel, and the spooky allegory of life on Animal Farm, is being lived out for real, here, in Britain, today.  We are witnessing government by propaganda of the most chillingly deceitful sort.  Nothing is genuine; everything is calculated.  Be it the blue tie, or the visit of Margaret Thatcher to No 10, everything is a cynical contrivance.  For me politics is about what you believe in.  For Gordon Brown it is what you can get away with.  Gordon Brown is an utterly shameless peddler of propaganda.  When things go wrong he just disappears. When world financial markets turn, he tries to commit the Governor of the Bank of England to the knackers' yard like Boxer the horse.  It brings a new meaning to 'Not me Guv'. And even now, if you know your Animal Farm, there is an unsuspecting Snowdrop the pig sitting somewhere around his cabinet table.  He crafts announcements for their headline but never for real action.  He hides problems; he doesn't solve them. We are being deluded by a wicked approach to government which believes that effective propaganda is more important than effective policy."

Hague: You're no Margaret Thatcher, Mr Brown

William Hague has just wowed the Conference.

Here is my favourite section of a speech that delighted the Tory faithful:

"Some of us stood here thirty years ago with Margaret Thatcher. We, Gordon, backed her when she rescued our country in the face of every denunciation and insult from the likes of you. Margaret Thatcher would never have devastated the pension funds of this nation, nor kicked its small businesses in the teeth. So you may fawn now at the feet of our greatest Prime Minister, but you are no Margaret Thatcher.  Gordon Brown is not a conviction politician. He is a calculation politician. He calculates that people will forget who caused the current crises in our health service, our prisons and our pensions.  He calculates that he can pretend to be a new government. But he is the old government, and after ten years of failure and disappointment, he cannot be the change the country needs.  So, now, Conservatives, this is our opportunity, to show this week the real change that Britain needs. We live in a new world, and the old politics of Gordon Brown are no longer enough."

Caroline Spelman has told the Sunday Express that a good proportion of the party's £10m election warchest will be used to expose Gordon Brown.  The idea of painting Gordon Brown as a 'calculation politician' is a good one.  I think it could resonate.

William Hague's speech will have only increased his credibility as a 'comeback Tory leader'.  A poll in today's Mail on Sunday found that 19% of the public favoured William Hague to succeed David Cameron.  Boris Johnson with 10% was next.  David Davis and Ken Clarke were both on 7%.  Liam Fox enjoyed the support of 4% of the public.  George Osborne was on 1%.  Mr Hague, although 3/1 favourite, told Sky News that he never wanted to be Tory leader again.

New Tory assertiveness and local by-election results may sow new seeds of doubt in Brown's mind

Last night's by-election results may produce further ammunition to those Labour 'greybeards' who are urging Gordon Brown to be cautious about an autumn General Election.  We listed other risk factors on Monday.

On the basis of yesterday's results the Conservatives would have a 6.2% lead over Labour -  a very different picture to the national opinion polls which actually suggest a  5.8% Labour lead (according to ConservativeHome's Poll of Polls).

The Conservatives won a seat from Labour on Sunderland council with a 3.7% swing.  In a Kent County Council by-election there was a 5.5% swing to the Conservatives although Labour held a seat on Dover District Council.

Perhaps the most encouraging result came in Cheshire.  A 6.5% swing from Labour to the Conservatives ensured that Eleanor Johnson was elected and that the County remains in Tory control.  The Gowy seat includes three important polling districts in the target Tory seat of Chester; Christleton, Littleton and Guilden Sutton.

More encouraging for me is the main story on the front page of The Telegraph: David Cameron orders shift to core Tory values.

An interview with George Osborne indicates that the party will ditch large parts of the Gummer-Goldsmith report.  There'll be no charges for supermarket parking.  No taxes on a second short annual flight.  There may even be a promise to reform inheritance tax.

I'm also expecting stronger statements on immigration.  Shadow Immigration Damian Green was on the Today programme this morning and the front page of The Mail shouts: Two million more migrants in just a decade.  Mr Green is quoted in that story saying: "This rips apart the Government's previous complacent assumptions about net immigration."  I hope we'll also see Tory reluctance to talk about immigration ripped up in Blackpool, too.

A ConservativeHome poll of Tory members - due to be published tomorrow - will spell out what the grassroots would like the leadership to do next.

11am: Caroline Spelman comments: "“This set of results is very encouraging and shows that throughout the country more and more people are turning away from Labour and towards the Conservatives. Labour should be very worried that in a week when Gordon Brown has dominated the news, the Conservatives have made a crucial gain from Labour in the North and achieved a swing in three marginal seats which would mean three strong Conservative gains in a general election. After a week in which Labour hasn’t been out of the news there have been swings to the Conservatives from North to South. People want change and they want to fix our broken society. After ten years of Labour it is clear that Gordon Brown cannot be the change the country needs.”

Cocky Kinnock learns nothing from that Sheffield rally

The Independent reports that the elder statesman of the Labour Party, Neil Kinnock, hopes that Gordon Brown's campaign against the Conservatives will "grind the bastards into dust."  For all of Brown's public talk of a new politics, that's what he wants to do, too.

2.30pm: A video of that Sheffield rally (with thanks to Mike Wood in the comments)...

The Mail and Telegraph fail their readers (it's Cameron's job to change that)

The Sun is at its best this morning.  Not only does its front page attack Brown for his dismissive 12 second mention of the EU Treaty (and its own high voltage campaign for the referendum we were promised) but its Sun Says column exposes the hypocrisy of yesterday's speech:

"In Bournemouth, he promised to abolish child poverty. Yet under Labour the gap between rich and poor has grown.

Mr Brown warned foreign drug dealers and gun-wielding thugs will be kicked out of Britain. But where to? Not to the EU or anywhere they might be in danger. The EU would probably send them back.

He vowed to give power to matrons to rid wards of hospital superbugs.  But this is the third time of promising. Meanwhile, thousands have needlessly died because staff won’t wash their hands.

We are to have the most modern health care and access to doctors and hospitals of our choice.  Yet after doubling NHS spending, Britain still has the worst survival rates for cancer and strokes in Europe.

“Suffer the little children to come unto me,” said Mr Brown in one of his frequent biblical quotations.  Yet Britain is close to the bottom of the western world league table as a place for children to grow up."

In stark contrast, The Mail and Telegraph choose almost identical headlines... "Brown targets Tory heartlands" splashes The Telegraph and The Mail's front page headline is: "Brown woos the Tory heartlands".  Both highlight the fact that Brown used the words British and Britishness 71 times (The Telegraph's count) and 81 times (The Mail's count) as if this excuses a speech that will amount to a relentless  expansion of state welfare.  It's true that both newspapers publish leading articles that are critical of Brown's 63 minute performance but the news coverage is much more important.  Why didn't The Telegraph choose "Brown's promises will raise taxes" as its headline?  Why didn't The Mail attack Brown for his not-too-coded attack on David Cameron's support for two parent families?

Ten years ago - at the start of the Brown-Blair years - newspapers could have been forgiven for taking Brown's promises at face value but it's unforgivable now.  Every Brown Budget contained sleights of hand.  Labour's failures on crime, immigration, Europe, inner city renewal and the environment could all have been heavily featured but that blue background seemed more interesting to these two once clear-headed newspapers.

A large part of their reluctance to attack Gordon Brown is probably rooted in their lack of enthusiasm for David Cameron.  That is the Conservative leader's main task in Blackpool next week.  He has to enthuse the Conservative media and the Conservative base.  He needs to show that there is a real alternative to Gordon Brown's stealthy undoing of Thatcherism.  Until the next election becomes a real choice I don't think enough people will be more than half-hearted in their resistance to Gordon Brown.

2.15pm: Fraser Nelson blogs that Gordon Brown "spent ages at the Telegraph party".

Blog reactions to Brown's speech

Fraser Nelson: "The rather muted ovation reminded us that the audience had grown used to Blair style oratory, which they won't hear for a while now. Anyway, I can now understand why cabinet members were told to keep their speeches unsparky, and limited to seven minutes. It would be very, very easy to outshine that."  But that's the point, Fraser, he doesn't want to excite.  He wants us to think he's the substantial but slightly dull guy that will put things right following that PR-obsessed Blair.

Ben Brogan: "Mr Brown wrapped himself in the values of small-c conservative Middle Britain, with references to discipline, respect, responsibility, citizenship, patriotism and hard work. It was a direct appeal to almost old-fashioned virtues, those he believes are shared by Tories out there who are not convinced that Mr Cameron is their cup of tea."  I hope the Mail isn't going to write the speech up like that.  The Blair-Brown years haven't encouraged these things in any consistent ways.  If the Mail won't say that, who will?

Nick Robinson: "Not since the era of his new friend Margaret Thatcher have the words 'Britain' or 'Britishness' been used so often - 71 times, as it happens. Not since her day have there been so many references to conviction, to discipline and to responsibility. He even went so far as to promise to deliver her hugely controversial dream - that people in the NHS should be able to see the doctor they want, at the hospital they want."  Yes, Nick, but he's undoing Thatcherism with his stealthy redistribution and increases in state dependency - increases in state dependency that are happening during relatively good economic times!

Guido: "David Miliband said on the weekend that he wants another ten years of New Labour rule. Looking through today's speech from Gordon about his aspirations for Britain, it struck Guido that it is all more of the same. After ten years all the goals of 1997 are still the goals of 2007.  Child poverty, social mobility, youth unemployment, basic literacy and crime are still unsolved problems. In some of these areas things have gone back, not forward - youth unemployment is worse, violent gun crime is higher. How can Gordon be the change?"  Agree 100%.

The Times' Sam Coates has produced the best analysis of this 'please all the people' speech.  I shan't try to summarise it.  Read it here.

And the wittiest observation from Danny Finkelstein: "The Prime Minister has just pledged that unless contract cleaners in hospitals meet the highest standards of cleanliness they will lose their contract.  What's the procedure at the moment, then?"

Brown's project is hugely ambitious. He is reversing Thatcherism. He is building a state-dependent Britain.

Everyone got a bit excited on the last thread.  Can we make this thread more focused on the substance of Brown's big state vision for Britain?

Here's my assessment of Brown's speech.

The good points for Labour: Brown looked like a man in control - of his party, of the national agenda.  By not referring to the opposition he looked like he was above party politics.  We know that he's intensely political but that's not necessarily the impression that most voters will get from tonight's news bulletins.  The blue background was in many ways trivial but its intention was to confuse voters - particularly conservative voters.  He's a formidable political opponent.  Much more formidable than many of us thought.

It was a speech from a big government politician: From grants for students to more childcare to more social housing to the elimination of third world diseases - this is a man who has faith in the power of government.  Every Conservative thinking of voting Labour should remember that and remember the words of Tony Woodley, joint General Secretary of the Unite union.  In response to the speech, Mr Woodley told PA: "It is the most Labour speech we have heard for a decade."

If Gordon Brown is re-elected we will see Britain continue to change in all of the ways evident from the last decade...

• There will be more taxes and more spending and more waste.
• More and more people will be dependent upon the state for earnings, benefits and childcare.
• More powers will cross the English Channel to the EU.
• Nothing will be done to address the Constitutional imbalances produced by devolution to Edinburgh and Cardiff.

Many Conservatives are less than keen on Project Cameron.  What we have to remember, however, is that David Cameron is the only man who can stop Brown from winning and gradually undoing the work of Margaret Thatcher.  It's always better to be in government than out of office - unable to influence the course of our country.  We all need to remember that in these important few weeks.  Five more years of Labour - with Brown in charge and none of Blair's reformism - will create a population that will be so state-dependent that a real Conservative Party will find it very difficult to win a majority again. It's all happening by stealth - there are no big announcements - but it's happening.

Live blog of Brown's speech

SPEECH ENDS - JUST OVER AN HOUR IN LENGTH.  NO MENTION OF DAVID CAMERON OR THE LIBDEMS.  I AGREE WITH WHAT JOHN PRESCOTT HAS JUST SAID ON BBC1: WHAT HE ANNOUNCED WILL BE "VERY COSTLY".  THANKS MR P FOR INADVERTENTLY TELLING THE TRUTH.  A SOLID SPEECH BUT NOT GREAT.  A REMINDER TO EVERY CONSERVATIVE THAT BROWN IS A BIG GOVERNMENT POLITICIAN.

Final message: I'll stand up for you.

3.23pm: The NHS saved me.  It saved my eyesight.  That's why the NHS matters to me.  My life has taught me that things don't come easy.  There are things worth fighting for.

3.22pm: £15bn investment in medical research.

3.21pm: A personal check up for every adult on the NHS.  SOME OF US WOULD SETTLE FOR A DENTIST.

3.19pm: Hospitals will be deepcleaned.  The number of Matrons will be doubled.  Matrons will be able to report cleaning contractors that fail.

3.16pm: The NHS best illustrates our commitment to each other.  The great ambition is to make the NHS as personal as it is universal.

3.14pm: Three objectives in Iraq and Afghanistan: Security. Political Reconciliation. Economic development.

3.13pm: Tribute to Neil Kinnock.

3.12pm: Tribute to Tony Blair - particularly on Northern Ireland.  WARM APPLAUSE AND A FEW WHISTLES.

3.10pm: Tribute to EU and UN.  Human rights are universal and no injustice can last forever - whether in Burma or Zimbabwe.  We will not fail the people of Darfur.

3.09pm: Britain is first nation in the world to have binding carbon emmissions.

3.06pm: Border police.  ID cards for foreign nationals.  Australian points system introduced.  Everyone will be counted in and out.  GREAT BRIAN HANRAHAN RHETORIC BUT YOUR GOVERNMENT ABOLISHED EMBARKATION CONTROLS, MR BROWN! Any immigrant caught selling drugs will be thrown out of Britain.

3.04pm: Dormant money in unclaimed bank accounts - £670m - will be used to build new youth centres.

3.03pm: Shops that sell alcohol to underaged young people will lose their licences.

Nick Robinson told that there will not be 25th October election

Click here for more.

Gordon Brown will certainly be a diminished figure if he doesn't go to the country now.

He'll look weak and indecisive after all this speculation.

He'll also look very political.  He could have easily killed the speculation and focused the nation's minds on his exciting ideas for changing the country (like, um, Citizen's Juries).

1.30pm: The reason for it (probably) not being 25/10 - according to The Spectator's James Forsyth - is that Gordon Brown does not want to look like he's undermining the Tory Conference and it's half-term week.  The trouble with the following week is that the clocks will have changed.  I still think an election is likely but Nick Robinson's story has made me doubt a little bit...

1.45pm: Stephan Shakespeare suggests to me that another reason for 1st November is that people will have just been paid.

Brown refuses to rule out calling an election this week

Interviewed on Sunday AM, Gordon Brown repeatedly refused to rule out an October poll.  He even refused to rule out calling an election this week.

Non-verbatim highlights:

• He wouldn't rule out autumn election [Given the speculation he has permitted Brown really risks becoming diminished, political and 'chicken' if he doesn't now go to the country.]
• He said that he wouldn't discuss election-timing - he was focusing on governing - including the crises he has faced on terrorism, Foot and Mouth, flooding and Northern Rock.
• The choice at the next election would be between a Labour Government committed to stability and growth and a Tory party locked into the economics of 1992 - when David Cameron stood alongside Norman Lamont on Black Wednesday.
• He wanted to create an NHS that was "personal" to all patients.
• He evaded questions on when he first knew about Northern Rock.
• Mervyn King - like Eddie George - is a brilliant Governor.  The system created in 1997 has delivered stability and an end to stop-and-go.
• What the Tories call the debt problem is actually a huge increase in the number of people who have bought their own homes.  On average people are paying a lower proportion of their incomes on repayments today than in the early 1990s.
• David Cameron was Norman Lamont's failed economic adviser.  Yawn. Matthew Parris has written about Brown's misleading spin on this.
• Asked who he was politically, he answered that he was the son of a church minister who believed in hard work, family and respect for others.  The NHS summed up his political values.
• Told that the SNP planned party election broadcasts featuring his Downing Street photo opportunity with Margaret Thatcher, he replied that he invited Margaret Thatcher to Downing Street because it was a courteous thing to do.  Although she had caused too much unemployment, she did recognise the need for change when she was PM and she is a conviction politician.
• Britain has a system of "managed migration" - a points-based system based on the Australian system.  If you come to this country you need to learn our language and understand our culture.  [Brown repeatedly declined to answer Andrew Marr's straight question on whether there was too much immigration].