If you are still at all undecided, here are a few (dozen) reasons to vote for Labour in Horsham, apart from the local reasons we mentioned the other day.
Borrowing from Gordon Brown's speech the other day, here are some of Labour's achievements while in power:
So when people say that politics can’t change anything – we reply it can, it has – and it will.
- the minimum wage first enacted in 1997
- the shortest NHS waiting times in history
- three million more operations a year
- over 44,000 more doctors
- 90,000 more nurses
- GPs open into the evenings and at weekends
- free cancer prescriptions
- a two-week maximum wait to see a cancer specialist
- over 100 new hospitals
- the Winter Fuel Allowance
- free TV licences and free bus passes for pensioners
- the Pension Credit
- the New Deal for the Unemployed
- full-time rights for part-time workers
- the Social Chapter
- record maternity pay
- for the first time in history the right to paternity leave
- the biggest programme of council house building for 20 years
- the Disability Discrimination Act
- the Racial and Religious Hatred act
- the Equalities Act
- the first black cabinet minister
- the first Muslim minister
- the first black woman minister to speak at the Commons despatch box
- civil partnerships, gay adoption, the repeal of Section 28 and yes the right to book into a bed and breakfast
- devolution: a Scottish Parliament, a Welsh Assembly and, yes, even a Mayor for London
- the transformation of our great cities with bright new dawns for Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham, Newcastle, Bristol, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Manchester
- the Human Rights Act
- crime down by a third
- the hand gun ban
- domestic violence cut by two thirds and rape convictions up by half
- more police than ever on our streets
- the world’s first ever Climate Change Act
- beating the Kyoto emissions targets
- the tripling of overseas aid
- the cancelling of debt of the poorest countries
- the ban on cluster bombs
- peace in Northern Ireland
- a Britain in Europe’s mainstream not in Europe’s slipstream
- free swimming for kids
- free museum entry
- the right to roam
- banning fox hunting
- the Olympics for London
- half a million children out of poverty
- extended schools
- 42,000 more teachers
- the best ever exam results in schools
- Education Maintenance Allowances
- record numbers of students – and for the first time the majority of students are women
- a doubling of apprenticeships
- a Child Trust Fund for every newborn child
- Sure Start children’s centres
- free nursery places
- and Child Tax Credits that this Labour government brought in and which a Tory government would cut because they just do not get it, never have, never will.
Looking forward, this is what Gordon Brown had to say about the future:
And that is why today, in this first election of a post crisis world, we are fighting for what we will be able to look back on, list, and commend in five years time. Because even as we act to cut the deficit, if we make the right decisions now, it will mean by 2015;
That is the offer of a Labour government – that’s the change we choose.
- cancer tests within not two weeks but one week
- free health check ups for the over 40s
- a restored link between pensions and earnings
- one million new skilled jobs
- broadband access for all
- a national care service
- a Post Office people’s bank
- more free nursery places
- a father’s month of leave for new dads
- a new toddler tax credit
- 10 thousand new council homes a year
- protection of local pubs and post offices
- an independent and thriving BBC
- low carbon energy and thousands of new green jobs
- a referendum on electing the Lords and changing the voting system
- and yes I can say today for more than a minimum wage – a rising minimum wage – every year a rising minimum wage