2 March 2012
Conference,
Welcome to Dundee.
It is a great pleasure to have conference back here in Scotland’s sunniest City.
Scottish Labour Conference in the Caird Hall holds special memories for me, as it was in this hall, 19 years ago as a local schoolgirl that I blagged my way past the stewards up to that balcony to see John Smith stand here and address conference.
Later that day, I joined the Labour Party.
Of course it wasn’t just the oratory that made me join up. Many of you will remember 1993.
Soaring unemployment, a generation of young Scots being lost to a future without hope, a government speaking for the millionaires instead of the millions.
Britain isolated in Europe?
As right-wingers hold the government in their sway?
The crazy plan to privatise the NHS? I know, you know, Britain must surely now know, The Tories NEVER change.
But this time, they’ve got their Tartan Tory helpers in Edinburgh.
What would George Osborne want more than a race to the bottom in corporation tax?
It is the SNP that is desperate to give him it.
Don’t take my word for it.
Ask ‘Sir’ Rupert Murdoch.
‘Scotland should go and compete’
We know what he means by that and what he and Alex are cooking up over a Tunnocks Tea Cake or twelve in Bute House.
So contrast that with our man.
Who led the fight in Parliament that has begun to break the Murdoch’s stranglehold on British politics?
Who made the fattest of fat cat bankers pay back the bonuses?
Who week by week is breaking Cameron’s plan to privatise the NHS?
Ed Miliband is not just our leader, he holds the torch that John Smith lit for me 19 years ago.
He walks in those footsteps, he cherishes those ideals. His passion and commitment to our historic mission are as deep, strong and enduring as the River Tay.
Conference, it gives me great pleasure to welcome to Dundee, Ed Miliband.
