Brown urges Labour to 'dream big'
Updated on 29 September 2009
The prime minister, Gordon Brown, urges his party to dream big dreams in his conference speech - but is the biggest dream of all that he could win? Gary Gibbon reports.
For a man at the bottom of an electoral cliff, Gordon Brown went out to persuade his party they had a future and even a cascade of policies - some of them new.
He formalised two u-turns on abandoning compulsory ID cards and rolling back 24-hour drinking.
Admitting parliament's failure, he announced a referendum on voting reform. But is he a bit of the way up that cliff or still at the bottom uncoiling the rope?
"Nothing is inevitable - now is not the time to give in," said Gordon Brown as he tried to rouse his delegates in Brighton, with a warning to the wider audience outside not to assume that he and the Labour party were heading for defeat next year.
The biggest choice in a generation he called it, as he castigated an opposition who said he was wrong on the economic call of the century.
There was a string of policy promises on anti-social behaviour and a referendum on the voting system, along with many re-announcements.
As last year he asked his wife Sarah to give the introduction. She described him as both messy and noisy, but her hero.
Channel 4 News reports on Gordon Brown's 'make or break' speech and his promise to fight to win.