Labour fightback: PM launches election slogan
Updated on 20 February 2010
Gordon Brown admits Labour has made mistakes and he is not perfect, as he appeals to disaffected voters to look again at the party.
Mr Brown kicks off the Labour party's election campaign under the slogan "a future fair for all". At a rally of activists at the University of Warwick in Coventry, Mr Brown said: "My message to the people of Britain today is simple.
"I know that Labour hasn't done everything right. And I know - really, I know - that I'm not perfect. But I know where I come from, I know what I stand for, and I know who I came into politics to represent.
"And if you, like me, are from Britain's mainstream majority - from an ordinary family that wants to get on and not simply get by, then my message to you today is simple: take a second look at us and take a long hard look at them."
In an exclusive interview for Channel 4 News, the prime minister said: "I'm very strong willed, I'm very determined, I think the country wants someone that will push things forward, and not allow things to be stagnant and stale, and every morning I get up with a determination to do my best for this country."
Mr Brown, who today celebrates his 59th birthday, also set out four key themes for the party's election campaign in his speech.
"First, we must secure the recovery, not put it at risk. Second, we must support new industries and future jobs.
"Third, as we reduce the deficit by half, we must protect and not cut frontline services. And fourth, we must stand up for the many not the few."
The weekend also gears up "operation fightback" - the party's strategy for a "street by street" fight on the doorsteps.
Mr Brons also used the speech to launch a series of attacks against the Conservative party, accusing them of planning a series of cuts that would hit the "mainstream majority".
"Can they claim they know the aspirations of mainstream Britain when they so clearly understand so little of how we live?" he asked to cheers.
"To those who are beginning to wonder how to use their vote, ask yourself whether at heart you believe in fairness and individual opportunity. Ask whether you want to keep on the road to economic recovery or to return to the same old social divisions of the Tory years," he said.
"And so today I issue a call to every progressive to come together to fight for the values we cherish and the country we love.
"This campaign is not going to be won somewhere else by someone else - it's going to be won street by street, school-gate by school-gate, workplace by workplace - it's going to be won by you.
"If you believe in taking this country forwards not backwards then Labour are the change-makers in this election."
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg said: "We don't need a fantasy slogan to tell us what the future would look like under Gordon Brown because we have the evidence of the last 13 years.
"The truth is that Gordon Brown has failed on fairness and does not deserve a future as the prime minister of this country. I think it is a gratuitous insult for him now to claim the Labour Party cares about fairness when it has so spectacularly failed to deliver it."
Shadow chancellor George Osborne said: "Gordon Brown had nothing positive or new to offer Britain in today's speech and is taking people for fools.
"He asks Britain to take a second look at Labour when the public have been looking at them for 13 years and know they have failed.
"They have failed on fairness and failed to find a credible plan for economic recovery. Five more years of Gordon Brown won't change anything."
