英国工党领袖埃德·米利班德在2013年工党年会英语演讲稿

It’s great to be in Brighton. AndI want to start by thanking somebody from the bottom ofmy heart for thekindest of Words. Not Justine …oh, I would like to thank her, a round ofapplausefor Justine please, ladies and gentlemen. Not my mum … but a womancalled Ella Philips. It waslocal election day, Ella rode past me on her bike,she fell off …it’s not funny! I helped her upand afterwards she called mesomething I had never been called before: she said I was an“action hero”. Whyare you laughing? She said I was an action hero “who mysteriously appearedoutof nowhere”. And she said, “What added to all the confusion was that Ed wasactuallyattractive and not geeky at all”. I promise you, she did say that. Shesaid, “Even the way heappeared was suave”. I don’t know why you find this sofunny, friends. “He was dressed casually,but he had style”. Sounds quite me,doesn’t it? Now I was pretty pleased with this, as you cantell, until somethingdawned on me: Ella was concussed. She was badly concussed. In fact, sheherselfsaid, “I was seeing things because I was still in quite a daze”. Well, Ella,you are notkidding. But let me say, Ella, if you are watching today, thankyou, you have made my year.

I want to start today with thesimplest of thoughts. An idea that has inspired change forgenerations. Thebelief that helped drive us out of the Second World War and into thatgreatreforming government of 1945. An ambition that is more important now than ithas beenfor decades. An emotion that is felt across our country at kitchentables every night. A feelingthat is so threatening to those who want to keepthings as they are. Words that are so basicand yet so powerful, so modest andyet so hard to believe. Six simple words that say: Britaincan do better thanthis. Britain can do better than this; we are Britain, we are better you satisfied with a country where people are working for longer for less,year afteryear? Are you satisfied with a country divided losing touch with thethings we value the most?Are you satisfied with a country that shuts out thevoices of millions of ordinary people andlistens only to the powerful? Are yousatisfied with a country standing apart as two nations? WellI am notsatisfied. We are Britain, we are better than this. And we have to rebuild anewOneNation. An economy built on your success, a society based on your values, apolitics that hearsyour voice – rich and poor alike – accepting their responsibilitiestop each other. One Nation, weare going to make it happen, and today I amgoing to tell you how.

I want to start with ership is about risks and difficult decisions. It is aboutthose lonelymoments when you have to peer deep into your soul. I ran for the leadership ofthisparty, it was really hard for my family, but I believed that Labour neededto turn the page and Iwas the best person to do it. I when I became leader Ifaced a decision about whether weshould stand up to Rupert Murdoch. It wasn’tthe way things had been done in the past, but itwas the right thing to do so Idid it. And together we faced them down. And then the otherweek I faced aneven bigger decision about whether the country should go to war. Thebiggestdecision any leader faces, the biggest decision any Parliament faces, thebiggestdecision any party faces. All of us were horrified by the appallingchemical weapons attacks inSyria, but when I stood on the stage three yearsago, when I became your leader, I said wewould learn the lessons of Iraq. Itwould have been a rush to war, it wasn’t the right thing forour country. So Isaid no. It was the right thing to do. You see, the real test of leadership isnotwhether you stand up to the weak, that’s easy; it’s whether you stand up tothe strong andknow who to fight for. And you know I am reminded of a storyback when I was starting out,standing to be an MP in Doncaster, with a womancalled Molly Roberts. Molly was in herseventies, and there I was candidlytrying to get her vote, sitting in her front from sipping amug of tea. And shesaid to me, “How can you, who weren’t brought up in this area,possiblyunderstand the lives of people here, their hopes and their struggles?” It wasthe rightquestion, and here is the answer. For me it lies in the values I wasbrought up with. You see inmy house it was my mum that taught me these t the importance of reaching out alistening to people, of understandingtheir hopes and their struggles. She is the most patient,generous person Ihave met in my whole life. And she taught me never to be contemptuousofothers, never to be dismissive of their struggle. Now she was teaching me alesson of life. Andsome people will say, ah yeah but you have to leave decencybehind when it comes to I say they are wrong, because only ifyou reach out and listen can you do the mostimportant thing a leader can do,the most important qualification in my view for being PrimeMinister. Only thenwill you have the ability to walk in the shoes of others and know who tofightfor, whoever your opponent, however powerful they are, guided by the only thingthatmatters: your sense of what is right. This is what I believe, this iswhere I stand, this is theleadership Britain needs.