The Economy - first time speaker at conference

"Chair, conference - John Gray, Proud to be a West Ham Labour Party delegate – Proud to be a UNISON activist and one of their million voices.

Conference, I’m Proud that West Ham is the birthplace of the Labour Party. Proud that in our London borough of Newham we this year increased the Labour vote during the European elections. Proud that Newham is the home of the biggest share of the vote for Labour in the entire Country.

Conference - I have two related contributions to make towards the debate on the economy. Firstly to remind people that it was our Labour government that stood up to the massive and unknown problems of the recent financial crisis and the government took enormous and unprecedented risks to save us from a most savage depression. We need to remember this and be proud of our achievements so far. We need to remind everyone that at this time of national crisis - our opponents, the Tories and their friends in the media were attacking the government - attacking and undermining - with only “Do Nothing” alternatives.

Conference – can you just imagine what the state of our country would now be if Cameron and Osborne, these “Champagne Charlie’s” had been in charge?

Secondly conference - and this is why I am still convinced that we will win the next general election - at the end of the day it will be “its the economy stupid” that will decide the election and we have the economic talents and competency and the Tories do not. We must never ever forget that the financial crisis was caused by market failure which can only be cured more Government intervention, better ownership by collective share owners, more regulation - to which the Tories remain ideologically opposed.

Conference - of course we can’t take anything for granted and we are in a hard place but we must have the self belief that we have got the right economic fundamentals and the Tories have simply got it wrong.

After all conference never forget “Gordon did save the world”