Letter from Gordon Brown to Marc Fortuna

Dear Marcelo Fortuna

I wanted to write to you personally to let you know how pleased I am you have made the decision to join at such important time, and about the important role you can play in winning the election for Labour.

With our member´s support we have already achieved so much — the shortest NHS waiting times since records began, a national minimum wage, more nurses than ever, and two million children helped through Sure Start.

None of this happened by chance. It happened because people of conscience, goodwill and determination made a commitment to come together for a combined purpose. Bringing real change and righting inequalities are the prime reasons that made me decide to join the Labour Party. We are stronger because of your decision to join us.

But we cannot rest on our achievements; we must fight to protect them and to strive to improve upon them. There is no end point for creating a better society, and there is no stage at which we can be happy to sit back assuming we have done all we can.

Labour´s priorities remain the same: securing the recovery including protecting the jobs and homes of ordinary people, protecting frontline services, standing up for the many not the few and investing in new industries. A Tory government would put all of this at risk.

Despite their new words, the Tories still offer the same ideas. By opposing action to give real help to those who need it and instead concentrating on tax breaks for millionaires, they show where their priorities truly lie.

Just like they did in the last recession, the Tories would walk on by, leaving British people to fend for themselves, whilst cutting the public services they rely on.

We have a duty to make sure that the Tories are never able to debase our country again. And you have an important role to play.

You are our strongest advocate with your friends and in your community. You have the opportunity to help Labour win a forth term, to become a community champion, to stand for local or national Government. What you do and how far you go is entirely up to you.

Whichever route you choose to take I know our party is so much stronger with you on our side. We have an awe inspiring responsability resting on our shoulders and I know that we can, and must, continue our work for a better and stronger Britain.

Yours sincerelly,

Rt Hon Gordon Brown MP

Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party

Message to Labour International from Gordom Brown

I want to take this opportunity to thank you, as a member of Labour International, for all you do for our party. Your support has never been more vital than today.

For in the coming months the British people will vote in one of the most important general election of modern times. We are campaigning not for a forth term Labour government — but for the first Labour government of a new global era. Wherever in the world you live, you will have seen the effects of the global financial crisis, the worst in sixty years, and the global recession that it caused. Countries all over the world took action to stimulate their economies back to growth, and so have we in Britain.

Only the Conservative Party disagreed. Thanks to our action, and to the shared efforts of the British people, repossessions in Britain have been running at around half the rate at which it peaked in the Tory recession of the 1990s; and the rate of job losses has been four times lower.

Today the economy is still recovering, and the big choice this year will be whether to secure growth or choke off recovery. It will be whether to create an age of aspiration, or to condemn Britain to the “age of austerity” that the Tories promise. It will be whether to keep Britain strong internationally, or to leave our country isolated under the Tories.

That is why this year’s election will be so important. And we will fight the campaign as the underdogs against a lavishly funded Conservative Party. Your help, as a member of Labour International, is crucial. If you have compatriots around you who are not registered to vote, please encourage them to do so. You can remind other British voters abroad of the big choice at the coming election. You can also help by telephone canvassing via the virtual phone bank.

Visit: http://labourinternational.net/wordpress/

Gordon Brown's speech on immigration

In a speech in Shoreditch, East London, the Prime Minister outlined that Labour's reforms are controlling immigration – net migration has fallen 30 per cent between 2007 and 2008.


People recognise the positives of migration - economically and socially - but they also want to see fair rules that nobody can duck. Labour’s new Australian-style points-based system means that only those who have the skills to benefit our economy can come here.


Skilled jobs must now be advertised here for four weeks before employers can bring someone in from outside. And as our investment in the training of young people and adult workers raises our local skills levels - the need for skilled migrant workers can be substantially reduced.


While Labour is committed to fair rules to control immigration and benefit the British economy, the Tories' proposed quota system would be arbitrary and bad for business.


Gordon Brown said:


"The system we have introduced gives us the ability to secure the skills we need and to secure our borders against those who are not welcome here".


"And I believe the responsible way to debate migration … is to debate how we can use this system over the coming years to continue to control migration fairly, to reduce the overall need for migration, while continuing to attract the key people who will make the biggest contribution to the growth of our economy."

Tony Blair in Sedgefield

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair addressed Labour party members at the Trimdon Labour Club in Sedgefield, his former parliamentary constituency, Tuesday March 30, 2010.

Speaking in support of current Prime Minister Gordon Brown for Britain's forthcoming election, Blair said that while Britain was not yet "out of the woods" following the financial crisis, it was "on the path out" as a result of the actions taken by Brown.

"At the moment of peril the world acted. Britain acted. The decision to act required experience, judgment and boldness. It required leadership. Gordon Brown supplied it," he said

Britons trust Labour over opposition on economy

Britain's opposition Conservatives, whose overall opinion poll lead has narrowed in the run-up to an election, have fallen behind the ruling Labour Party on the key issue of economic trust, a poll found on March 26.

Britons are more likely to trust Prime Minister Gordon Brown's government than the Conservatives to run the economy, which has just emerged from its deepest recession since World War Two, the ComRes poll showed.

The poll, conducted after finance minister Alistair Darling's annual budget on Wednesday, found 33 percent of those questioned trusted Brown and Darling most to run the economy.

That compared with 27 percent who favored Conservative leader David Cameron and his finance spokesman George Osborne, and 13 percent who favored the Liberal Democrats.

The last time this question was asked in a similar poll on December 10, the Conservatives led with 33 percent and Labour was on 26 percent, with the Liberal Democrats on 19 percent.

*****Read the full article on Washington Post