GORDON Brown, increasingly confident of following Tony Blair into No 10, yesterday set out his vision for twenty-first century Britain in which the potential for all is realised by a shared commitment to the ethics of duty, service and care.
In another twist to the tortuous coded exchange between the chancellor and the prime minister, Mr Brown appeared to give Mr Blair 12 months' notice to move aside to make way for his succession, during his keynote speech to delegates at the Labour conference in Brighton.
He said: "And because the renewal of New Labourwill be as profound a challenge, as rigorous a task and as great an achievement as the creation of New Labour, I will - in the next year - visit every region and nation of our country. With you I want to listen, hear and learn and to discuss the economic, social and constitutional changes we need to build for the future."
Mr Brown offered an uncompromisingly reforming agenda central to which was the eradication of child poverty in a generation.
He said: "And let us promise ourselves that within five years we will meet even more challenging goals: help three million children on to Sure Start, provide educational maintenance allowances for all teenagers who need them, increase the rights and responsibilities of families so that we can meet our objective: to halve child poverty by 2010 on the road to abolishing it in a generation."
Mr Brown's speech, designed primarily to set out his personal
political motivation and aspirations for the country he wants to lead, reached far beyond the normal economic speech delivered by a chancellor, and was loaded with innuendo and implicit criticism of Mr Blair.
But he aligned himself closely with the prime minister's reforming agenda, and he praised Mr Blair's record in government, albeit as if he had already inherited the crown.
He said: "I believe Tony Blair deserves huge credit not just forwinning three elections but for leading the Labour party for more than a decade.
"And in the same way he deserves credit for leading us through these difficult and challenging years, he also deserves credit for now asking us and challenging us as a party to begin to plan ahead."
The chancellor's Church of Scotland upbringing was much in evidence. Invoking the Good Samaritan, he described a society in which he hoped there would be "a responsibility on each and every one of us not to pass by on the other side".
Mr Brown's speech pleased the unions, which are already anticipating
hard negotiations over hard-won concessions in the Warwick agreement - a deal on workers' rights made between Labour and unions before the last general election - in the months ahead.
Tony Woodley, the general secretary of the T & G, described the speech as inspirational, full of vision for the future.
Dave Prentis, general secretary of Unison, said Mr Brown had "pushed all the right buttons".
He said: "He made no defence of New Labour's approach to the marketplace in public services, which it had been rumoured he would. He praised public service workers and he articulated Labour values at their best."
While Mr Brown was speaking on the conference floor, a ferocious
damage limitation exercise was going on behind the scenes to avert a humiliating defeat for Mr Blair over workers' rights.
Demonstrating theirwillingness to flex their muscles, the unions maintained their demand for the reinstatement of secondary picketing, outlawed by Baroness Thatcher in 1990.
In an astonishing departure from normal Labour protocol, the ruling national executive committee lined up to defy the leadership and vote with the unions to repeal the ban on secondary picketing.
In the event the NEC decided to stay neutral but Ian McCartney, the party chair, is hoping he has offered the unions a sufficient compromise on pensions to keep them onside.
The result of the card vote will be known today.
In another sign of continued tension between unions and the Labour leadership, the conference approved an Amicus call for Britain to adopt European rules limiting workers to a 48-hour week. The government has firmly resisted pressure from Brussels to drop the UK's opt-out from the directive.
BRIEFING YESTERDAY Gordon Brown, the chancellor, set out his agenda and signalled a continued New Labour reform agenda.
Alan Johnson, trade and industry secretary, said there would be no return to secondary picketing.
David Blunkett, work and pensions secretary, vowed to do more to protect against loan sharks and make work pay for those on benefits.
QUOTE OF THE DAY Gordon Brown: "Our focus is not on what we have achieved, important as it is, but our focus must be on what we have yet to achieve."
TODAY Keynote speech by Tony Blair.
Creating sustainable communities speech by Charles Clarke.
A speech by the European parliamentary Labour party.
Treasurer's report.
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