The Blair-Brown government has wasted its opportunities

Speaking on a campaign visit to Dunfermline, Ming Campbell said:

Thank you all for being here today.

It’s great to be back in Dunfermline.

There are just five days left in this election campaign.

Five days until voters throughout the United Kingdom are given the opportunity to make clear their wish for change.

And the desire for change is real.

That same feeling was clear ten years ago when voters went to the polls on the first of May 1997.

On that bright and sunny day there was a sense of relief and a sense of optimism.

Relief that eighteen long years of Conservative government – with its sleaze, arrogance, and sheer incompetence – had come to an end.

And optimism that a new, progressive and ambitious government would steer a better path.

So why is it that as we approach the first of May 2007 people feel that they’ve seen it all before?

Why is it that disillusionment has set in and people feel shut out of politics once again?

It’s because the Blair-Brown government has wasted its opportunities.

Look at Labour’s failure to build the fairer society that it promised.

After ten years of Labour, the rates of social mobility have fallen.

After ten years of Labour, the number of working people in poverty has risen.

And after ten years of Labour, the income gap between rich and poor is wider than at any point under Margaret Thatcher.

This is an outrage.

And I am appalled by the Chancellor’s response.

Last month’s budget raised income tax for tax-payers earning up to eighteen and a half thousand pounds a year.

The Chancellor has hiked taxes for the lowest paid to fund tax cuts for higher earners.

Labour is still a party of redistribution – but now it’s in the wrong direction.

But above all else, the Blair-Brown government will be remembered for its decision to go to war in Iraq.

It was an illegal war waged on false claims.

Four years on that conflict has claimed the lives of hundreds of coalition troops and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis.

Iraq remains in a state of chaos.

And Blair and Brown have no clear plan for solving it.

In truth, it is time to get out.

We should never forget the political alliance that led Britain into the Iraq war.

It was the Prime Minister who took the decision, the Chancellor who signed the cheque, and the Tories that voted it through.

That’s the record for which the Blair-Brown government will be remembered: war and waste.

Our way is different.

When I speak to voters up and down this country they tell me that they want a party that will take the radical steps needed to improve their lives and restore faith in government.

They want a party that is guided by clear values.

They want a party that places principle over fashion.

The Liberal Democrats hear that message – and we are that party.

Here in Scotland, we are the party putting forward a positive agenda, whilst Labour and the SNP squabble.

We are the party promising one hundred new health centres, one hundred percent renewable energy and one hour a day of physical activity for every school child.

I don’t need to remind you that little over a year ago the voters in this constituency elected a Liberal Democrat MP and gave the Blair-Brown government a clear message:

Change your ways or we will change parties.

But fifteen months later, Labour has not changed one bit.

So I urge voters here in Dunfermline and West Fife to do it again.

And I urge voters throughout the whole of the United Kingdom to do the same.

Over the course of the next five days – with your hard work and commitment – we can get our message across.

We can show that this is the party with the ideas and the determination to build a better Britain at every level of government.