Gordon Brown's Closing Statement (First Debate)

You know it's been a great opportunity to exchange ideas this evening. I know we're not up against The X Factor or Britain's Got Talent and I hope people have been able to stay with us in the exchange that we've had about the future policies of this country.



        (Gordon Brown – speaking first on the video)

You know it's been a great opportunity to exchange ideas this evening. I know we're not up against The X Factor or Britain's Got Talent and I hope people have been able to stay with us in the exchange that we've had about the future policies of this country.

I was really struck with a number of questions, but particularly the one from Robert about the future of his healthcare trust and about the jobs that may be at risk.

I've got to come to this central problem that we've got at the moment: we've got to make a decision now about how we secure the recovery this year. We've got to make a decision about whether we put funds into the economy or take funds out of the economy.

Now, I'm very clear we mustn't make the mistakes of the 1930s or the 1980s when unemployment rose for five years after the official end of the recession. So we've got to make sure the money is in the economy this year so that the recovery is secure. And then we've got to make sure that as we cut the deficit, we are fair to our National Health Service, our policing, and fair to our schools. And that's why the National Insurance rise is necessary, to protect our health service, our schools and our police.
 
I think it was very interesting when David Cameron was asked, he couldn't give a guarantee that we are giving about the funding on schools, he couldn't give a guarantee about the funding on policing. And when it came to the National Health Service, he couldn't give the same personal guarantees that we're giving about cancer specialist care, about seeing a GP at the evenings and weekends. Now these are problems he's got to address in the future.
 
I look forward to the next debate so we can get all the issues raised, aired about the future of our country.

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