Groucho Marx: “Duck Soup” (1933)

From the 1933 Marx Brothers movie “Duck Soup“. Groucho Marx works himself up a temper and slaps the ambassador from Sylvania, causing a war.

You can find this monologue and hundreds of others on Colin’s Movie Monologue page.

[wp-video-floater]

Mrs Teasdale (Margaret Dumont): Your Excellency!

President Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx): What’s on your mind, babe?

Mrs Teasdale: In [on] behalf of the women of Freedonia, I’ve taken it upon myself to make one final effort to prevent war.

Firefly: No kidding!

Mrs Teasdale: I’ve talked to Ambassador Trentino and he says Sylvania doesn’t want war either.

Firefly: Either.

Mrs Teasdale: Doesn’t want war either.

Firefly: Either.

Mrs Teasdale: Hmmmph!

Firefly: Skip it.

Mrs Teasdale: I’ve taken the liberty of asking the Ambassador to come over here because we both felt that a friendly conference would settle everything peacefully. He’ll be here any moment.

Firefly: Mrs Teasdale, you did a noble deed.

I’d be unworthy of the high trust that’s been placed in me if I didn’t do everything within my power to keep our beloved Freedonia in peace with the world.

I’d be only too happy to meet with Ambassador Trentino, and offer him on behalf of my country the right hand of good fellowship. And I feel sure he will accept this gesture in the spirit of which it is offered.

But suppose he doesn’t. A fine thing that’ll be. I hold out my hand and he refuses to accept it. That’ll add a lot to my prestige, won’t it? Me, the head of a country, snubbed by a foreign ambassador. Who does he think he is, that he can come here, and make a sap out of me in front of all my people?

Think of it – I hold out my hand and that hyena refuses to accept it. Why, the cheap ball-pushing swine, he’ll never get away with it I tell you, he’ll never get away with it!

[Trentino (Louis Calhern) enters]

Firefly: So, you refuse to shake hands with me, eh?

[Firefly slaps Trentino with his glove for the second time in two days and the war begins]

Trentino: Mrs Teasdale, this is the last straw. There’s no turning back now! This means war!

Tony Blair: Labour Party Conference, 2006

Tony Blair’s speech to the Labour Party 2006 conference, just before he stepped down as Prime Minister.

[wp-video-floater]

I’d like to start by saying something very simple. Thank you. Thank you to you, our Party, our members, our supporters, the people who week in, week out do the work, take the flak but don’t often get the credit.

Thank you, the Labour Party for giving me the extraordinary privilege of leading you these past 12 years. I know I look a lot older. That’s what being leader of the Labour Party does to you. Actually, looking round some of you look a lot older. That’s what having me as leader of the Labour Party does to you. Nobody knows that better than John Prescott, my Deputy these last 10 years, author of “traditional values in a modern setting”. I may have taken New Labour to the country but it was you that helped me take it to the Party, so thank you. And, ah, Something I don’t say often enough – thank you to my family. To the children. To Cherie. Well, at least I don’t have to worry about her running off with the bloke next door. Sorry – couldn’t resist that one.

It’s usual after you thank the family, you thank your agent and yes I do want to thank my agent, John Burton, and through him the wonderful people of Sedgefield. You know, when I went to Sedgefield to seek the nomination, just before the 1983 election, I was a kind of refugee from the London-based politics of that time. I knocked on John’s door. He said “come in; but shut up for half an hour, we’re watching Aberdeen in the Cup Winners Cup final”. And I sat in the company of the most normal people I had met in the Labour Party. They taught me that most of politics isn’t about politics in the sense of meetings, resolutions, speeches or even Parties, sometimes. It starts with people. It’s about friendship, art, culture, sport. It’s about being a fully paid up member of the human race before being a fully paid up member of the Labour Party. But above all else, I want to thank the British people. Not just for the honour of being Prime Minister but for the journey of progress that we have travelled together. Leaders lead but in the end it’s the people who deliver.

In the last few months I’ve seen new hospitals like University College in London, the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital planned in Birmingham or Whiston Hospital in Knowsley, where I laid the foundation stone. But without the talents and dedication of the National Health Service staff, they would be just empty shells. It is their efforts which have cut waiting, improved care, transform and save tens of thousands of lives every day. Thank you. And we in Government of course can help put in place the new Academy in Liverpool or the ground-breaking Education Village in Darlington which I visited recently. But it’s the commitment and love of learning of the teachers and their pupils, and the support of parents, which have given our country the best educated children in our history. To them too, thank you.

And what about this wonderful city of Manchester? A city transformed. A city that shows what a confident, open, and proud people with a great Labour council can do for themselves. So thank you…

In 1994, I stood before you for the first time and I shared with you the country’s anger at crumbling school buildings, patients languishing, sometimes dying in pain, waiting for operations, of crime doubled, of homes repossessed, of pensioners living in poverty; and I told you of our dismay at four election defeats and how it was not us who should feel betrayed but the British people. That such a speech seems so dated today is not through the passage of time but through progress.

In 1997, we faced daunting challenges. Boom and bust economics. Chronic under-investment in our public services. Social division, with millions living in poverty, including over 3 million children at that time. And more than all this, a country culturally, socially behind. No black Ministers and never a black Cabinet Minister. Parliament, supposedly the forum of the people, with only 1 in 10 women MPs. Gay people denied equal rights. Trade unionists able to be sacked for joining a trade union. Workers on £1.20 an hour, legally. London – the only major capital city in the world without city Government. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all run from Whitehall. Inner cities depleted, a refuge for the dispossessed. This was a country aching for change.

And now, for all that remains to be done, just for a moment, dwell on what has been achieved. The longest period of sustained economic growth in British history. Mortgage repossession, like mass unemployment, terms we have to be reminded of. The last NHS winter crisis was 6 years ago. Heart patients wait on average less than three months. Cancer deaths down by 43,000. Today, you are more likely to see a new school building than a crumbling one. There are virtually no long-term unemployed.

Today we ask: Well can we meet our ambitious targets on child poverty? Before 1997, the idea of a child poverty target would have been laughable. We have black Ministers and the first woman and then the first black woman Leader of the Lords. Not enough women MPs but twice what there were. A London Mayor, thankfully Labour again. Devolution in Scotland and Wales. But not just this. Free museum entry that has seen a 50% rise in visitors. Banning things that should never have been allowed: handguns, cosmetic testing on animals; fur farming, blacklisting of trade unionists and from summer next year, smoking in public places.

Allowing things that should never have been banned: the right to roam; the right to request flexible working; civil partnerships for gay people. And in 2012 it is London that will host the Olympic Games. Of course, the daily coverage of politics focuses on the negative. But take a step back and be proud: this is a changed country. Above all, it is progressive ideas which define its politics. That’s the real result of a third term victory. And there’s the Tories having to pretend they love it. The Bank of England independence, they never did in 18 years, the minimum wage, they told us would cost a million jobs. Help for the world’s poor, they cut. Now they fall over themselves saying how much they agree with us. Don’t lose heart from that; take heart from it.

We have changed the terms of political debate. This Labour Government has been unique. First time ever two full terms; now three. So why and how? We faced out to the people, not in on ourselves. We put the Party at the service of the country. Their reality became our reality. Their worries, our worries. We abandoned the ridiculous, self-imposed dilemma between principle and power. We went back to first principles, to our values, our real values, those that are timeless, and separated them from doctrine and dogma that had been ravaged by time. In doing so, we freed Britain at long last from the reactionary choice that dominated British politics for so long: between individual prosperity and a caring society. We proved that economic efficiency and social justice are not opposites but partners in progress. We defied conventional political wisdom and thereby we changed it. And around that we built a new political coalition.

The USP of New Labour is aspiration and compassion reconciled. We reach out not just to those in poverty or need but those who are doing well but want to do better; those on the way up, ambitious for themselves and their families. These are our people too. Not to be tolerated for electoral reasons. But embraced out of political conviction. The core vote of this Party today is not the heartlands, the inner city, not any sectional interest or lobby. Our core vote is the country.

And it was they who made us change. The beliefs of the Labour Party of 2006 should be recognisable to the members of 1906. And they are: Full employment; strong public services; tackling poverty; international solidarity. The policies shouldn’t. The trouble was for a long time they were. In the 1960s, re-reading the Cabinet debates of In Place of Strife, everyone was telling Harold Wilson not to push it. Divisive, unnecessary, alienated core support. In the end he gave up but so did the public on Labour. Even in 1974, the Labour Government spent 2 years renationalising shipbuilding and the public spent 2 years wondering why. In the 1980s, council house sales had first been suggested by Labour people. It was shelved. Too difficult. Too divisive. We lost a generation of aspiring working-class people on the back of it.

In the 1980s we should have been the party transforming Britain. But we weren’t. And the lesson is always the same. Values unrelated to modern reality are not just electorally hopeless, the values themselves become devalued. They have no purchase on the real world. We won in the end, not because we surrendered our values but because we finally had the courage to be true to them.

Click on the video for Part 2

And our courage in changing gave the British people the courage to change. That’s how we won. 10 years after, Government has taken its toll. It does. It’s in the nature of the beast. In the harsh climate of the 24/7 media, in which gossip and controversy are so much more newsworthy than real news, people forget.

I spoke to a woman the other day, a part-time worker, complaining about the amount of her tax credit. I said: Hold on a minute: before 1997, there were no tax credits not for working families not for any families; child benefit was frozen; maternity pay half what it is; maternity leave likewise and paternity leave didn’t exist at all. And no minimum wage, no full time rights for part time workers, in fact nothing. “So what?”, she said “that’s why we elected you. Now go and sort out my tax credit. ” And, of course, she’s right. In Government you carry each hope; each disillusion. And in politics it’s always about the next challenge.

The truth is, you can’t go on forever. That’s why it is right that this is my last Conference as Leader. Of course it is hard to let go. But it is also right to let go. For the country, and for you, the Party. Over the coming months, I will take through the changes I have worked on so hard these past years. And I will help build a unified Party with a strong platform for the only legacy that has ever mattered to me – a fourth term election victory that allows us to keep changing Britain for the better. And I want to heal. There has been a lot of talk of lies and truths these past few weeks. In no relationship at the top of any walk of life is it always easy, least of all in politics which matters so much and which is conducted in such a piercing spotlight.

But I know New Labour would never have happened, and 3 election victories would never have been secured, without Gordon Brown. He is a remarkable man. A remarkable servant to this country. And that is the truth. So now, 10 years on, this Party faces the real test of leadership: not about what we’ve achieved in the past; but what we can achieve for Britain’s future. Not just how do we win again; but how does Britain carry on winning? I won’t be leading you in the next election. But I’ve sat in the hot seat for 10 years. Here’s my advice. The scale of the challenges now dwarf what we faced in 1997.

They are different, deeper, bigger, hammered out on the anvil of forces, global in nature, sweeping the world. In 1997 the challenges we faced were essentially British. Today they are essentially global. The world today is a vast reservoir of potential opportunity. New jobs in environmental technology, the creative industries, financial services. Cheap goods and travel. The internet. Advances in science and technology. In 10 years we will think nothing of school-leavers going off to university anywhere in the world. But with these opportunities comes huge insecurity.

In 1997 we barely mentioned China. Not any more. Last year China and India produced more graduates than all of Europe put together. 10 years ago, energy wasn’t on the agenda. The environment an also-ran. 10 years ago, if we talked pensions we meant pensioners. Immigration hardly raised. Terrorism meant the IRA. Not any more. We used to feel we could shut our front door on the problems and conflicts of the wider world. Not any more. Not with globalisation. Not with climate change. Not with organised crime. Not when suicide bombers born and bred in Britain bring carnage to the streets of London. In the name of religion. A speech by the Pope to an academic seminar in Bavaria leads to protests in Britain.

The question today is different to the one we faced in 1997. It is how we reconcile openness to the rich possibilities of globalisation, with security in the face of its threats. How to be open and secure. And again, there is a third way. Some want a fortress Britain – job protection, pull up the drawbridge, get out of international engagement. Others see no option but to submit to global forces and let the strongest survive. Our answer is very clear. It is, once again, to help people through a changing world by using collective power to advance opportunity and provide security for all. To reconcile openness and security as we reconciled aspiration and compassion, not as enemies but as partners in progress. The British people today are reluctant global citizens. We must make them confident ones.

The danger in all this, for us, is not ditching New Labour. The danger is failing to understand that New Labour in 2007 won’t be New Labour in 1997. 10 years ago I would have described re-linking the BSP with earnings as “Old Labour”. Our aim is by 2012, but by the end of the next Parliament at the latest – we are going to do it. Rodney Bickerstaffe has become New Labour. Or have I become Old Labour? 10 years ago, if you had asked me to put environmental obligations on business, I would have been horrified. Now I’m advocating it. I would have baulked at restrictions on advertising junk food to children. Today I say unless a voluntary code works, we will legislate for it. 10 years ago I parked the issue of nuclear power. Today, I believe without it, we are going to face an energy crisis and we can’t let that happen.

Over the next year we are reviewing every aspect of our economic policy, not because we were wrong in the past, but because whether in tax and spending, regulation, planning, enterprise, the question is not about our competitiveness in the last 10 years, but in the next 10. Developing financial services and the City of London; the creative industries and modern manufacturing. How to be the world’s number one place of choice for bio-science – if America does not want stem-cell research – we do. How to fund transport through road-pricing. Skills. I say to business: you have a responsibility to train your workforce. To trade unions: here is the chance to be the learning partners for the workforce of the next generation. Take the chance.

Global warming is the greatest long-term threat to our planet’s environment. Scarce energy resources mean rising prices and will threaten our country’s economy. In 15 years we will go from 80% self-sufficient in oil and gas to 80% imported. We need therefore the most radical overhaul of energy policy since the War. We will increase the amount of energy from renewable sources fivefold; ensure every major business in the country has a responsibility for greenhouse gas reduction; treble investment in clean technology, including clean coal; and make sure every new home is at least 40% more energy efficient. We will meet our Kyoto targets by double the amount; and we will take the necessary measures, step by step by step, to meet one of the most ambitious targets on the environment set anywhere in the world – a 60% reduction in emissions by 2050.

In the future, as people live longer, we can’t afford good pensions and help for disabled people who can’t work, with 4 million people on benefit, many of whom could work. Almost a million less than there were. But too many. That is why we need more radical welfare reform, getting more disabled people, more lone parents, more on unemployment benefit, into work, not to destroy the welfare state. But to preserve it. And why is reform so important in public services? Over the past 10 years Britain has invested more in our public services than any comparable nation in the world. From near the bottom in Europe to the average in a decade. 300,000 more workers, treble the money, 25% more pay in real terms and the largest ever hospital programme; that is an NHS being re-built not privatised. Refurbishing or rebuilding every state secondary school in the country. 92,000 more classroom assistants, 36,000 more teachers, pay also up 17% in real terms. This isn’t privatising state education; it’s producing the best schools results ever.

But what happens? Expectations rise. People want power in their own hands. Two thirds of the country has access to the internet. Millions of people are ordering flights or books or other goods on-line, they are talking to their friends on-line, downloading music, all of it when they want to, not when the shop or office is open. The Google generation has moved beyond the idea of 9 to 5, closed on weekends and Bank Holidays. Today’s technology is profoundly empowering. Of course public services are different. Their values are different. But today people won’t accept a service handed down from on high. They want to shape it to their needs, and the reality of their lives. The same global forces changing business are at work in public services too. New ways of treating. New ways of teaching. New technologies. There will be no selective Trust Schools or City Academies. But if, as at the Academy I visited in Lewisham, good GCSE results doubled in a year, and a school once under-subscribed, now five times over-subscribed, how is that a denial of public service values? Surely it is the most vivid affirmation of them. And if an old age pensioner who used to wait 2 years for her cataract operation now gets it on the NHS in an independent treatment centre, in 3 months, free at the point of use, that is not damaging the NHS; it is fulfilling its purpose. My advice: at the next election, the issue will not only be who is trusted to invest in our public services, vital though that is. It will be who comes first. And our answer has to be. The patient; the parent. Meeting the 18 weeks maximum for waiting in the NHS with an average of 9 weeks from the door of the GP to the door of the operating theatre. Booked appointments. The end of waiting in the NHS. Historic. Transforming secondary schools in the way we have done for primary schools. Schools with three quarters of children getting good results the norm. Historic. Both within reach. Do this and we will have earned the right to be custodians of our public services for the next generation. If we fail, and without change we will, then believe me: change will still be done; but in a regressive way by a Conservative Party. I want change true to progressive values, done by a fourth term Labour Government. I always said the Home Office was the toughest job in Government. It hasn’t got easier. We should get a few facts straight. Crime has fallen not risen. We are the only Government since the war to do it. Asylum applications are dealt with faster, removals are greater, the system infinitely better than the chaos we inherited in 1997. But the fact is that the world is changing so fast that the reality we are dealing with – mass migration, organised crime, ASB – has engulfed systems designed for a time gone by. 30 million people now come to Britain every year. Visitors, tourists, workers, students. Our economy needs them. 227 million pass through our airports. Yet we have no means of checking who is here lawfully. The fundamental dilemma: how do we reconcile liberty with security in this new world? I don’t want to live in a police state, or a Big Brother society or put any of our essential freedoms in jeopardy.

But because our idea of liberty is not keeping pace with change in reality, those freedoms are in jeopardy. When crimes go unpunished, that is a breach of the victim’s liberty and human rights. When organised crime gangs are free to practice their evil, countless young people have their liberty and often their lives damaged. When ASB goes unchecked, each and every member of the community in which it happens, has their human rights broken. When we can’t deport foreign nationals even when inciting violence the country is at risk. Immigration has benefited Britain. But I know that if we don’t have rules that allow us some control over who comes in, goes out, who has a right to stay and who has not, then instead of a welcome, migrants find fear. We can only protect liberty by making it relevant to the modern world. That is why Identity Cards using biometric technology are not a breach of our basic rights, they are an essential part of responding to the reality of modern migration and protecting us against identity fraud. I remember when I introduced the DNA database. On it go all those who are arrested. We were told it was a monstrous breach of liberty. But it is now matching 3,000 offences a month including last year several hundred murders, and thousands of rapes and other violent offences. Difficult reform leading to real progress in the fight against crime. In the next Parliamentary Session, the centre-piece will be John Reid’s immigration and law and order reforms. I ask people of all Parties to support them. Let Liberty stand up for the Law-abiding.

And of course, the new anxiety is the global struggle against terrorism without mercy or limit. This is a struggle that will last a generation and more. But this I believe passionately: we will not win until we shake ourselves free of the wretched capitulation to the propaganda of the enemy, that somehow we are the ones responsible. This terrorism isn’t our fault. We didn’t cause it. It’s not the consequence of foreign policy. It’s an attack on our way of life. It’s global. It has an ideology. It killed nearly 3,000 people including over 60 British on the streets of New York before war in Afghanistan or Iraq was even thought of. It has been decades growing. Its victims are in Egypt, Algeria, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Turkey. Over 30 nations in the world. It preys on every conflict. It exploits every grievance. And its victims are mainly Muslim.

This is not our war against Islam. This is a war fought by extremists who pervert the true faith of Islam. And all of us, Western and Arab, Christian or Muslim, who put the value of tolerance, respect and peaceful co-existence above those of sectarian hatred, should join together to defeat them. It is not British soldiers who are sending car bombs into Baghdad or Kabul to slaughter the innocent. They are there along with troops of 30 other nations with, in each case, a full UN mandate at the specific request of the first ever democratically elected Governments of those countries in order to protect them against the very ideology also seeking the deaths of British people in planes across the Atlantic. If we retreat now, hand Iraq over to Al Qaeda and sectarian death squads and Afghanistan back to Al Qaeda and the Taleban, we won’t be safer; we will be committing a craven act of surrender that will put our future security in the deepest peril. Of course it’s tough. Not a day goes by or an hour in the day when I don’t reflect on our troops with admiration and thanks – the finest, the best, the bravest, any nation could hope for. They are not fighting in vain. But for this nation’s future. But this is not a conventional war. It can’t be won by force alone. It’s not a clash of civilisations. It’s about civilisation, about the ideas that shape it. From 9/11 until now I have said again and again. If we want our values to be the ones that govern global change, we have to show that they are fair, just and delivered with an even hand.

From now until I leave office I will dedicate myself, with the same commitment I have given to Northern Ireland , to advancing peace between Israel and Palestine. I may not succeed. But I will try because peace in the Middle East is a defeat for terrorism. We must never again let Lebanon become the battleground for a conflict that neither Israeli or Lebanese people wanted though it was they who paid the price for it. Peace in Lebanon is a defeat for terrorism. Action in Africa is a defeat for terrorism. What is happening now in the Sudan cannot stand. If this were in the continent of Europe we would act. Showing an African life is worth as much as a Western one – that would help defeat terrorism too.

Yes it’s hard sometimes to be America’s strongest ally. Yes, Europe can be a political headache for a proud sovereign nation like Britain. But believe me there are no half-hearted allies of America today and no semi-detached partners in Europe. And the truth is that nothing we strive for, from the world trade talks to global warming, to terrorism and Palestine can be solved without America, or without Europe. At the moment I know people only see the price of these alliances. Give them up and the cost in terms of power, weight and influence for Britain would be infinitely greater. Distance this country and you may find it’s a long way back. So all these changes of a magnitude we never dreamt of, sweeping the world, are calling for answers of equal magnitude and vision. All require leadership.

And here is something else I’ve learnt. The danger for us today is not reversion to the politics of the 1980s. It is retreat to the sidelines. To the comfort zone. It is unconsciously to lose the psychology of a governing Party. As I said in 1994, courage is our friend. Caution, our enemy. A governing Party has confidence, self-belief. It sees the tough decision and thinks it should be taking it. Reaches for responsibility first. Serves by leading. The most common phrase uttered to me – and not at rallies or public events but in meetings of chance, quietly, is not “I hate you” or “I like you” but “I would not have your job for all the world”.

You know, when my two boys were canvassing in the last general election, they were going down the street, and my boy Nicky went and knocked on the door. Asked them to vote Labour. Guy gave him this absolute volley of abuse. You know, I hate that Tony Blair, he’s absolutely terrible, and all the rest of it. Usual stuff… ah, Some of it – it may be familiar to some of you, I don’t know! – And anyway, he got the earful – and he marched off.

And here’s brotherly love for you. He goes up to Euan, who’s canvassing a different part of the street, and he says, Euan, there’s a bloke over at number 14 who’s mad keen on Dad.’ But anyway, Euan, of course, he goes over and he knocks on the door, and the bloke sees there’s another guy here from the Labour Party, and gives him an even worse volley of abuse.

And he sees Euan looking a bit sort of fragile under it all, and he says, er,’What’s wrong then?’ And Euan says, ‘Actually I’m Euan Blair – it’s my dad.’ And the bloke says, ‘Look, I’m really sorry, son… come in and have a cuppa tea. I didn’t really mean all that.’ And that – that is what the British people are like… They are good people – they know. The thing about leadership is, they know it’s tough. The British people will, sometimes, forgive a wrong decision. They won’t forgive not deciding.

They know there isn’t some fantasy Government where nothing difficult ever happens. They’ve got the Lib Dems for that. Government isn’t about protests or placards, shouting the odds or stealing the scene. It’s about the hard graft of achievement. There are no third-term ever-popular Governments. Don’t ignore the polls but don’t be paralysed by them either. Ten years on, our advantage is time, and our disadvantage time. Time gives us experience. Our capacity to lead is greater. Time gives the people fatigue; their willingness to be led, is less. But they will lose faith in us only if first we lose faith in ourselves. And polls now are as relevant as last year’s weather forecast for tomorrow’s weather. It’s three years until an election. The first rule of politics: there are no rules. You make your own luck.

There’s no rule that says the Tories have got to come back. David Cameron’s Tories? My advice: get after them. His foreign policy: Pander to anti-Americanism by stepping back from America. Pander to the Eurosceptics through isolation in Europe. Sacrificing British influence for party expediency is not a policy worthy of a Prime Minister. His immigration policy: Says he’ll sort out illegal immigration, but opposes Identity Cards, the one thing essential to do it. His energy policy: Nuclear power “but only as a last resort”. Look – it’s not a multiple-choice quiz question, Mr Cameron. We need to decide now otherwise in 10 years time we will be importing expensive fossil fuels and Britain’s economy will suffer.

He wants tax cuts and more spending, with the same money. He wants a Bill of Rights for Britain drafted by a Committee of Lawyers. Have you ever tried drafting anything with a Committee of Lawyers? And of course, his policy for the old lady terrorised by the young thug is that she should put her arm round him and give him a nice, big hug. Built to last? They haven’t even laid the foundation stone. If we can’t take this lot apart in the next few years we shouldn’t be in the business of politics at all. The Tories haven’t thought it through. They think it’s all about image. Now, it’s true we changed our image. We created a professional organisation. But I’ll tell you something else that’s true. If I’d stood in 1997 on the policies of 1987 I would have lost. Period. And it’s the same now. Enough talk of hung Parliaments. The next election won’t be about image unless we let it be. It’ll be about who has the strength, judgement, weight and ideas for Britain’s future in an uncertain world. And if we show belief in ourselves, the British people will feel that belief and be given confidence. Something else I’ve learnt. It’s about a Party’s character. I’ll give you two examples. Dennis Skinner. Watching from his sick bed. Get well soon. Never agreed with a policy I’ve had. Never once stopped him knowing the difference between a Labour Government and a Tory one. People like Janet Anderson, George Howarth, Mike Hall. Good Ministers, but I asked them to make way. They did. Without a word of bitterness. They never forgot their principles when in office; and they never discovered them when they left office.

This is the Party I am proud to lead. From the day I was elected until the day I leave, they will always try to separate us. “He’s not Labour. ” “He’s a closet Tory. ” In the 1980s some things done were necessary for the country. That’s the truth. Saying it doesn’t make you a Tory. I’m a progressive. The true believer believes in social justice, in solidarity, in help for those not able to help themselves. They know the race can’t just be to the swift and survival for the strong. But they also know that these values, gentle and compassionate as they are, have to be applied in a harsh, uncompromising world and what makes the difference is not belief alone, but the raw courage to make it happen.

They say I hate the Party, and its traditions. I don’t. I love this Party. There’s only one tradition I hated: losing. I hated the 1980s not just for our irrelevance but for our revelling in irrelevance. And I don’t want to win for winning’s sake but for the sake of the millions here that depend on us to win, and throughout the world. Every day this Government has been in power, every day in Africa, children have lived who otherwise would have died because this country led the way in cancelling debt and global poverty. That’s why winning matters. So keep on winning. Do it with optimism. With hope in your hearts. Politics is not a chore. It’s the great adventure of progress. I don’t want to be the Labour Leader who won 3 successive elections. I want to be the first Labour Leader to win 3 successive elections.

So: it’s up to you. You take my advice. You don’t take it. Your choice. Whatever you do, I’m always with you. Head and heart. You’ve given me all I have ever achieved, and all that we’ve achieved, together, for the country. Next year I won’t be making this speech. But, in the years to come, wherever I am, whatever I do. I’m with you. Wishing you well. Wanting you to win. You’re the future now. Make the most of it.

The videos for the other parts of this speech can be seen here:

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4

Barack Obama: The Audacity of Hope: 1994 Democratic Party Convention

Posts Tagged Barack Obama Barack Obama gave this speech in 2004 when he was a candidate for the Senate in Illinois, four years before he entered the White House as president.

The transcript can be found at the AmericanRhetoric.com website.

[wp-video-floater]

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Dick Durbin. You make us all proud.

On behalf of the great state of Illinois, crossroads of a nation, Land of Lincoln, let me express my deepest gratitude for the privilege of addressing this convention.

Tonight is a particular honor for me because, let’s face it, my presence on this stage is pretty unlikely. My father was a foreign student, born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father — my grandfather — was a cook, a domestic servant to the British.

But my grandfather had larger dreams for his son. Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place, America, that shone as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before.

While studying here, my father met my mother. She was born in a town on the other side of the world, in Kansas. Her father worked on oil rigs and farms through most of the Depression. The day after Pearl Harbor my grandfather signed up for duty; joined Patton’s army, marched across Europe. Back home, my grandmother raised a baby and went to work on a bomber assembly line. After the war, they studied on the G.I. Bill, bought a house through F.H.A., and later moved west all the way to Hawaii in search of opportunity.

And they, too, had big dreams for their daughter. A common dream, born of two continents.

My parents shared not only an improbable love, they shared an abiding faith in the possibilities of this nation. They would give me an African name, Barack, or ”blessed,” believing that in a tolerant America your name is no barrier to success. They imagined — They imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren’t rich, because in a generous America you don’t have to be rich to achieve your potential.

They’re both passed away now. And yet, I know that on this night they look down on me with great pride.

They stand here — And I stand here today, grateful for the diversity of my heritage, aware that my parents’ dreams live on in my two precious daughters. I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on earth, is my story even possible.

Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our Nation — not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That is the true genius of America, a faith — a faith in simple dreams, an insistence on small miracles; that we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm; that we can say what we think, write what we think, without hearing a sudden knock on the door; that we can have an idea and start our own business without paying a bribe; that we can participate in the political process without fear of retribution, and that our votes will be counted — at least most of the time.

This year, in this election we are called to reaffirm our values and our commitments, to hold them against a hard reality and see how we’re measuring up to the legacy of our forbearers and the promise of future generations.

And fellow Americans, Democrats, Republicans, Independents, I say to you tonight: We have more work to do — more work to do for the workers I met in Galesburg, Illinois, who are losing their union jobs at the Maytag plant that’s moving to Mexico, and now are having to compete with their own children for jobs that pay seven bucks an hour; more to do for the father that I met who was losing his job and choking back the tears, wondering how he would pay 4500 dollars a month for the drugs his son needs without the health benefits that he counted on; more to do for the young woman in East St. Louis, and thousands more like her, who has the grades, has the drive, has the will, but doesn’t have the money to go to college.

Now, don’t get me wrong. The people I meet — in small towns and big cities, in diners and office parks — they don’t expect government to solve all their problems. They know they have to work hard to get ahead, and they want to. Go into the collar counties around Chicago, and people will tell you they don’t want their tax money wasted, by a welfare agency or by the Pentagon. Go in — Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can’t teach our kids to learn; they know that parents have to teach, that children can’t achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white. They know those things.

People don’t expect — People don’t expect government to solve all their problems. But they sense, deep in their bones, that with just a slight change in priorities, we can make sure that every child in America has a decent shot at life, and that the doors of opportunity remain open to all.

They know we can do better. And they want that choice.

In this election, we offer that choice. Our Party has chosen a man to lead us who embodies the best this country has to offer. And that man is John Kerry.

John Kerry understands the ideals of community, faith, and service because they’ve defined his life. From his heroic service to Vietnam, to his years as a prosecutor and lieutenant governor, through two decades in the United States Senate, he’s devoted himself to this country. Again and again, we’ve seen him make tough choices when easier ones were available.

His values and his record affirm what is best in us. John Kerry believes in an America where hard work is rewarded; so instead of offering tax breaks to companies shipping jobs overseas, he offers them to companies creating jobs here at home.

John Kerry believes in an America where all Americans can afford the same health coverage our politicians in Washington have for themselves.

John Kerry believes in energy independence, so we aren’t held hostage to the profits of oil companies, or the sabotage of foreign oil fields.

John Kerry believes in the Constitutional freedoms that have made our country the envy of the world, and he will never sacrifice our basic liberties, nor use faith as a wedge to divide us.

And John Kerry believes that in a dangerous world war must be an option sometimes, but it should never be the first option.

You know, a while back — awhile back I met a young man named Shamus in a V.F.W. Hall in East Moline, Illinois. He was a good-looking kid — six two, six three, clear eyed, with an easy smile. He told me he’d joined the Marines and was heading to Iraq the following week. And as I listened to him explain why he’d enlisted, the absolute faith he had in our country and its leaders, his devotion to duty and service, I thought this young man was all that any of us might ever hope for in a child.

But then I asked myself, “Are we serving Shamus as well as he is serving us?”

I thought of the 900 men and women — sons and daughters, husbands and wives, friends and neighbors, who won’t be returning to their own hometowns. I thought of the families I’ve met who were struggling to get by without a loved one’s full income, or whose loved ones had returned with a limb missing or nerves shattered, but still lacked long-term health benefits because they were Reservists.

When we send our young men and women into harm’s way, we have a solemn obligation not to fudge the numbers or shade the truth about why they’re going, to care for their families while they’re gone, to tend to the soldiers upon their return, and to never ever go to war without enough troops to win the war, secure the peace, and earn the respect of the world.

Now — Now let me be clear. Let me be clear. We have real enemies in the world. These enemies must be found. They must be pursued. And they must be defeated. John Kerry knows this. And just as Lieutenant Kerry did not hesitate to risk his life to protect the men who served with him in Vietnam, President Kerry will not hesitate one moment to use our military might to keep America safe and secure.

John Kerry believes in America. And he knows that it’s not enough for just some of us to prosper — for alongside our famous individualism, there’s another ingredient in the American saga, a belief that we’re all connected as one people. If there is a child on the south side of Chicago who can’t read, that matters to me, even if it’s not my child. If there is a senior citizen somewhere who can’t pay for their prescription drugs, and having to choose between medicine and the rent, that makes my life poorer, even if it’s not my grandparent. If there’s an Arab American family being rounded up without benefit of an attorney or due process, that threatens my civil liberties.

It is that fundamental belief — It is that fundamental belief: I am my brother’s keeper. I am my sister’s keeper that makes this country work. It’s what allows us to pursue our individual dreams and yet still come together as one American family.

E pluribus unum: “Out of many, one.”

Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us — the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of “anything goes.” Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.

The pundits, the pundits like to slice-and-dice our country into Red States and Blue States; Red States for Republicans, Blue States for Democrats. But I’ve got news for them, too. We worship an “awesome God” in the Blue States, and we don’t like federal agents poking around in our libraries in the Red States. We coach Little League in the Blue States and yes, we’ve got some gay friends in the Red States. There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. We are one people, all of us pledging allegiance to the stars and stripes, all of us defending the United States of America.

In the end — In the end — In the end, that’s what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or do we participate in a politics of hope?

John Kerry calls on us to hope. John Edwards calls on us to hope.

I’m not talking about blind optimism here — the almost willful ignorance that thinks unemployment will go away if we just don’t think about it, or the health care crisis will solve itself if we just ignore it. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about something more substantial. It’s the hope of slaves sitting around a fire singing freedom songs; the hope of immigrants setting out for distant shores; the hope of a young naval lieutenant bravely patrolling the Mekong Delta; the hope of a millworker’s son who dares to defy the odds; the hope of a skinny kid with a funny name who believes that America has a place for him, too.

Hope — Hope in the face of difficulty. Hope in the face of uncertainty. The audacity of hope!

In the end, that is God’s greatest gift to us, the bedrock of this nation. A belief in things not seen. A belief that there are better days ahead.

I believe that we can give our middle class relief and provide working families with a road to opportunity.

I believe we can provide jobs to the jobless, homes to the homeless, and reclaim young people in cities across America from violence and despair.

I believe that we have a righteous wind at our backs and that as we stand on the crossroads of history, we can make the right choices, and meet the challenges that face us.

America! Tonight, if you feel the same energy that I do, if you feel the same urgency that I do, if you feel the same passion that I do, if you feel the same hopefulness that I do — if we do what we must do, then I have no doubt that all across the country, from Florida to Oregon, from Washington to Maine, the people will rise up in November, and John Kerry will be sworn in as President, and John Edwards will be sworn in as Vice President, and this country will reclaim its promise, and out of this long political darkness a brighter day will come.

Thank you very much everybody. God bless you. Thank you.

Barack Obama: “Yes, we can!” New Hampshire, 2008

Barack Obama spoke after the New Hampshire primary in which he lost to Hilary Clinton. Despite this, he went on to win the Democratic party nomination and the presidential election.

Thank you, New Hampshire!
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, guys. Thank you so much. Ah thank you. Thank you, New Hampshire!
I love you back!

Thank you. Thank you. Wow, thank you so much. I am still fired up and ready to go. Thank you. Thank you. Well, first of all, I want to congratulate Senator Clinton on a hard-fought victory here in New Hampshire.

A few weeks ago, no one imagined that we’d have accomplished what we did here tonight. For most of this campaign, we were far behind, and we always knew our climb would be steep.

But in record numbers, you came out and spoke up for change. And with your voices and your votes, you made it clear that at this moment – in this election – there is something happening in America.

There is something happening when men and women in Des Moines and Davenport; in Lebanon and Concord come out in the snows of January to wait in lines that stretch block after block because they believe in what this country can be.

There is something happening when Americans who are young in age and in spirit – who have never before participated in politics – turn out in numbers we’ve never seen because they know in their hearts that this time must be different.

There is something happening when people vote not just for the party they belong to but the hopes they hold in common – that whether we are rich or poor; black or white; Latino or Asian; whether we hail from Iowa or New Hampshire, Nevada or South Carolina, we are ready to take this country in a fundamentally new direction. That is what’s happening in America right now. Change is what’s happening in America.

You can be the new majority who can lead this nation out of a long political darkness – Democrats, Independents and Republicans who are tired of the division and distraction that has clouded Washington; who know that we can disagree without being disagreeable; who understand that if we mobilize our voices to challenge the money and influence that’s stood in our way and challenge ourselves to reach for something better, there’s no problem we can’t solve – no destiny we cannot fulfill.

Our new American majority can end the outrage of unaffordable, unavailable health care in our time. We can bring doctors and patients; workers and businesses, Democrats and Republicans together; and we can tell the drug and insurance industry that while they’ll get a seat at the table, they don’t get to buy every chair. Not this time. Not now.

Our new majority can end the tax breaks for corporations that ship our jobs overseas and put a middle-class tax cut into the pockets of the working Americans who deserve it.

We can stop sending our children to schools with corridors of shame and start putting them on a pathway to success. We can stop talking about how great teachers are and start rewarding them for their greatness. We can do this with our new majority.

We can harness the ingenuity of farmers and scientists; citizens and entrepreneurs to free this nation from the tyranny of oil and save our planet from a point of no return.

And when I am President, we will end this war in Iraq and bring our troops home; we will finish the job against al Qaeda in Afghanistan; we will care for our veterans; we will restore our moral standing in the world; and we will never use 9/11 as a way to scare up votes, because it is not a tactic to win an election, it is a challenge that should unite America and the world against the common threats of the twenty-first century: terrorism and nuclear weapons; climate change and poverty; genocide and disease.

All of the candidates in this race share these goals. All have good ideas. And all are patriots who serve this country honorably.

But the reason our campaign has always been different is because it’s not just about what I will do as President, it’s also about what you, the people who love this country, can do to change it.

That’s why tonight belongs to you. It belongs to the organizers and the volunteers and the staff who believed in our improbable journey and rallied so many others to join.

We know the battle ahead will be long, but always remember that no matter what obstacles stand in our way, nothing can withstand the power of millions of voices calling for change.

We have been told we cannot do this by a chorus of cynics who will only grow louder and more dissonant in the weeks to come. We’ve been asked to pause for a reality check. We’ve been warned against offering the people of this nation false hope.

But in the unlikely story that is America, there has never been anything false about hope. For when we have faced down impossible odds; when we’ve been told that we’re not ready, or that we shouldn’t try, or that we can’t, generations of Americans have responded with a simple creed that sums up the spirit of a people.

Yes we can.

It was a creed written into the founding documents that declared the destiny of a nation.

Yes we can.

It was whispered by slaves and abolitionists as they blazed a trail toward freedom through the darkest of nights.

Yes we can.

It was sung by immigrants as they struck out from distant shores and pioneers who pushed westward against an unforgiving wilderness.

Yes we can.

It was the call of workers who organized; women who reached for the ballot; a President who chose the moon as our new frontier; and a King who took us to the mountaintop and pointed the way to the Promised Land.

Yes we can to justice and equality. Yes we can to opportunity and prosperity. Yes we can heal this nation. Yes we can repair this world. Yes we can.

And so tomorrow, as we take this campaign South and West; as we learn that the struggles of the textile worker in Spartanburg are not so different than the plight of the dishwasher in Las Vegas; that the hopes of the little girl who goes to a crumbling school in Dillon are the same as the dreams of the boy who learns on the streets of LA; we will remember that there is something happening in America; that we are not as divided as our politics suggests; that we are one people; we are one nation; and together, we will begin the next great chapter in America’s story with three words that will ring from coast to coast; from sea to shining sea – Yes. We. Can.

Jawaharlal Nehru: “India will awake” 1947

Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, gave this speech a few hours before Independence at midnight on August 15, 1947.

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.

At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to India and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.

Video ends here.

At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her successes and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again.

The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?

Freedom and power bring responsibility. That responsibility rests upon this assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India. Before the birth of freedom we have endured all the pains of labour and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow. Some of those pains continue even now.

Nevertheless, the past is over and it is the future that beckons to us now.

That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we might fulfill the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us but so long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.

And so we have to labor and to work, and work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagines that it can live apart. Peace has been said to be indivisible, so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this one world that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.

To the people of India whose representatives we are, we make appeal to join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure. This is no time for petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill-will or blaming others. We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.

The appointed day has come -the day appointed by destiny- and India stands forth again, after long slumber and struggle, awake, vital, free and independent. The past clings on to us still in some measure and we have to do much before we redeem the pledges we have so often taken. Yet the turning-point is past, and history begins anew for us, the history which we shall live and act and others will write about.

It is a fateful moment for us in India, for all Asia and for the world. A new star rises, the star of freedom in the East, a new hope comes into being, a vision long cherished materializes. May the star never set and that hope never be betrayed! We rejoice in that freedom, even though clouds surround us, and many of our people are sorrow-stricken and difficult problems encompass us. But freedom brings responsibilities and burdens and we have to face them in the spirit of a free and disciplined people.

On this day our first thoughts go to the architect of this freedom, the Father of our Nation, who, embodying the old spirit of India, held aloft the torch of freedom and lighted up the darkness that surrounded us. We have often been unworthy followers of his and have strayed from his message, but not only we but succeeding generations will remember this message and bear the imprint in their hearts of this great son of India, magnificent in his faith and strength and courage and humility. We shall never allow that torch of freedom to be blown out, however high the wind or stormy the tempest.

Our next thoughts must be of the unknown volunteers and soldiers of freedom who, without praise or reward, have served India even unto death. We think also of our brothers and sisters who have been cut off from us by political boundaries and who unhappily cannot share at present in the freedom that has come. They are of us and will remain of us whatever may happen, and we shall be sharers in their good [or] ill fortune alike. The future beckons to us. Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour? To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman. We have hard work ahead. There is no resting for any one of us till we redeem our pledge in full, till we make all the people of India what destiny intended them to be.

We are citizens of a great country on the verge of bold advance, and we have to live up to that high standard. All of us, to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India with equal rights, privileges and obligations. We cannot encourage communalism or narrow-mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought or in action. To the nations and peoples of the world we send greetings and pledge ourselves to cooperate with them in furthering peace, freedom and democracy. And to India, our much-loved motherland, the ancient, the eternal and the ever-new, we pay our reverent homage and we bind ourselves afresh to her service, JAI HIND.