Labour delegates hear a powerful statement of their leader's values
Mr Blair put Britain on election footing last night. He challenged his party and electorate to make "destiny choices" and spelt out a "massive programme" for a second Labour term.
Signalling his government's determination to defuse the growing revolt over pensions and continuing criticism over the Millennium Dome, a newly-contrite Prime Minister said bluntly: "We get the message."
There were things they had done wrong and which made people angry, he said: "And we should be open enough to admit it." But referring to the recent fuel crisis, he said the real world was "full of competing causes".
And he trailed this morning's announcement of plans to increase the number of cancer specialists by almost one-third over the next six years, and for government to match charity funding for cancer research pound for pound for the first time by 2003.
Mr Blair promised a continuing "journey of renewal" based on Labour's "enduring values" on health, education and opportunity for all. And he electrified the Labour conference here in Brighton, departing from his prepared text to deliver a powerful statement of his own "irreducible core" values on issues of race, asylum, nationalism and Europe.
Setting the scene for an intensely personal battle ahead with the Conservative leader, Mr William Hague, the Prime Minister told the conference: "If in order to get a vote I've got to go out and tell people Europe is full of terrible foreigners, and stick two fingers up to them, I won't do it."
While he acknowledged the difficulties presented by the asylum question, he continued: "If people want to me to exploit it for reasons of race . . . then vote for the other man because I will not do it."
Mr Blair rejected charges of arrogance, insisting: "It's not an arrogant government that chooses priorities, it's an irresponsible government that fails to choose." To be in government was to decide, he said.
"And would it ever be right to choose a priority simply on the basis of a fuel blockade? What of those who can't protest; whose voice isn't supported by the media; who go neglected unless we speak for them?" he demanded, to warm applause.
As he warmed to his theme of "big choices" facing Britain - between confidence or cynicism, "leadership and engagement in the world or weakness and sour isolation" - Mr Blair delighted delegates when he declared his personal ambition: "I want to be the first prime minister in 40 years to stand up and say, `Britain is back at full employment.' "
Acknowledging the opinion polls and the recent collapse in Labour's once commanding lead, Mr Blair told his party: "We are in for a fight and it's a fight I relish. For it is a fight for the future, the heart and soul of our country.
"A fight for fairness. A fight for jobs. A fight for our schools. A fight for our hospitals. A fight for a new vision in which the old conflict between prosperity and social justice is finally banished to the history books."
Mr Blair again affirmed that he believed Britain should join the euro "if the economics are right", attacked "Tory dogma" and insisted it was right to keep open the British option.
He again called for "zero tolerance" of "the yob culture", saying it was time to increase police powers to impose curfews and to issue fixed-penalty fines.
At the centre of the coming education, health and crime debate, Mr Blair placed the claimed Tory commitment to £16 billion cuts in Labour's investment in public services, promising: "In every constituency, in every part of this country, we will force every Tory candidate to say where the cuts will fall."
Having rehearsed Labour's achievements in the first term, Mr Blair spelt out his vision for a second: "A 10-year plan for a modern NHS. The transformation of secondary education. A cradle to the grave poverty strategy. A plan to harness new technology to spread prosperity to all. A plan to make our streets safe and our society strong. A 10-year plan for modern transport. The next steps to full employment."
This was a plan worth fighting for, he said: "A second term more radical than the first. A quickening of the pace of reform. The next steps on our journey, all based on our enduring mission, to offer everyone, not just the privileged few, the chance to succeed."