Gordon Brown joined Angela Rayner in calling for one last vote, promising that the next Labour government would “do even better” than the New Labour government of 20 years ago.
Labour’s last prime minister said “the best is yet to come”. Just four days before the polls opened, Britain’s last Labour prime minister met with his deputy leader in Kirkcaldy, the Fife town where Brown grew up. They spoke to The Post at St Bryce’s Church, where Brown’s late father was vicar.
Mr Brown urged voters to seize the chance to elect a “life-changing government” this Thursday. He said: “We need to persuade people who read the Sunday and wonder whether it’s worth voting. There are some football games coming up and we’ve got to persuade them.”
“This election is life-changing. This choice can be life-changing. And voting really does matter.” Labour governments have changed things in the past but I think the changes coming could be a Labour government that makes a huge difference for the rest of this century.”
He added: “If there is a Labour government – and obviously it’s an if because nobody is happy – I am convinced that the coming Labour government can make even better changes than we had 20 years ago.”
Ms Rayner, Labour’s deputy leader, said: “People often say to me: ‘Well, Angie, the Gordon Brown government was criticised for this’ or ‘Tony Blair’s government was criticised for this’ but they are the ones that changed my life,” she added. If you want change, if you want to see a Labour government that can change your life as the last one did for me, you have to vote for it. “
Mr Brown, who has campaigned tirelessly to end child poverty since leaving government, praised the Labour manifesto as a solid foundation to build on. During his 13 years as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Chancellor, Mr Brown’s New Labour policies have lifted millions of children out of poverty –
and countless families have been supported by the minimum wage, tax credits and Sure Start centres for parents. “I think the manifesto points the way forward. We’ve got breakfast clubs, we’ve got to help look after kids because tooth decay is a big problem.” They’re reviewing Universal Credit and some elements of it are very inadequate and need to be reviewed.”
He added: “There’s clearly a range of initiatives to improve things initially and then build on that over time. The economy is growing and this Government will change lives. And Angela, who has seen the changes at the start of this century, is going to be the person who’s making the changes.”
Mr Brown and Ms Rayner have known each other for decades. They first met at the 2005 Labour party conference and again in 2007 when Mr Rainer visited Downing Street as a Labour official – it was his only visit to No 10 Downing Street.
“I’m very excited to have Angela as a minister,” Mr Brown said. “Angela was one of the people we had in mind when we thought about tax cuts. She wanted to work and she had childcare responsibilities. Is it even worth having a job for a while? Can you keep working while looking after your kids and everything else?”
The policy, which tops up low wages to encourage people to get off benefits and get into work, has had a “game-changing” effect, Ms Rayner said. “Not just for me, but for a lot of mothers in my community, it’s enabled us to go to work. It’s given us a sense of self-worth and it’s really hard to put into words. It gave us young mothers the confidence that we could go out and earn our own money without having to rely on a man or anyone else… If it had been Gordon I wouldn’t be sitting here in front of you today he wouldn’t have done the things he did in Government.”
Ms Rayner said countless families had been involved with Sure Start, a network of family support centres set up by New Labour and closed under the Conservatives. “My mum was one of 12. She wasn’t, because she was bipolar.” Her mother didn’t teach her how to be a mother and didn’t know how to take care of me.
“It’s not that she was a bad mother, she just didn’t know how to take care of me. When my son was born, I… subconsciously… loved him and wanted to give him everything… but I wasn’t giving him love and emotional support. And it wasn’t until I went to the Sure Start program and took parenting classes that I realized I was neglecting this important part of parenting because I didn’t know. My mother didn’t know.” Her mother didn’t know.”
She smiled as she told us how she passed this support on to her son and granddaughter. “When I see my son with my granddaughter, it brings a smile to my face,” she told us. “Because I had to learn how to hug. It wasn’t natural for me. How can money ever make up for that?”
Ms Rayner will follow in Mr Brown’s footsteps and deliver a British citizen speech in London tomorrow on the eve of the election. Mr Brown blew down the doors of Westminster’s Methodist Central Hall on the eve of one of the most memorable moments of the 2010 election campaign, but it wasn’t enough to ensure Labour’s victory.
“When you put it like that… it adds a lot of pressure,” Ms Rayner laughed. She said she took inspiration from the former prime minister before her speech. “Angela will speak from her heart,” he said. Ms Rayner said: “Of course I asked Gordon for tips because his speech at Citizens UK was absolutely brilliant – that’s why you’re under so much pressure – a TV debate or whatever is nothing compared to attacking Gordon Brown.”
“I think Gordon’s advice is right and, to be honest, that’s what I’ve always tried to do and people know I’ve always said it the way I think. “And speak from the heart,” Brown said. “And tell them what you’re going to do, because people want to know what you’re going to do.
And there’s a lot in the manifesto that says, ‘We can do this, we can do that, we can do that.’ You might not be able to do it on day one, but you might be able to do it in 100 days, or maybe in year one. Angela has shown great courage and skill to get us here, but the best is yet to come.”