Conservative Party Conference: George Osborne speech

Conservative Party Conference: George Osborne speech; Last week Tony Blair spoke to his Conference about the Google generation / Well, this week the Google generation got the guy who runs the company to come and speak to us / Thank you, Eric, for flying half way round the world to give us your extraordinary vision of the future / And this is my chance too to thank my superb Treasury team for all their hard work /Theresa Villiers, Mark Francois, Mark Hoban, Paul Goodman and Andrew Selous / Together, each month, we face Gordon Brown and his Ministers across the Dispatch Box, let me say it's a job we all find more fun now we've discovered that Ed Balls was once a member of the Conservative Party / It's true, Don't worry, Ed, we won't tell anyone / We're as embarrassed about it as you are / Today's debate has touched on issues that we haven't always talked about at our Conferences, but issues which affect every family in the country / I know that there may be a few who think childcare is something to be discussed in mothers' groups not on conference floors / Or that equal pay for women should not get an equal billing / Well we in this hall think they're wrong / These issues go to the heart of what it means to be a civilised society / And we have Conservative answers / Childcare help that isn't dictated to parents, but supports the choices parents make for themselves / Extended flexible working in the fight for equal pay and a better family life / For we know it is the family, not the state, that brings up our children, and forms the building blocks of our communities / These issues matter because the family matters / Let us resolve this: never again will we abandon this crucial battleground to our political opponents / For the left always responds in the same clumsy and ineffective way: regulate, dictate, ban, control, tell people how to live their lives. It is so old-fashioned / So out of touch with our times. It is so, how can I put it, Gordon Brown / Let me ...