So, I have come back here, Sedgefield, to my constituency, where my journey began and where it is that it should end.
Today I announce decision to stand down from the of the Labour Party. The Party now select a new Leader. On June I will tender my resignation the office of Prime Minister to Queen.
I have been Prime Minister this country for just over 10 . In this job, in the world today, that is long enough, for but more especially for the . And sometimes the only way you conquer pull of power is to set down.
It is difficult in a to make this speech today. There a judgment to be made on premiership. And in the end that , for you, the people to make.
can only describe what I think been done over these last 10 and perhaps more important why I to do it.
I have never put it like this before.
I born almost a decade after the World War. I was a young in the social revolution of the and 70s. I reached political maturity the Cold War was ending, and world was going through a political, and technological revolution.
I looked at own country.
A great country.
Wonderful .
Magnificent traditions.
Proud of its past.
strangely uncertain of its future. Uncertain the future. Almost old-fashioned.
All of was curiously symbolized in the politics the time.
You had choices. You for individual aspiration and getting on life or social compassion and helping .
You were liberal in your values conservative.
You believed in the power the State or the efforts of individual. Spending more money on the realm was the answer or it the problem.
And none of it sense to me. It was 20th ideology in a world approaching a millennium. Of course people want the for themselves and their families but an age where human capital is nation's greatest asset, they also know is just and sensible to extend , to develop the potential to succeed, all not an elite at the .
People are today open-minded about race sexuality, averse to prejudice and yet and rightly conservative with a small '' when it comes to good manners, for others, treating people courteously.
They the need for the state and responsibility of the individual.
And they spending money on our public services and that it is not enough. they are run and organized matters .
So 1997 was a moment for new beginning, the sweeping away of the detritus of the past.
Expectations so high. Too high, probably. Too in a way for either of .
Now in 2007, you can easily to the challenges, the things that wrong, the grievances that fester.
But back to 1997. Think back. No, , think back. Think about your own standards then in May 1997 and .
Visit your local school, any of round here, or anywhere in modern .
Ask when you last had to a year or more on a waiting list, or heard of pensioners to death in the winter unable heat their homes.
There is only Government since 1945 that can say of the following:
More jobs
Fewer
Better health and education results
Lower
And economic growth in every quarter.
one government - this one.
But don't need statistics. There is something than what can be measured in lists or GSCE results or the crime or jobs figures.
Look at economy. At ease with globalization. London world's financial centre. Visit our great and compare them with 10 years .
No country attracts overseas investment like do.
Think about the culture of in the year 2007. I don't mean our arts that are thriving. mean our values. The minimum wage. holidays as a right. Amongst the maternity pay and leave today in . Equality for gay people.
Or look the debates that reverberate round the today. The global movement to support in its struggle against poverty. Climate . The fight against terrorism. Britain is a follower today. Britain is a . It gets the essential characteristic of 's world: its interdependence.
This is a today that for all its faults, all the myriad of unresolved problems fresh challenges, its is a country in the 21st Century.
At home its own skin, able not just be just proud of its past confident of its future.
I don't Northern Ireland would have been changed Britain had changed. Or the Olympics if we were still the Britain 1997.
As for my own leadership, these 10 years, where the predictable competed with the utterly unpredicted, right the outset one thing was clear me.
Without the Labour Party allowing to lead it, nothing could ever been done. But I also knew duty was to put the country . That much was obvious to me just under 13 years ago I Labour's Leader.
What I had to , however, as Prime Minister, was what the country first really meant.
Decision-making hard. Everyone always says: listen to people. The trouble is, as you , they don't always agree.
When you in Opposition, you meet this group they say why can't you do ? And you say: it's really a question. Thank you. And they go and say: it's great; he really .
And then you meet that other and they say: why can't you that? And you say: it's a good question. Thank you. And they away happy you listened.
In Government have to give the answer. Not answer, the answer.
And, in time, realise that putting the country first 't mean doing the right thing according conventional wisdom or the prevailing consensus the latest snapshot of opinion.
It doing what you genuinely believe to right.
Your duty as Prime Minister to act according to your conviction.
of that can get contorted so people think you act according to messianic zeal.
Doubt, hesitation, reflection, consideration re-consideration: these are all the good of proper decision-making.
But the ultimate is to decide.
Sometimes the decisions accepted quite quickly. Bank of England was one, which gave us our stability.
Sometimes, like tuition fees or to break up old monolithic public , the changes are deeply controversial, hellish to do, but you can see are moving with the grain of round the word.
Sometimes like with , where I believe Britain should keep position strong, you know you are opinion but you are content with so.
Sometimes, as with the completely , you are alone with your own .
In Sierra Leone and to stop cleansing in Kosovo, I took the to make our country one that , that did not pass by, or out of the thick of it.
came the utterly unanticipated and dramatic 11th 2001 and the death of ,000 or more on the streets of York.
I decided we should stand to shoulder with our oldest ally.
did so out of belief.
So and then Iraq.
The latter, bitterly .
Removing Saddam and his sons from , as with removing the Taliban, was with relative ease.
But the blowback , from global terrorism and those elements support it, has been fierce and and costly. For many, it simply 't and can't be worth it.
For , I think we must see it . They, the terrorists, who threaten us and round the world, will never up if we give up.
It a test of will and of . And we can't fail it.
So: things I knew I would be with.
Some I thought I might .
Some never occurred to me - to you - on that morning 2 May 1997 when I came Downing Street for the first time.
expectations not fulfilled in every part, sure.
Occasionally people say, as I earlier, the expectations were too high; should have lowered them.
But, to frank, I would not have wanted any other way. I was, and , as a person and as a Minister, an optimist. Politics may be art of the possible; but at in life, give the impossible a .
So of course the visions are in the colours of the rainbow; the reality is sketched in the tones of black, white and grey.
I ask you to accept one . Hand on heart, I did what thought was right.
I may have wrong. That's your call. But believe thing if nothing else. I did I thought was right for our .
I came into office with high for Britain's future. And, you know, leave it with even higher hopes Britain's future.
This is a country can, today, be excited by the , not constantly fretful of the dangers.
say to me: it's a tough .
Not really.
A tough life is life led by the young severely children and their parents who visited in Parliament the other week.
Tough the life my Dad had, his career cut short at the age 40 by a stroke.
Actually, I been very lucky and very blessed.
country is a blessed nation.
The are special.
The world knows it.
our innermost thoughts, we know it.
is the greatest nation on earth.
it has been an honour to it. I give my thanks to , the British people, for the times I have succeeded, and my apologies you for the times I have short.
Good luck.