Blair: 'At our best when at our boldest'

Prime Minister Tony Blair today told his party that ministers had not been "bold enough" in reforming public services.

He told Labour's conference in Blackpool: "We are at a crossroads. party, government, country. Do we take modest, though important, steps of improvement? Or do we make the great push forward for transformation.?"

The Prime Minister told delegates: "I believe we're at our best when at our boldest. So far, we've made a good start but we've not been bold enough."

Mr Blair spoke passionately of the need for reform in schools and hospitals – without making clear the precise nature of the changes he has in mind.

He said: "We need reform. Reform is just a word, it has no meaning in itself. It's the purpose of it that matters.

"I will tell you why I am passionate about reform, because poor public services and welfare are usually for the poorest."

He said the better–off could buy a better education or move "to a better area" or find a better job.

Mr Blair went on to praise the reforming liberal government of 1906 and Labour's post–war 1945 administration but went on: "Today it's not enough. Not morally, not economically where we need every last drop of potential to be fulfilled, if Britain is to succeed."

On education, Mr Blair said: "We need to move to the post–comprehensive era, where schools keep the comprehensive principle of equality of opportunity but where we open up the system to new and different ways of education, built round the needs of the individual child."

On the health service the Prime Minister went on: "We need an NHS true to the principle of care on the basis of need, not ability to pay, but personalised – built around the individual patient."

Mr Blair promised that his public service reform programme would be seen through despite opposition from trades unions, saying: "Now is the time to quicken the march of progress, not mark time.

"What started with the renewal of the Labour Party only ends with the renewal of Britain...this is not the time to abandon our journey of modernisation but to see it through," he said.