From Gordon Brown's speech to the Labour Conference:
... and let me talk today about how we will do more to support the great British institutions that best define this country.
The first is the one I spoke about in detail on Sunday when I talked about the mission of our brave men and women in Afghanistan.
The heroism of our fighting men and women is unsurpassed and we owe them a debt we can never fully repay. And let us on behalf of the British people pay tribute to them and their courage today.
The British armed forces truly are the finest in the world. And let us say to them – all British forces will always have all the equipment they need and the best support we can give.
And conference let me say, Britain will work with President Obama and 40 other countries for peace and stability for the people of Afghanistan, and to make sure that terrorism doesn’t come to the streets of Britain.
From Harriet Harman's speech to the Labour Conference:
The lives of women today - and their hopes and ambitions are different from our mothers’. And that is the case
whether you are a girl school leaver in Scotland
or a young mother in Wales
whether you are one of the thousands of wives of our armed forces.
The wives of our servicemen have always held things together at home. And their task has become even more demanding with the men away fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan.
Just like every other woman, service wives want to, and need to, get training, get work, find childcare. But that’s hard if your family has to move regularly and if you are on a base miles away from your parents and in-laws. That’s why Bob Ainsworth, the Secretary of State for Defence, and I are working with ministers across government to make sure that as well as doing all we can to support our armed forces, We are helping our armed forces wives’ so they don’t lose out on new opportunities to get on in their work. Our navy, airforce and soldiers make a great sacrifice for our country and we back them up. Their wives, too, make an enormous personal sacrifice for this country and we will back them up too.
