After he had accepted to form a government on Wednesday, Britain’s 77th Prime Minister, Mr. Boris Johnson, gave his first speech in Downing Street.
The following are some nuggets from the speech:
1. On leadership: The British people have had enough of waiting. The time has come to act, to take decisions, to give strong leadership and to change this country for the better.
2. Electorate’s power: My job is to serve you, the people, because if there is one point we politicians need to remember, it is that the people are our bosses.
3. Security: My job is to make your streets safer – and we are going to begin with another 20,000 police on the streets and we start recruiting forthwith.
4. Healthcare delivery: My job is to make sure you don’t have to wait three weeks to see your GP, and we start work this week with 20 new hospital upgrades, and ensuring that money for the NHS really does get to the front line.
5. Pensioner care: My job is to protect you or your parents or grandparents from the fear of having to sell your home to pay for the costs of care; and so I am announcing now – on the steps of Downing Street – that we will fix the crisis in social care once and for all with a clear plan we have prepared to give every older person the dignity and security they deserve.
6. Quality education: My job is to make sure your kids get a superb education wherever they are in the country, and that’s why we have already announced that we are going to level up per pupil funding in primary and secondary schools and that is the work that begins immediately.
7. Personal responsibility: Though I am today building a great team of men and women, I will take personal responsibility for the change I want to see… The buck stops here.
8. National unity and inclusion: To be Prime Minister of the whole United Kingdom, and that means uniting our country, answering at last the plea of the forgotten people and the left behind towns by physically and literally renewing the ties that bind us together.
9. Living wage: We level up across Britain with higher wages, and a higher living wage, and higher productivity; we close the opportunity gap, giving millions of young people the chance to own their own homes.
10. Investor confidence: Giving business the confidence to invest across the UK because it is time we unleashed the productive power, not just of London and the South East, but of every corner of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
11. Rule of law: Everyone knows the values that flag represents. It stands for freedom and free speech and habeas corpus and the rule of law, and, above all, it stands for democracy.