INTERVIEWER: Now we're about to
hear from the leader of the
British Conservative Party and
an aspirant to be Prime
Minister of Britain, a
potential future Prime
Minister of Britain.
Indeed, he's able to be here
and join us today only because
a general election that was
expected to be called right now
by the sitting Prime Minister,
Gordon Brown, was not
called last moment.
And it was not called, in
part, in wake of some recent
political victories by Mr.
Cameron's Conservative Party.
I should also note that
two days ago, Mr. Cameron
turned 41 years old.
So you can have birthday
wishes for him in mind.
We're going to see a brief clip
of Mr. Cameron in action from
the Prime Minister's question
period in Parliament.
This was filmed
yesterday in London.
Mr. Cameron got on a plane
immediately after that, or
straightaway, as they would
say in England, and
came directly here.
So after this clip, we're going
to hear his thoughts on themes
directly related what we've
been discussing the last
day and a half here.
We're going to hear about
responsibility, leadership,
and the global citizen.
So watch these video.
When it's over, please join me
in applauding David Cameron
and we'll hear from him.
So first,
the video.
[VIDEO PLAYBACK]
--the Conservative Party ever
did about [? main streets. ?]
DAVID CAMERON: What we won't
forget, and what the British
people won't forget is that
he made a promise and
he's broken that promise.
So we have got a Prime Minister
who won't talk straight about
the election, who won't own up
on inheritance tax, and won't
keep his promises on
an EU referendum.
Never have the British
people been treated
with such cynicism.
CROWD: Hear hear.
DAVID CAMERON: Mr. Speaker, for
10 years he has plotted and
schemed to have this job.
And for what?
No conviction,
just calculation.
No vision, just a vacuum.
Last week he lost his
political authority.
This week he's losing
his moral authority.
How long are we going to have
to wait before the past
makes way for the future?
CROWD: Hear hear.
[END VIDEO PLAYBACK]
INTERVIEWER: Please
welcome David Cameron.
DAVID CAMERON: And you thought
we British were all so polite.
Thank you.
Last year, I had the great
pleasure of speaking to the
Google Zeitgeist conference
in Europe, and amazingly
you've asked me back again.
Now, I should start by
clearing a couple of
things out of the way.
And the first is that there is
a bit of a difference between,
today, being a conservative
in Britain and a
conservative in America.
There are lots of things we
share, some similarities-- a
suspicion of big government, a
belief in individual liberty.
But if I take two of those
issues beginning with G--
perhaps you'll know what I
mean-- on gun control, it was
actually a Conservative
government in Britain that
actually outlawed
most handguns.
And on the issue of gay
marriage, it's been a
Conservative party in Britain
that has actually backed
civil partnerships.
So there is a difference.
I'd like to think of the
Conservative Party in Britain
being socially progressive
but fiscally conservative.
Put another way, I like to
think that if Mike Bloomberg
lived in Britain, he
would be a member of
the Conservative Party.
This would certainly ease
my funding problems,
if nothing else.
Another issue where there
are some differences
is the environment.
Where in Britain it's actually
the Conservative Party under my
leadership that has made a lot
of the arguments about the need
to deal with global warming
and climate change.
Campaigning for tough limits on
carbon emissions, for green
taxes, for carbon trading.
And so when my wife said to me,
how are you going to explain to
an American audience what sort
of conservative you are?
I said, well darling, I would
just say, look at me, and think
of Arnold Schwarzenegger.
She said, I love you very
much, but I'm just not
sure that's going to work.
But what I really want to do--
one other thing to clear out of
the way-- is I'm no
new media expert.
But I do understand the
power of the internet.
I gave a speech at a school the
other day, and a young boy
rushed up to me and said, Mr.
Cameron, can I have
your autograph?
And I said, yeah, of course.
Do you collect them?
And he said, no, as soon
as you've gone, I'm going
to sell it on eBay.
But I should really start by
saying what a tremendous
honor it is to be
here with you today.
Because between you, you are
responsible for a large
portion of the wonders
of our modern world.
From the technology we use to
the products and services we
rely on to the innovations
that improve the quality of
billions of people's lives.
You create jobs, wealth, and
opportunity for our world.
And you should be proud of
the amazing things that
you achieve every day.
Perhaps the greatest
accomplishment of all this is
not something specific to any
of the individual organizations
represented here.
But something that is the
collective result of
all of your endeavors.
And that is the new world of
freedom that we live in today.
A world where people have
more power and control
over their lives.
A world where people's
horizons are broader.
And where their ambitions
are so much greater.
And a world where people
expect to make more and
more decisions themselves.
And right at the heart of
this new world of freedom
is freedom of information.
And I mean that in the
broadest sense of the term.
In recent years, technological
advance, supported by a liberal
regulatory regime, has
transformed the amount of
information available, the
number of people who can
actually get hold of it, and
the ease with which
they can do so.
As you've been debating at this
conference, sharing information
opens up tremendous
possibilities for individuals
and for business.
We can see it in the
astonishing explosion of
bottom-up content creation.
Whether it's the YouTube videos
uploaded every day, the 120,000
new blogs written every day,
bebo-- had to mention the
British somewhere there-- all
of these things reveal the vast
pent-up desire that people have
to express themselves
and take control.
We can see it in the way that
leading corporations, including
many of you here, are totally
changing the business models in
order to allow the
personalization of products and
services and the harnessing of
talent and ideas through both
formal and informal networks
that extend way beyond the
walls of the firm.
Now I didn't pretend to be
an expert in these matters.
But it seems to me plain and
clear that many of the things
doing so well are those that
allow people, frankly,
to do stuff.
To run their lives, to arrange
their music, to check
their healthcare.
And what I want to do today is
to give you my perspective on
what these changes could mean
for politics and
for government.
For our sense of citizenship,
both local and global.
And for the responsibilities
of politicians.
But most of all, I want to
explain what I believe these
changes can do for the thing
the I care about most, and
that is the politics
of responsibility.
Because I believe that today,
we're on the brink of an
entirely new era in public
policy-- what I call the
post-bureaucratic era.
And to understand the scale and
the nature of the change we
need, I'm going to take you
back for a minute or two to
what we might describe as
the pre-bureaucratic era.
A time when almost all
politics was local,
because it had to be.
When it took days or weeks to
get from one city to the next.
When news travelled
around the world not in
seconds, but in months.
In those days, over a century
ago, the idea of a central
government bureaucracy devising
and implementing policy that
would affect people's daily
lives simply wouldn't work.
The only things that the state
could do were the things that
the state could actually
physically do.
Like war and peace,
treaties, the money supply,
weights and measures.
Everything else was local.
But all that changed with the
bureaucratic era which we've
been living with for the
past 100 years or more.
The intellectual father of the
bureaucratic era was the German
political theorist Max
Weber, writing at the
turn of the 20th century.
Weber described the shift from
the traditional culture, in
which authority was vested in
family and neighborhood-- to a
modern culture, in which
authority is invested in the
bureaucracy of the state.
This was enabled by better
communications and the
possibility of information
being collected and held
by public officials.
The bureaucratic era was
about faith in centralized
administration.
This was often motivated by
noble impulses-- the ironing
out of inequalities
and differences.
Promoting fairness
and progress.
Achieving value for money.
And as a result, these central
planners asserted a strong role
for the top-down central state.
Of course, this took its most
extreme and virulent form in
the Soviet Union, with its
crazed five year plans for
everything under the sun.
But western democracies
like ours were not exempt.
In Britain, as in the United
States, people were appalled by
the mass poverty of the 1930s.
And they saw, in the way that
the government had organized
the war effort so brilliantly,
they saw the scale of what the
state could achieve
in peacetime.
They felt that welfare and
healthcare and education could
successfully be arranged
in the same way as the
production of munitions.
This trend was brilliantly
exposed-- going right against
the culture of the time-- by
Friedrich Hayek in his seminal
book, The Road to Serfdom.
In that book, he argued the
logical consequence of the rise
of the central planner--
however well intentioned-- was
the loss of individual freedom.
And in many important ways,
that is what happened.
As the focus of power in this
bureaucratic era shifted away
from the personal and the local
to the distant official.
The distant official who kept
hold of the information and the
knowledge and more often than
not, just denied it to the
rest of the population.
In the United States, this
trend towards the
centralization of power was
always limited by
your Constitution.
And your commitment to local
governance it's something I
greatly admire and want us
in Britain to emulate.
But britain today is one of the
most centralized countries
in the democratic world.
I don't think many of you would
believe the degree to which a
minister in our national
government has incredible
top-down control of what
happens-- whether it's in
schools or in hospitals,
roads or public spaces.
And what's wrong with
that, you might ask?
What's wrong with well-meaning
public officials keeping hold
of information so they can
make wise decisions on
behalf of the people?
To me, and frankly to you,
probably the answer is simple.
It is all about responsibility.
I believe passionately that
social progress depends upon
social responsibility.
Parents bringing up their
kids with the right values.
Neighbors looking
out for each other.
Citizens treating each other--
and their surroundings--
with respect.
Corporations treating their
employees, their communities,
and their environment
with respect.
And governments recognizing
vitally, what is-- and what is
not-- their responsibility.
And I don't think
responsibility is something
you can impose on people.
I think it's within us all.
It's one of the things
that makes us human.
And the more you try to do
things for people, the less
responsible they become.
Indeed, if you think about it,
you can only behave responsibly
if you have responsibility
for something.
And that means having the
power to make a choice
about how you behave.
So as this bureaucratic era
marched ever-onward, with all
these well-meaning public
officials making top-down
decisions for people, with all
that information and knowledge
they kept to themselves, they
ended up taking power away from
people and making them
less responsible.
In the days before the
information revolution, you
could just about argue that you
had to trust the state because
it wasn't practical to share
that information, for people to
make choices and take control.
But thanks to all of you, that
simply isn't true anymore.
In commerce, in our culture,
you're helping to make the
top-down model history.
You've shown us the future
and it's bottom-up.
That is a wonderful thing for
someone like me who comes
from the center-right
tradition in politics.
Because we've always been
motivated by a strong and
instinctive skepticism about
the capacity of bureaucratic
systems to deliver progress.
Instead, we've always preferred
to place our trust in the
ingenuity of human beings.
Collaborating in often messy
and quite unplanned ways to
deliver the best outcomes
we want to see.
You might call it, the
wisdom of crowds.
Or, as Edmund Burke put it more
than 200 years ago, the
reciprocal struggle of
discordant powers will draw out
the harmony of the universe.
And that is the great
opportunity that
lies before us.
Because if we get things right,
we can I believe, now move
confidently into a new
post-bureaucratic era.
Where true freedom of
information makes possible a
new world of responsibility,
of citizenship, choice,
and local control.
You are leading the changes
in business and in society.
And we need a new generation of
political leadership to make
the same kind of changes in
government and in
public service.
Let me give you two examples,
the transparency of information
and the availability
of information.
In the United Kingdom, my party
is committed to transparency
in government spending.
The next Conservative
government will detail every
item of government spending
over 25,000 pounds-- that's
$50,000 at the current
exchange, I'm pleased to
say-- on a public website.
Now I know that over here, you
will soon be able to Google
your tax dollars thanks to the
federal funding transparency
and accountability act.
And by the way, I know that I
can expect a letter from the
Google lawyers saying I'm
not allowed to use
Google as a verb.
But I know Eric is much too
kind to do that to me.
But I don't just want
transparency to be about
greater accountability so
citizens can just become sort
of auditors of their
government, pressing for
efficiency and value for money.
Accountability should
just be the first step.
I also want transparency about
government spending to promote
greater responsibility so
citizens can take on a more
active role, deciding how their
money is actually spent.
In the bureaucratic era,
government simply tells you
what you need, spends your
money, and if you don't like
it, then you can vote for a
new government once
every few years.
In the post-bureaucratic era,
you shouldn't just be telling
government what you want.
You should be choosing what you
want and acting to get what you
want so your money is spent
on your priorities
all of the time.
We've drafted legislation in
the form of something called
the Sustainable Communities
Bill that enables just
such a transfer of power.
Not just giving people locally
the information about what
central government spends in
their area, but giving them the
power to challenge
that spending.
And change it to match their
priorities and putting
it to a local vote.
And this doesn't
just apply at home.
We should use information
imaginatively to promote
greater accountability and
responsibility in how
we spend money overseas
on international aid.
There are some who oppose
spending on aid to poor
countries in Africa and
elsewhere saying it's just
swallowed up in corruption
and it doesn't reach
those who really need it.
But in my view, corruption
shouldn't be used as an
excuse to stop this aid.
Instead, we've got to use the
aid to stop the corruption.
And let me tell you how.
In the post-bureaucratic era,
we should tell the public-- the
people in those countries that
receive our aid-- exactly how,
when, and where the money is
spent so they can then hold
their local politicians
to account.
Literally, this means
publishing, for example, the
amount that ought to go to each
school in an African country,
every year, so local people can
attack their government if that
money isn't delivered.
That is the power of
transparency leading
to accountability.
In that way, the people can
start to take responsibility
for their own future.
But I believe there's an even
more powerful way in which
we can use the freedom of
information to move decisively
into the post-bureaucratic era.
And that is by opening up the
data held by government in the
public sector so it can be used
to create new services for
public benefit and to
create real choice
and real competition.
Crime mapping is
a great example.
At one and the same time, these
crime maps that Google and
others produce, they enable you
to hold your police force to
account, they enable you to get
the government to spend money
in the right places, and
they also help you to
choose where to live.
In Britain, there is a vast
amount of information currently
held-- or sold-- by the public
sector that if made freely
available would unleash social
and commercial innovation.
Neighborhoods getting together
to commission local services.
Social entrepreneurs setting
up in competition to existing
public service providers.
And citizens being able to make
really informed choices about
the options that are
available to them.
We have, in my view, barely
begun to see the possibilities
of a truly bottom-up
approach to public policy.
And that's because the
political world has been
reluctant to grasp the scale of
the change that is happening.
If we want to make a reality of
this post-bureaucratic era, an
era only made possible by the
information revolution, it is
clear to me that political
leaders will have to learn,
frankly, to let go.
To let go of the information
that we've guarded
so jealously.
To let go of the power
we like to exert.
And above all, to let go of the
idea that somehow we know best.
That people can't be trusted
to run their own lives or
run their won communities.
They can.
But if there are lessons
for political leaders,
there a lesson too
for business leaders.
And it's about responsibility,
about corporate responsibility.
The argument for corporate
responsibility is often
made in terms of its
benefits to business.
That a corporation will have
a better reputation, a more
motivated workforce, and more
loyal customers if it
does the right thing.
And I'm sure that's true,
but it's not really my
job to make that case.
My job, I believe, is to make a
slightly different argument.
And it's this.
If we all share the vision of a
post-bureaucratic world, a
world in which business has the
freedom and the ability to
succeed in a low tax, low
regulation economy, we
politicians need your help.
If we want sustainably lower
taxes, sustainably lower
regulation, we need your help
in reducing the demand for
government spending and the
demand for regulation.
Where does that
demand come from?
It comes from the
costs of social and
environmental failure.
So we need your help to cut
those costs so we can make
that tax reduction and that
regulatory reduction
sustainable.
We cannot do it on our own.
We need your commitment,
creativity, and innovation
to tackle the challenges
that confront humanity.
Whether it's crime or climate
change, poverty or pollution,
family breakdown or
forest depletion.
We are all in this together.
And if we work together,
understand what our
responsibilities really are,
and embrace the opportunities
of the modern world, there is
quite simply no limit to
what we can achieve.
Let me finish by putting it
in a slightly different way.
More than 40 years ago, John F.
Kennedy said, ask not what
your country can do for you.
Ask what you can do
for your country.
It was an incredibly noble call
right then and right now.
But when he said it, people
didn't really have the
information to make choices--
the knowledge of what they
could choose, the power to
take control of their lives.
Today, because of the
information revolution, people
do have that knowledge.
They do have that information.
They do have that control
over their lives.
So we can actually make
that dream a reality.
But I believe it needs a
generation of politicians who
understand this information
revolution to make sure that
dream can become the reality
we all want to see.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
DAVID CAMERON: Now, we've got
a bit of time for questions
and points so, who
wants to kick off?
Sir, in the stripey shirt.
That will certainly go on the
internet, it's-- if you go to
webcameron.org.uk, quick
advert there, you can--
it will be up there.
We'll also maybe put it
up on YouTube as well,
just to be fair.
But I try to do quite a
lot of blogging myself.
Larry and Sergey very kindly
let me do a little blog from
inside the Google-plex.
Which I think will be very
interesting for British people
to see the scale of revolution
that's happening in
companies like this.
Sir, by the microphone.
AUDIENCE: That was very
interesting and I
enjoyed your talk.
I was curious what you thought
of the risks of giving people
responsibility particular when
you look at our country and the
appalling low participation we
have in voting, even for
presidential elections.
And how much of a-- what you
might do to address that-- and
how much of a risk you saw
to the policies you were
espousing this morning.
DAVID CAMERON: I think the
problem with low turnout, which
we have in Britain as well,
our turnout has gone
down to about 60%.
Which is still higher than
yours but really low compared
with-- we used to have turnout
of 70%, 80% regularly.
I think the reason it's
happening is people just don't
really believe that voting
makes much difference.
They don't actually believe
that politicians are
going to get things done.
The British socialist Tony Benn
once said, if voting changed
anything, then abolish it.
I don't often quote socialists
but I think maybe he's
on to something there.
I think that there is a real
opportunity if we can
understand what's happening in
the world of information,
what's happening in the
world of the internet.
Where people are getting
more power and control
over their lives.
If we can convince people about
real empowerment through
politics, then actually you can
have greater choice over
schooling and healthcare, a
greater ability to hold your
police force to account, a
greater ability to make a
difference on all sorts of
issues from the ones I
mentioned-- like climate change
and poverty in Africa, then
people will think, yes, this
can make a difference.
I will bother to vote.
Sadly, I've been starved of the
chance of an election because
as the introduction said, we
were-- I would be two days into
an election campaign, but
mysteriously, it
was called off.
So.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE___AUD
IENCE___QUESTION]
INTERVIEWER: I follow American
politics quite closely.
In recent weeks, Rudy
Giuliani's been
over in the U.K.
and I've-- I met him,
it was a great honor.
Fred Thompson has been
over and I met with him.
Last year at our party
conference, we had John McCain
who gave an excellent speech.
This year Arnold Schwarzenegger
gave a speech by video line.
We also had Mike Bloomberg.
It wouldn't be right for
me to offer advice.
I think it's going to be
a fascinating contest.
I think that-- what it's
difficult, I think, for the
Brits to understand is just
the length of the contest.
We're still some way away and
already, you know, this is--
I just don't know how
these people have the
stamina to carry on.
When I won the leadership of
the the British Conservative
Party, the whole contest
lasted for about, was
it, four to five months.
And the thing that American
politicians just literally
their jaws drop when I explain,
that we were limited to
spending 100,000 pounds--
$200,000-- that was the limit
on what you could spend to win
the leadership of the
Conservative Party.
And you look at the numbers
involved in American politics,
it blows our minds.
When I say, 100,000 pounds,
they'd probably spend that on
a lunch in Orange County.
So it's an extraordinary
difference.
So I'm sorry, I'm
dodging the question.
I'm not really
offering any advice.
I think you've got some
extremely talented politicians.
It's going to be great to
watch them fight it out.
I think the internet-- I was
very interested by the
conversation between Eric and
the CEO of TimeWarner about
how the internet is going
to affect elections.
But it's very dangerous
diplomatic territory to start
giving too much advice.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
DAVID CAMERON: Hold
on, the microphone.
AUDIENCE: European
conservativism has been beset
by nationalist movements in
a lot of countries.
And I'm wondering your view of
the rise of anti-immigration
parties, nationalist
parties, in Europe.
And whether this is compatible
with economic freedom.
DAVID CAMERON: It's a
very good question.
First on the center-right
parties in Europe.
If you look at the Christian
Democrats in Germany, or the
British Conservatives, or the
Partido Popular in Spain.
All of them have things in
common-- we're all parties of
free enterprise, of limited
government, of personal
responsibility.
But we're also parties
of the nation.
We also believe that is means
something to be British,
that we share values and
institutions and a history.
And the great thing about
conservatism-- I meant to say
this in my introduction but
forgot, so I can say
it now instead.
The great thing about
conservatism is it is different
in every country in the world.
Because conservatism, unlike
socialism, is not one
unifying ideology.
A socialist party in Spain is
pretty much the same as the
socialist party in Sweden.
They believe the
same core creed.
Conservative parties everywhere
are a little bit different.
I don't think that there isn't
a necessary conflict between
reasonable immigration control
and a free market economy.
I think that actually, it's
sensible to have some sorts
of limits and a reasonably
controlled approach
on immigration.
Because otherwise, some of the
other things that conservatives
believe can be put
under pressure.
Because conservative parties
are not just parties of free
markets and enterprise.
They're also parties
of social cohesion.
And strong society.
And I think it's very important
to recognize-- particularly in
a country like Britain-- that
we've benefited hugely
from immigration.
But immigration does
put pressure on public
services, education and
health, and housing.
And actually, unlimited
immigration, you know, can
cause problems in those areas.
So I think it's a balance of,
yes, we're the party of free
enterprise and markets.
But actually, some control on
immigration is important to
make sure we have a strong
and cohesive society
at the same time.
Sir.
I think you need to go
to the microphone.
AUDIENCE: While you were giving
your amazing speech yesterday,
there was a comment came up
here yesterday about terrorism
from within, specifically
with regard to the U.K.
and as it relates to the
point you were just
making about immigration.
Are there meaningful
differences between how
Conservative and Labor
are addressing that?
DAVID CAMERON: Not
huge differences, no.
Obviously, we've
suffered in the U.K.
just as you've suffered in
the U.S. We had the suicide
bombings on the London
Underground and buses on the
7th of July just as you-- I
mean, it was less loss
of life than 9/11.
And I'd say there's quite a
political consensus in Britain
that recognizes that this is
terrorism of a different
order-- we've had IRA terrorism
for years in Britain, but the
suicide bombs and the extent of
the threat from extremist
islamist terrorism, if I can
put it that way, is of
a different order.
We both accept that.
We've both accepted changes are
necessary in the criminal law.
We've passed terrorist
legislation.
I would say we probably give a
greater emphasis on the center
right to border controls-- we'd
like to see a proper border
police force because we think
we could do better in that way.
We also think there are
problems at the moment with the
inability in Britain to deport
preachers of hate and people
who are stirring up and
radicalizing future terrorists.
We think there's a problem with
that which the government
hasn't got to grips with.
But generally, pretty
good consensus.
When Tony Blair was Prime
Minister, I used to have fairly
regular meetings with him about
how to make sure we can have
consensus on these really
important issues and how
we grapple with the
terrorist threat.
Should we have one more
and then I'm off to
see the governor?
Sir, in the blue shirt.
Do you want to step up to
the mike, if that's OK?
Sorry, I didn't know you
were going to have to go
through an assault course.
I apologize for that.
AUDIENCE: Not a problem.
What is your point of view on
continuing or terminating Great
Britain's involvement in Iraq.
And is the way you think about
your country's involvement
different in any way from how
we should think about our
country's involvement.
I supported the decision
to go to war in Iraq, to
remove Saddam Hussein.
But I think we all have to
recognize that some really
big mistakes were made
subsequent to that decision.
The decapitation of the regime.
The fact that the army and
police force were disbanded.
The fact that it was really--
you know, we created a
situation of anarchy rather
than a situation of order.
In terms of the future, I
don't support some sort
of artificial timetable
for withdrawing troops.
Some sort of precipitant
withdrawal.
I think we have a
responsibility, frankly, to try
and maximize the amount of
security in that country.
Britain faces a slightly
different situation in the
south of the country to what
America faces in Baghdad and
those provinces in that we've
always had this arrangement of
drawing down troops to Basrah
air base, which is
what we've done.
But I think it would be wrong
to try and set a timetable for
removing the 2,500 troops that
we'll have left in Iraq.
But I think the real challenge
that we've all got-- the
British and American and the
other allies together-- is to
look, not just at what's
happening militarily-- if I can
put it this way, what we
need is a political surge.
What is going wrong, I think,
in Iraq is that we haven't put
enough pressure on the
politicians in Iraq
to come together.
To actually form a really
cohesive government to
take over the running
of that country.
And it's the surge of political
activity and the involvement of
Iraq's neighbors, who all have
an interest in that country
having a secure and stable
future, where the real
attention now needs to turn.
And just one last point, I
think that it will be really
important for the security of
our world and for combating
terrorism in the future if we
don't take our eyes
off Afghanistan.
Because I've been to
Afghanistan twice in
the last two years.
And that, you know, if you
think of the cradle of 9/11 and
the terrorism we've suffered,
it was actually Afghanistan.
And if we fail in Afghanistan,
the Taliban will be
back in Afghanistan.
Al-Quaeda will be
back in Afghanistan.
And those training camps where,
frighteningly, 4,000 of my
fellow citizens went
the Afghanistan.
Were trained in those
training camps.
And many of them came back to
Europe in order to commit--
or be involved in--
terrorist atrocities.
We have a real duty to make
sure we get that right.
And I think Britain and America
working together is the only
way that we can make sure
Afghanistan has a better future
than what has currently
been happening in Iraq.
And we've got to learn the
lessons of Iraq and make
sure we don't repeat
them in Afghanistan.
Can I thank you, very
much indeed for
inviting me here today?
I've really enjoyed it.
Thank you.
