UK News 27-09-2000 Blair Says He Gets The Message who: Tony Blair what: Gets 5 minute ovation for speech where: Labour Conference, BRIGHTON when: Yesterday snippet: "We`ll Win No Sweat" and "Blair Sweats It Out" said the headline-writers when the prime minister was photographed visibly perspiring at the end of his 55 minute keynote speech at the Labour party conference in Brighton yesterday. "Mr Blair said he took responsibility for the `knock` his party had taken over pensions, petrol and the Dome," writes Jon Smith in The Star. "But he also spelled out his vision of what Labour could achieve if returned at the next election." "We are in a fight and it`s a fight that I relish," he said. "It is a fight for the future, the heart and the soul of our country." Mr Blair offered concessions to pensioners and hinted at a new deal on petrol prices. "He did not use the `S` word," says The Mirror. "Sorry seems to be the hardest word for politicians. But he frankly admitted they had got things wrong". "He was anxious to persuade disaffected voters that he was listening to them," says The Guardian`s political editor, Michael White. "He used the word nine times". The speech received a five minute ovation and, as The Independent`s Andrew Grice puts it, "calmed his party`s jitters". Meanwhile, Conservative leader William Hague dismissed the speech as "the usual new Labour cocktail: meaningless statistics that cover up a comprehensive failure to deliver, unscripted promises to listen that reveal just how out of touch he has become, and apologies that never amount to saying `sorry`." [... more]

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