篇一:布莱尔首相演讲 Investment
Transcript of the Prime Ministers broadcast on investment
Wherever you look in our country, you can see the result of decades of under-investment.
Children still being taught in cramped or prefab classrooms. Patients treated in wards built long before penicillin was discovered.
Our railways and roads fall short of the standards we need. And thats not just bad for travellers but bad for our economy.
And its not just the fabric of our country which reveals the signs of this failure to invest.
There was a chronic shortage of people, of teachers, doctors, nurses when we came into Government three years ago.
Even worse, we found that training places and recruitment had often been cut back.
Now I dont go along with those who claim, for example, that we have a third world health service.
Thats an insult to the dedicated doctors and nurses who work in the NHS. And it also ignores the fact that thousands of people every day get superb treatment and care.
But we are now the fourth biggest economy in the world. And few people would claim we have the fourth best public services. I certainly dont. Thats because for far too long - we havent invested. We havent looked to the long-term. We havent invested for our future.
And thats largely because of the cycle of boom and bust which has gripped our economy for so long.
It meant sudden increases of investment followed by panic cut-backs which made it impossible to plan sensibly for the future.
We were so determined to restore stability to the economy - even if it meant hard decisions and some unpopularity.
We didnt ignore investment in our early years. Indeed we launched the biggest hospital building programme in the history of the health service. The first of these is already open in Carlisle. We invested to make sure
that infant class sizes have fallen. Over 10,000 schools have been re-furbished or repaired. Wherever you live, therell be a school near you which has benefited.
But there is a great deal more to do. And with inflation and interest rates low, billions saved in debt repayments and a record number of people in work, the country can now afford the sustained investment needed in our health service, schools, police and transport systems.
It means a 150% increase in investment in public transport investment desperately needed for our roads and railways.
Then theres a £1.4 billion increase in health spending on hospitals, clinics and equipment.
And extra investment, too, for urgent repairs for 7,000 more schools. But theres little point in having wonderful new schools or hospitals if you dont have the trained staff to go into them.
So were working hard to tackle the shortage of nurses, doctors and teachers.
Weve reversed, for example, the short-sighted cuts in nurse training places. Weve expanded medical schools and places.
We are having some success, too - an increase of nearly 5,000 doctors in the health service in the last three years in the health service. An increase of 10,000 qualified nurses too.
And this week we learnt that for the first time in eight years the number of teachers in training has risen.
That is vital because it is the dedicated teachers who are delivering the real progress were seeing in our schools.
Good teachers can and do make a massive difference to the lives of the children they teach.
Every day, in schools the length and breadth of our country, the hard-work of dedicated teachers give our children the help and encouragement they need to realise their potential.
For far too long however, teachers have felt under-valued and
under-rewarded. And thats wrong when you think that there can be few jobs
more fulfilling, more challenging or more important to our societys future than being a teacher.
So this welcome increase in the numbers of teachers in training is a sign that we are beginning to get things right.
But theres a lot more that we need to do. I want to see the best and the brightest sign up in their tens of thousands to become teachers, to join that education crusade.
We need more teachers just as we need more doctors, more nurses, more modern schools and hospitals.
It cant be done overnight. It takes years to build a new hospital or train new doctors.
But our hard-won economic stability means we now have the chance at least to plan and invest for the long-term.
A chance to end the years of neglect of our public services and deliver the world-class education, health and transport system that this country needs and deserves. Its a chance that we should all take.
篇二:布莱尔为最贵演讲者 每分钟近赚万美元
布莱尔为最贵演讲者 每分钟近赚万美元
就在各国领导人四处筹钱为拯救经济而殚精竭虑的同时,一些卸任的首脑虽然过日子不差钱,但也闲不住,英国前首相布莱尔就是其中一个表现最突出的一个。3月22日星期日布莱尔乘私人飞机抵达菲律宾马尼拉,第二天上午参加雅典耀马尼拉大学(Ateneo De Manila University)150周年校庆活动,向师生们发表了题为The Leader as Nation Builder in a Time of Globalisation(在全球化的时代做一个建设国家的领导者)的演讲。演讲会后布莱尔马不停蹄,与菲律宾总统阿罗约共进午餐,然后赶到马尼拉索菲特(Sofitel)酒店发表了题为The Leader as Principled Negotiator(领袖是坚持原则的谈判者)的演讲。 为了聆听布莱尔大开金口,当天有幸进入索菲特酒店的听众都付出了相应的代价。最高的VIP票价要25000比索(约合530美元)一张,而最低的普通票也要20美元。据说共卖出去了2000张票,就算平均起来100美元一张,也不过是20万美元,这点入场费还是不够付布莱尔的出台费,还要附庸名人风雅的企业赞助。布莱尔这两场演讲总共1个小时,共收费57万美元,每分钟9500美元,或者说每秒158美元,真可谓时间就是金钱。
这么昂贵的收费,布莱尔到底说了些什么呢?
首先,布莱尔不可避免地要抖英式幽默。他提到他是英国近代历史上第一位在任职期间喜得贵子的首相,他调侃说: it makes me wonder what the other Prime Ministers were doing all that time then(我很好奇其他首相们那会儿都做些什么事)。布莱尔还在演讲中穿插了一些个人的亲身经历。比如说他1997年大选获胜那天去白金汉宫觐见女王时,礼宾官告诉他见到女王要行吻手礼,但应该只是示意性的掠过,意思一下,不是真吻。结果布莱尔见到女王的那一刻,他在地毯上一滑,跌跌撞撞中实打实地亲吻了女王的手,把女王雷到了。他还回忆说,担任首相十年,从来没有用过手机。当离职的那天,他买了一部自己的手机。兴奋之余,给一个朋友发了一个短信问候。结果人家回复是:sorry, but who are you(你是什么人)?这是因为布莱尔发短信时没有署名,对方当然不知道发来短信的是何方神圣,回复一个who are you就算客气了。但是,对于刚刚离任的布莱尔来说,他的直接感受是人走茶凉,不做首相了,也没有人认识他了。 类似这样的珍闻轶事虽然有趣,但是仍有灌水之嫌,听众花了大价钱不光是来听英国小品的。俗话说,便宜没好货,好货不便宜,本博今天就披露布莱尔在这两次史上最贵的演讲中的若干名言金句,供各位网友参考:
Leaders are ordinary human beings in extraordinary positions(领导者是平凡的人处在了不平凡的位置上).
To change the world, first understand it. If you want to understand the world, then you have to analyze it as it actually is, not as you like it be(改变世界,首先要了解世界。如果你想了解世界,那么就按照世界的客观实际去分析世界,而不是按照自己的主管愿望去分析).
Politics really matters, but a lot of what goes on is not great(政治的确重要,但是政治中发生的许多事情其实并不重要).
To make change, a leader needs to make decisions. What is forgivable is to fail, what is unforgivable is not to try(改变世界,领导者就要做决定。失败可以原谅,但是拒绝尝试不可原谅).
Learn a little humility as a leader(做个领导者要学会谦卑).
In times of crisis, leaders stand up, they do not stand back(在危机的时刻,领导者挺立,而不是退后).
Popularity is not the reason why one should lead(受百姓欢迎不是要当领导者的理由)。
Campaign in poetry, govern in prose(以意竞选,用散文当政)。
最后值得一提的是,布莱尔认为世界进入了一个难以预测的时代,他用的词组是low predictability (低可测性)。而且,不仅经济未来难测,政治发展也很难预测。有趣的是,他一边说“低可测性”,自己却又做了一个高度可信的预测: 中国以及印度先后崛起,21世纪的世界重心将向东移动,到本世纪末将形成多级世界。
篇三:布莱尔首相演讲 Education
TRANSCRIPT OF THE PRIME MINSTERS FIRST AUDIO BROADCAST ON THE NUMBER 10 WEBSITE. 11 FEBRUARY 2000
Hello and welcome to what I am sure will be the first of many direct broadcasts from the Downing Street website. Im sitting here at my desk in Downing Street in front of my PC terminal, which Im just getting to use after many years of not really wanting to come to terms with the new computer technology. I did a course. Im coming to terms with it. Im using the new PC terminal and it really brings me to reflect upon what I wanted to say to you this week, which is of course the importance of education and skills-the importance of education and skills for everyone including adults but most particularly for our children. My children, like others, are having to learn the new technology. They have to become expert at it and they are going to be leaving school and going to work in a world in which skill and talent and ability is not just their route to personal fulfilment, it is their route to prosperity. They will need those skills and talents if they have got any chance of succeeding. And the country needs them to be highly skilled as well.
In Britain, weve always been excellent at educating an elite well. The top 20 per cent have always been pretty well educated. But for the majority, the standards just havent been high enough. Weve had a poverty of ambition and aspiration which has meant that large numbers of people leave school either without qualifications or without nearly the qualifications they need. Our vision for the education system is really like this. We need education throughout life. Everyone understands that.
It has to begin at a young age so the first stage is nursery education for the four year olds and three year olds. And were pretty well on the way to achieving that. The four year olds have now got the chance of decent nursery education. Weve doubled the numbers of three year olds who get the chances of nursery education and will extend that further over time. Then after that, at the second stage, we need primary schools that really focus on the basics - getting literacy and numeracy right and Ill come back to that in a minute.
And then the third stage is a comprehensive system. That isnt
comprehensive in the sense of being so uniform that everyone gets the same type of teaching in the same way as if they were all of the same ability. But is comprehensive in the sense that everyone gets the chance of an equal opportunity dependent on their ability, to do the very best that they can.
And the fourth stage is a university system where were opening up access to more people and where were building up really high class, high quality universities.
So, going back to the primary school system, this week we had a report from OFSTED - which is the body that inspects all our schools and says how theyre doing - we had a report which was good news in many ways and showed where we still have to improve.
On the primary schools theyve pointed out that, thanks to the reforms of the literacy and numeracy hour, then results of English and Maths for the test for 11 year olds had shot up to the best ever. And thats good news. Its a great tribute to the people and of course the teachers. And its important in other ways too because what it meant was that we could see that the reforms introduced, which many people resisted at the time, have actually yielded good results, I think were well on the way, with the reduction in infant class sizes and the new money thats going into primary school buildings to make our primary schools a place where kids can pretty much be guaranteed the very basics they need for later life education.
What weve now got to do is turn our attention to the secondary schools. And here, in a sense, weve tolerated bad results and low expectations, particularly in some of the inner city comprehensives, for far too long. Now when I said we wanted a comprehensive system in which there was equal opportunity but where we didnt have a uniform system, what I meant by that was we need schools that all have strong headteachers, good
discipline and ethos of hard work and learning, high quality motivated teachers, parents that get involved, good facilities - all these things are vital, and you can tell a good school the moment you walk through the door. Those things are, if you like, common to all good schools. But then we also need to recognise that children are of different abilities and we also need to recognise that schools can specialise in different types of subjects. So what we are now doing is, as well as trying to raise standards generally in the schools, developing specialist schools and, in fact by the year 2003, about a quarter of our secondary schools will be specialist schools. That means that they will specialise in science or languages or technology and theyll offer something particular, and a bit more in those specalties that dont just attract children to the school but also raise the standards in the school generally.
Now along with all the other investment that were putting in-with the changes in teachers pay so that teachers can get an increase above the ordinary increase but related to standards of performance, along with the measures were taking to train headteachers properly and to set up a new
college of leadership for our schools where were trying to develop the headteachers of the future - along with all these things, I think we will be able to build a secondary school system for the future that isnt about either returning to the old system where we divided kids up into successes and failures at the age of 11, but is getting away from, if you like, the 60s or 70s concept of the comprehensive school. So I think again there the OFSTED report said that we were making improvements. They said that the majority of schools were doing better than they were last year but weve got some way to go. And weve acknowledged that and I hope that the reforms that were putting in place will help us get there. So, yes weve got a long way to go, but theres nothing more important in Britain than the sort of teenagers that emerge from our schools. And our aim has got to be that more and more of them get high quality, high class education that enables them to go into university or to develop their skills in a way that gives them the chance of fulfilling their own potential. And I think thats within our reach. We need the investment in our schools, but we need the reform and the modernisation too. So its a long haul but this weeks OFSTED report is important because it shows we can make a difference.
Im the first to say that we have to go even further. That education is my passion, the passion of this Government. We said it would be our number one priority. It is our number one priority. And I think we can say as a result of this report this week that, yes, theres much still to do but a lot has been achieved. Britains schools are getting better step by step, and, as those reforms take root, and as people start to see the results of those reforms, then I think we can build the notion of high quality excellent education for all as the national purpose for Britain as we begin the 21st Century.
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