Gordon Brown's first Labour Party conference speech as prime minister has been dismissed by opponents as ‘dour froth'. LGA Liberal Democrat group leader, Richard Kemp, said Mr Brown's speech was ‘disappointing' and ‘a lot of dour froth'. ‘My big disappointment, as far as local government is concerned, is although he made a few concessions to the unions, we are still stuck with the same "private sector is best" route, which I believe is untenable and expensive,' he said. Cllr Kemp said Mr Brown also failed to mention the future of local government finance. Mr Brown called on housing associations and councils to support shared equity for first time buyers and build more social homes for rent. The prime minister also said councils should use new powers to ban alcohol in trouble spots to combat binge drinking. Mr Brown said the Government would invest £670m in new youth centres and added that young people would have a say in how the money was spent in their communities. Unison general secretary, Dave Prentis, said Mr Brown's speech was ‘a breath of fresh air' and added ‘there was no Flash Gordon about him'. But London Assembly Conservative group transport spokesman Roger Evans said he was concerned that Mr Brown did not mention Crossrail. Hazel Blears used her conference speech on Monday to call for more women and respresentatives from black and minority ethnic communities to stand as councillors.‘The current inequality between men and women on councils is a disgrace,' she told delegates. The total number of words in Gordon Brown's speech : 7,554 The number of times he said: ‘NHS': 19 ‘education': 16 ‘council': 4 ‘Tony Blair' : 3 ‘councillors' : 1 ‘gingerbread': 1 ‘local area agreements': 0
