Brown woos 'school gate mums'

Last updated at 11:53 15 April 2005


Chancellor Gordon Brown has attempted to woo women voters with school-age children with a visit to a primary school.

He met the "school gate mums" outside the Comber Primary School in Camberwell, south east London, and tried to impress them with details of Labour's childcare policies, balloons and autographs for the children.

He said: "I wanted to meet parents at the school gates and the children to say that the economy is not just abstract figures, it is about them."

Chancellor Gordon Brown has pledged to put children and young people at the heart of a future Labour Government's economic policies.

Unveiling Labour's policies for the family at a nursery in central London, Mr Brown said that young people were essential to the economic future of the country.

"In the past, the focus of budgets was on inflation rates and trade balances. Future budgets will focus also on childcare, family tax credits and educational investment," he said.

"Children are 20 per cent of our population and they are 100 per cent of our future. So when we say for every child the best start in life, we are talking about an economic concern.

"And when we warn that failure to give all children the best start in life risks failure on many other fronts, we are talking about a social

concern.

"If we do not find it within ourselves to pay attention to our children today, they may force us to pay attention as troubled adults tomorrow."

The first child he picked up for a snap in front of the waiting press was one-year-old local boy Felix Williams, who promptly burst into tears.

Parents dropping their children off at school asked him about inheritance tax and lowering council tax, and one mother asked for more money for special needs.

But one passer-by who shouted "Tony Blair is a warmonger" and "Killing Iraqi children is inappropriate" was quickly ushered away by Labour campaigners.

Mr Brown was joined by Harriet Harman, who is defending a 14,000 majority in the Camberwell and Peckham constituency.

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