People sometimes say to me that little has changed since 1997 and that this government has done nothing for people in Copeland or Britain as a whole. So what has the record been?

This Labour government is responsible for the longest period of peacetime growth since records first began in 1870 - 134 years ago.

But it's not just the economy that's stronger. Across the UK we now have the best ever school results, the NHS improving, we have more teachers, more nurses and more police.

Recently a poll found that the people of the UK are the most personally optimistic in Europe - and by a widening margin. Satisfaction levels with the public services individuals actually experience and use are rising steadily. People feel safer in their neighbourhoods than they did a few years ago.

In 1997 four in ten people said unemployment was their biggest concern. Now it is less than one in ten. Concern about inflation has halved.

None of this means the job is done. There are still too many people struggling to make ends meet. But there are fewer than there were: half a million fewer children in poverty and over 1½ million more adults in work.

Pensioners get a £200 winter allowance and the pension credit and the over 75s free TV licences.

Everyone working receives a minimum wage, the right to union recognition and paid holidays.

This would be much for any government to be proud of.

Just think back to the first seven years of a Conservative government. One in which Michael Howard was a leading figure.

Look back at their seven year record of achievement: record levels of unemployment; volatile interest and mortgage rates; the deepest recession since the thirties, and unprecedented social division.

And they would willingly take us back there again. The Shadow Chancellor, Oliver Letwin, is already lining up £18 billion of cuts in public spending. And that is only the start - other people are urging him cut harder and faster. This can only mean a poorer health service, less spending on schools and fewer police.

Later this year - as in every year - there will be elections. In Copeland people will vote for new Members of the European Parliament for the North-West. Some people will think that it is their civic duty to give the Government a bloody nose. But the record of the last seven years shows that the political enemy is not the Labour government but a bankrupt, failed, right wing Tory party that would only take this country backwards.