PM remarks in Welwyn Garden City: 10 February

It’s a bit of a busy week, but it’s very nice to be here with you.

I’m really looking forward… I think I am going to come round from table to table.

But I wanted to talk to you because I wanted to have the opportunity to say that I know that whatever’s going on in the world - and it’s volatile out there in the world at the moment - and whatever’s going on in the turmoil of politics - we’ve got a lot of that going on in the last few days - I know that for you, and for millions of people, what matters most is the cost of living.

Actually paying the bills, getting through,  improving living standards, public services that work. These are things that matter hugely for people.

And I know that’s what matters most, from personal experience. When I was growing up who didn’t have money to pay our bills.

And I know what it feels like to sit down at the kitchen table, worried about the fact that you can’t make ends meet. And that’s what people are doing across the country. And our job is to change that.

But I also know it’s the most important issue that we must focus on, because I know what I am about, and who I am about. I’ve got the most working class cabinet in the history of this country, sitting around my cabinet table.

And I’m really proud of that. Really proud of what they bring to the table. Their personal journeys to get there. Their experiences.

But it is utter nonsense to suggest that that means everybody gets a fair chance in life. Utter nonsense.

I feel very strongly about this. I’m in that cabinet as Prime Minister, having come from a working-class background, to be Prime Minister of this country. But that’s the exception.

That is not the rule. Even within my own family, my brother died last year. He had difficulties learning when he was growing up.

He spent his adult life wandering from job to job, in virtual poverty. This system, this political system, didn’t work for him and there are billions of people in the same boat, children in poverty, young people who don’t get the opportunities they deserve.

Millions of people held back because of a system that doesn’t work for them, who are not given the dignity, the respect, the chance that they deserve.

And I’m fighting for them. I am their Prime Minister, and this is their government and I will never give up on that fight.

I will never walk away from the people that I’m charged with fighting for, and I will never walk away from the country that I love, and that is the country who I truly believe we are, a compassionate, reasonable, live and let live country, a diverse country where, given half the chance, will help each other out.

That is who we are as a country, and I want to serve every single part of that country, the country that I love.

That will tear our country apart. That is the fight that we are in, and I will be in that fight as long as I have breath in my body.

Thank you so much for listening to me.

I’m now looking forward to a nice cup of tea.