Future. Having fun, but with a serious focus. It reminds me of our election campaign. Do you know they wanted me to wear a wet Suit Today . But i said it was abseiling or nothing. So here we are. Having a party. After winning our largest number of mps i have 100 years for over 100 Years Applause the best result in our modern partys history. 72 Liberal Democrats in the House Of Commons fighting for the freer, fairer, more open society we all want to build. How fitting it was that the final seat to declare, number 72, was the home of one of the great champions of that more liberal society, Our Dear Friends charles kennedy. Today i want to talk about the exciting opportunity, our new strength gives us. And the responsibility it places on us to. But before i get to that serious bet, i want to say thank you. To all of you. Members, volunteers, counsellors, candidates, you are all absolutely fantastic. Everybody played a part in our electing of the 72 members of parliament. 0ur largest number of mps are over 100 years. Didnt i say that before . Well, i mightjust say it again a bit later but, friends, in my 35 years as a Liberal Democrat member, i have never seen our party, all of us, work so well together. With such discipline, such focus, such unity of purpose. So i want to thank everyone of you, please applaud yourselves. 0k, ok, that is enough. That is enough because i want you to thank a few more people. People who often dont get thanks but really shared. Starting with our amazing Staff Team. Policy, communications, compliance, hr, standards, events, fundraising, finance, our whole parliamentary Staff Team and our incredible Campaigns Team led by the brilliant dane mcgrath. And lets me shine the spotlight on a second group of people whose contribution to our Success Isnt recognise as much as it should be. Im talking about all those candidates and all those local parties who set aside their own ambitions to go and help colleagues in target seats. The candidates who didnt win. As scripture tells us, in the book of macabre, chapter two, verse seven, greater love hath no candidate than bess. That they go. In a nearby cabinet seats. So, bless you. Thank you to all of you. Thank you 72 times. Finally, i want to thank one more person. Someone from behind the scenes who makes the real sacrifice. Who has helped me beyond measure. Emily, my wonderful wife. Emily really ought to be an mp, you know. She stood four times. She missed out by over 2000 votes in 2005. She has an amazing counsellor now, among many other things. 0n Question time during the election, i confessed that emily and i are romance personified. Meeting as we did on the liberal Democrat Housing Policy working group. Catching each other� s i as we debated the finer points of community [and auctions. But what is interesting, since my revelation i am told that our federal Policy Committee has been inundated with applications for the next one so, if you want to find love, dontjoin tender, join the Liberal Democrats so as we rejoice today on our success and look towards a brighter future, success and look towards a brighterfuture, i do think it is important that we first reflect a little. Reflect on where we have come from, and how we have got here. It is four years since i first spoke to you as leader of our party, but it might as well have been a lifetime ago. Back then i wasnt even able to talk to you from a stage like this. But rather through a single camera from an empty room in the Liberal Democrat hq. The country was deep in the grip of covid. Borisjohnson and covid. Boris johnson and dominic covid. Borisjohnson and dominic cummings, remember them . Well, they were still in number ten and still on speaking terms. The most popular politician in the land was then ambitious young man by the name of rishi sunak. Like i say, it was a very different time. And it was a very tough time. And it was a very tough time for our party, for us. We were still licking our wounds, whence me whence me whence we . Someone asking not whether our party could recover, but whether we would survive. It is important we remember that as we celebrate and as we plan for the future. Because we mustnt forget The Hard Lessons we learnt along the way. Above all, we learnt how critical it is to listen to our constituents. Here the people. Understand their problems, no, their priorities. Gritty politics used to be so good at that, at listening. Somehow it got lost or undermined. So we, along with all the other parties, lost Peoples Trust. It has been a long road to rebuild that. It has started with sarah Greens Shock Wave victory and the first brick Out Of The Blue wall. And then, then, it was helen in shropshire, Richard N devon, sarah in somerset. Above all, for me, our amazing local election results. I have a 700 more of us elected to local councils hundreds of new local champions listening to our communities and working hard for them. Friends, local Government And Community politics has always been the bedrock of our party. They have been the bedrock of our recovery and they will be the bedrock of even greater success to come. For it is in our communities, Doorto Success to come. For it is in our communities, Door To door, where we can truly hear what people are worried about and where we can build, rebuild trust. Trust. The single most powerful commodity in a democracy. Humbling and hard one. Injuly, millions of voters put their trust in us, many of them for the first time in their lives. Trusting us to stand up for them, to be their local champions, to fight for a fair deal. That trust, the Peoples Trust, is our mandate. And now we must be true to that mandate and repay that trust in full. Remember, Peoples TrustIsnt Something you just win and put in the bank to make a withdrawal at the next election. Trust is something you have to keep winning, keep earning, day after day, after day, after day. Otherwise people will take it somewhere else. We ask people for their votes on a very clear manifesto. We told them we would focus on their priorities. Getting our economy back on track and getting the cost of living under control. Ending the Sewage Scandal and protecting our precious environment. And above all, fixing the nhs and care crisis. A clear message of hope delivered so powerfully in the millions of leaflets you push through letter boxes. Argued for so passionately in the hundreds of thousands of conversations you had on doorsteps. And, yes, amplified by the occasional sight of me falling off a paddle board. Or jumping off a 160 foot crane. Now, im not supposed to tell you what Stunt Ideas were rejected, not least because they are still trying to persuade me to do them for the next election. But i will let you into a little secret. It was only Health And Safety rules that stopped me putting my hand up a cows behind, or Wing Walking on a bike plane. But, friends, however we were campaigning, and wherever we were campaigning, we always had our clear liberal Democrat Message that showed we had to listen to and we had understood peoples concerns. So we could plan the future success for our party and country. To build on the dramatic success. Let us never forget where we were, and how we got here. And letss begin by ensuring our clear Campaign Message is now our clear mandate for action. Starting with the issue we put Front And Centre of our campaign. Health and care. There is not a place i have been to in after yea rs of after years of Failure And Neglect under the Conservative Party and the nationalists in scotland, and labour in wales, it is not hard to see why. And it is not hard to see why. And it is not hard to see why. And it is so sad. We cherish the nhs, it is one of the things that makes us proud just to be british. One of the things that makes us proud to be liberals. Because dont let anyone forget that it was a liberal, william beveridge, who invented the nhs. And we are indebted to the incredible staff who keep it going in the most difficult circumstances and under the most intense pressures. But with such long waiting lists, so many staff vacancies, and in so many staff vacancies, and in so many staff vacancies, and in so many hospitals literally crumbling, the nhs simply isnt working the way it used to or the way it should. We need to transform the way we do Health And Care in this country. And our mps have already taken the lead on that in this new parliament. There is a reason Wes Streeting calls us his 72 new pen pals. Because from the second each one of our mps entered parliament, they were on the case. Speaking up for all those people who have watched their Loved Ones waiting hours in Pain And Distress for an ambulance to arrive. And patients we weeks just to see their gp while their illness got worse and worse. Parents searching in vain for an worse. Parents searching in vainforan nhs worse. Parents searching in vain for an Nhs Dentist for their kids