Prime minister. Throughout that time, in every job ive done, ive been inspired by the enormous potential that working in politics and taking part in politics and taking part in public life holds. The potential to serve your country, to improve peoples lives, and in however big or small a way, to make the world a better place. Looking at our own country in the world of which we form a part, and theres a great deal to feel optimistic about. Globally over the last 30 years extreme poverty and Child Mortality have both been halved. Hundreds of millions of people are today living longer, happier and healthier lives than their grandparents could even have dreamed of. As a world we have never cared more deeply about the ecology of our planets environment, from treating the earth is a collection of resources to be plundered we have in a generation come to understand its fragile diversity and taking concerted action to conserve the conserve it. The u. K. s leading the way and that effort with our commitment net emissions. Zero social attitudes in a country and in the western countries have transformed in recent decades. There are more women in senior positions state than any time in history. When i was born as a crime to be a gay man, legal to discriminate on the basis of sex or race, and casual bigotry with a socially acceptable fact of daily life. All that has changed and greatly for the better. There remains a long way to go to achieve what we should rightly seek, an economy, a society and a world that truly works for all of its people. Where everyone has the security of a safe home and enough to eat an opportunity to get a good , education a fine job to , support their family and the freedom of thought, speech and action to do and be everything their talents and hard work that fit them for. The generation of young people growing up today in the u. K. And around the world have it within their grasp to achieve more in the decades ahead than we can imagine. They will have the chance to harness the great drivers of change in the world today from change in the world today from Artificial Intelligence and data economy, cleaner forms of energy and more efficient modes of transport, to the technological and medical advances that will extend and improve our quality of life. The 21st century has the potential to be a Pivotal Point in human history, when economic social and technological apogees reach a combined with the benefits modified with everyone sharing and enjoying a share. It will not come about without effort. We will all have to work hard. Individually and collectively to reach that better future. Crucially, the full power and potential of a small but strong and strategic state must be brought to bear in that effort , establishing and maintaining the legal and economic structures that allow regulated free market to flourish coordinating its own , intervention and to maximum effect, supporting science and innovation, supplying crucial Public Services and infrastructure, leading and responding to social progress. At our best, that has been the story of the democratic century that we celebrated last year when we marked the first votes for women and working men in 1918. It has been Democratic Politics an open market economy and the , enduring values of free speech, the rule of law, and a system of government founded on the concept of inviolable human rights that is provided the next nexus of that progress in the past. And a healthy body politic will be essential to consolidating and extending that progress in the future. It is on that score that today we do have grounds for serious concern. Both domestically and internationally, in substance and in tone, i worried about the state of politics. That worry stems from a conviction that the values on which our successes have been founded cannot be taken for granted. They may look to us as old as the hills. We might think they will always be there, but establishing a superiority of those values over the alternatives was the hard work of centuries of sacrifice. And to ensure that liberal inheritance can endure for generations to come, we today have a responsibility to be active in conserving it. If we do not, we will all pay the price. Rich and poor, strong and weak, powerful and powerless. As a politician my decisions and actions have always been guided by that conviction. It used to be asked that conservative candidate selection convictione you a politician or are you a pragmatist. Ive never accepted the distinction. Politics is the business of turning your convictions into reality to improve the lives of the people you serve. As a conservative ive never had any doubt about what i believe in, security, freedom and opportunity, decency, moderation , patriotism, conserving what is of value but never shying away from change. Indeed recognizing that often change is the way to conserve. Believing in business but Holding Businesses to account if they break the rules. Backing ambition, aspiration and hard work, protecting our union of nations, and being prepared to act in its interest, even if that means steering a difficult political course. And remaining always firmly rooted in the Common Ground of politics where all great Political Parties should be. I did not write about those convictions in pamphlets or make many theoretical speeches about them, but i sought to put them into action. Getting things done rather than simply getting them said requires some qualities that become unfashionable of late. That have become unfashionable of late. One of them is a willingness to compromise. That does not mean compromising your values. It does not mean accepting the lowest common denominator or clinging to outmoded ideas out of apathy or fear. By and whenng necessary standing up for your values and convictions, but doing so in the real world and in the arena of public life, for others are making their own case and pursuing their own interests. And where persuasion, teamwork and a willingness to make mutual concessions are needed to achieve an optimal outcome. That is politics at its best. The alternative is a politics of winners and losers of absolute and of perpetual strife, and that threatens us all. Today an inability to combine principles with pragmatism and make a compromise when required seems to have driven our whole discourse down the wrong path. It has led to what is, in effect, a form of absolutism, one which believes that if you simply assert your view loud enough and long enough, youll get your way in the end, although mobilizing your own faction is more important than bringing others with you. This is coarsening our public debate. Some are losing the ability to disagree without demeaning the views of others. Online, Technology Allows people to express their anger and anxiety without filter or accountability. Aggressive assertions are made without regard to the facts or the complexities of an issue. In an environment where the most extreme views tend to be the most noticed. This dissent of our debate into rancor and tribal bitterness and in some cases even vile abuse at a criminal level is corrosive to the Democratic Values which we should all be seeking to uphold. It risks closing down the space for reasons to debate and subverting the principle of freedom of speech. And this does not create an unpleasant environment. Words have consequences. And ill words that go unchallenged are the first step on a continuum toward ill deeds. Towards a much darker place where hatred and prejudice drive not only what people say but also what they do. This absolutism is not confined to british politics. It festers and politics all in politics all across the world, and we see it in the rise of Political Parties on the far left and far right in europe and beyond. We see it in the increasing adversarial nature of International Relations which some view as a zerosum game where one country can only gain if others lose. And where power, unconstrained by rules, is the only currency of value. Absolutism at home and abroad is the opposite of politics at its best. It refuses to accept that other points of view are reasonable. It describes bad motives to those taking the different views. It views anything less then one 100 of what you want all the time as evidence of failure, when success, in fact, it means choosing the optimal outcome in any given circumstance. The sustainability of modern politics derives not from an uncovered rising absolutism but rather through the painstaking parking out of a Common Ground. That does not mean abandoning our our principles. Far from it. It means delivering on them with the consent of people on all sides of the debate so they can ultimately accept the legitimacy of what is being done even if it may not be outcome they would initially have preferred. And that is how social progress in International Agreement was forged in the years after the second world war, both at home with the establishment and Injury NationalHealth Service and internationally with the creation of an International Order based on aggrieved rules and multilateral institutions. Consider for example the story of the nhs. The beverage report was commissioned by the coalition government. The Health Minister who published the first white paper outlining the principles of a comprehensive and free Health Service was conservative. A labor government created the nhs and engaging in fierce policy both at the doctors would work for the nhs and with the conservative opposition in the house of commons which supported the principle of an nhs disagreed with the masses. A choice between going back to old arguments are expecting legitimacy of what had been done in building on it. They chose to build on what is being established. An institution that unites our country. Many of the agreements that underpinned the establishment in the aftermath of the second. Orld war the cornerstone of International Law almost broke down over should applydetail not just to it was a personal and was got started from president trumans envoy to persuade the soviet to back down in many states were not which views the world through a prism of winners and losers, which views compromise and corporation to International Institutions and finds weakness, not strength. President putin expressed his sediment clearly on the eve of the g20 summit in japan when they said liberal ideas are becoming obsolete because its come into conflict with the interest of the overwhelming majority of the population. This is a cynical falsehood. No one comparing the quality of life or economic success of liberal democracies after the uk, france and germany is asking the Russian Federation which conclude that our system is obsolete. The fact that he feels emboldened to utter it today indicates the challenge we face as we seek to defend our values. If we are to stand up for the values that are fundamental to our way of life we need to rebuild support for them by addressing peoples legitimate concerns through Actual Solutions that command public consent rather than populist promises that in the end are not solutions at all. In doing so we need to show that from the local to the global the politics of pragmatic conviction that is unafraid of compromise and cooperation is the best way in which politics can sustainably reach the challenges we face. Take the example of how we address the concerns and fears over globalization. The far left including the leadership of our once proud British Labour party would argue that we should scrap an open market altogether and we should be, in no doubt, that we cannot successfully reform the market system to create an economy that works for all the people would increasingly rejected in favor of an alternative the matter what the wider economic and social consequences. But we know it is free and competitive market that drives innovation creativity and risktaking that have enabled so many of the great advances of our time. We know it is business, the pioneers the industry of the future, secures the investment on which that peter depends and that future depends and creates jobs and livelihoods of families up and down our country and we know Free Enterprise can also play a crucial role in helping to make the greatest social challenges of our time , from contributing to the sustainability of our planet to generating new growth and new hope in areas of our company that had been left behind for too long. You do not protect the concept of freemarket capitalism by failing to respond to the legitimate concerns of those who are not feeling its full benefits. You protect freemarket capitalism and all the benefits that it can bring by reforming it so that it works for everyone. That is why of introduced forms to working practice and workers rights to reflect the changes in our economy and israel launched and why i launched the review and modern forms of employment like that [inaudible] economy and why we are delivering the biggest improvements in uk workers rights for 20 years in response to it. Its why have advanced changes in corporate government because business must not only be about commercial success but about bringing wider benefits to the whole of our society too. It is why we put in place a modern industrial strategy, Strategic Partnership between business and government to make a longterm decision that will ensure the success of our country. Of our economy. Crucially a strategy to ensure , that as we develop the industries of the future of the benefits of the trade they will give rise to will reach working people and not just the parts of the country but every part. These are steps rooted in my conservative political convictions that rejection to Free Enterprise but rather they are the very way to restore the popular legitimacy of Free Enterprise and make it work for everyone. I believe taking such an approach is also how we resolve the brexit impasse and the way , to do so is to deliver on the outcome of the vote in 2016 and is no greater regret that that i could not do so. Whatever path we take must be sustainable for the long term, so that delivering brexit brings our country back together and that has to mean some kind of compromise. Some argue i shouldve taken the United Kingdom out of the European Union with no deal on the 29th of march and some pure reversal of brexit but , others to find a way to stop it altogether. Most people across the country have a preference for getting it done with the deal. I believe the strength of the deal i negotiated was delivered on the vote at the referendum to leave the European Union while responding to the concerns of those who had voted to remain. The problem was that when it came time for parliament to ratify the deal our politics retreated back into its binary pre referendum position winner takes all approach to leaving or anything. Or remaining. When opinions have become polarized and driven by ideology it becomes incredibly hard for a compromise to become a rallying point. The spirit of compromise in the common interest is also crucially meeting some of the greatest global challenges of our time. For responsibly harnessing the huge potential of Digital Technology to detecting Climate Change as well as preventing the further proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to building and strengthening International Rule in the face of hostile states. During my premiership the uk has all the way both domestically and internationally and in seeking a new settlement which ensures the internet remains a driver of growth and opportunity but also the Internet Companies responsible comprehensively to respond more concentrate more comprehensively to reasonable and legitimate demands that they take their wider responsibilities to society more seriously. That is why were legislating in the uk to create a legal duty of care and Internet Companies backed up by an independent regulator the power to enforce its decision. We are the first country to put forth such an approach in such a comprehensive approach but it is not enough to act alone. Ultimately we need a realistic global approach that achieves right balance between protecting the individual freedoms of those using the internet while also keeping them safe from harm. That also holds the key to further progress in the fight to protect our planet. Here in the uk we recently built on the 2008 Climate Change act by becoming the first major economy to agree on the net zero target that will end our contribution to Climate Change by 2050. Of course, some wanted us not just make that net zero commitment but to bring it or to bring it forward even earlier but others still question the science of Climate Change or the Economic Cost of tackling it. We were able to come together to agree a target and to support it across the political spectrum and across business and Civil Society it is both ambitious and also deliverable. Just as the nations of the world were able to come together and agree to the historic Paris Agreement for 2013 a settlement which is unraveled with damages all and our planets. Just as we seek to protect the hardfought paris climate agreement so i also believe we , must protect the similarly hard fought jcpoa, nuclear deal with iran, whatever challenges and once again, took painstaking pragmatism and compromise to s