Gordon Brown’s New Year message

Gordon Brown has issued a New Year message pledging to work with the British people to “build a better tomorrow, today”.

In a specially recorded podcast, the Prime Minister listed the three main challenges facing the nation - security, the environment and the economy - and spoke of his confidence that the British people “can and will rise to meet them”.

Mr Brown highlighted the economic turmoil of 2008 and called for a “new progressive era” of targetted assistance and investment as well as the reform of international institutions such as the World Bank. The PM said he wished to set the agenda of April’s UK-hosted G20 summit on greater international cooperation and said that he would be guided at all times by the principle of “the welfare and well being of British families and British businesses”.

The PM said:

“I believe that we will eventually look back on the winter of 2008 and 2009 as another great global challenge that was thrown Britain’s way, and that Britain met. Because we had the right values, the right policies, the right character to meet them.

“That’s why I believe Britain is the best country in the world. And the British people will, in 2009, show the world the qualities we are made of - as we build tomorrow, today.”

Listen to the Prime Minister’s New Year message [mp3]