Cameron speech: We are here to fight

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David Cameron: "This is a battle for Britain's future"

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David Cameron has said the Conservatives have "never been more up for the task of turning our country around", at the party's spring conference in London.

The prime minister sought to reassure grassroots members about the party's direction after its defeat at last month's Eastleigh by-election.
The poll loss has prompted some Tories to demand a shift to the right.
Mr Cameron told party activists: "We are here to fight. We are here to win."
He said that with fewer than 1,000 days until the next general election, activists get the party's message out and "win the majority our country desperately needs".
"Anyone in this party who's in any doubt who we should be fighting, what we should be debating, where our energies should be focused, I tell you - our battle is with Labour," he said.
'Battle for Britain' Opening the speech, the prime minister said he had a "very clear message" for his party.
"We are people who love our country, who believe in Britain's greatness - and believe in restoring it," he said.

Analysis

Adam Fleming BBC News Political Correspondent

David Cameron said plenty of things that warmed the hearts of the Tory activists who had gathered on this cold, wet Saturday.
The lines in his speech that received the biggest applause were about restoring rigour to the history curriculum, the return of competitive sport in schools and the speeding up of the adoption process.
And like any Tory leader feeling the heat, Mr Cameron dropped in a few references to Thatcher and Churchill.
Nothing focuses the mind like a deadline and so the prime minister also reminded his rank and file that there were fewer than 1,000 days until the next election.
He ended his speech with a predictably scathing attack on Labour but there was no mention of the Lib Dems, who many activists loathe, or of UKIP who many of them fear.
And just as the prime minister left, he was ambushed by a former parliamentary candidate who said she was defecting to UKIP.
"Just read my speech," he shouted as she was bustled out.

He said it was an "honour" and a "privilege" to serve the country in "its hour of need".

"This is a battle for Britain's future we are engaged in," he said.
"So let the message go out from this hall and this party: We are here to fight. We are here to win.
"And we have never been more up for the task of turning our country around."
Mr Cameron also outlined what he saw as the coalition's main achievements and told activists the party was giving people the "tools to succeed".
"Yes, we believe self-reliance is a good thing, but that doesn't mean 'you're on your own'," he said.
He said he was following the same Tory values of past prime ministers, such as Margaret Thatcher and Winston Churchill.
"We want people to climb up through their own efforts, yes, but in order to climb up they need the ladder to be there in the first place, the family that nurtures them, the school that inspires them, the opportunities there for them," he said.
"Great Conservatives down the generations have put those ladders in place: when Churchill invented the labour exchanges that helped people into work, when Macmillan built new homes, when Thatcher fired up enterprise so people could start their own businesses.
"That is what we're doing in the Conservative Party right now."
'Aspiration nation' He said he wanted to focus on what the party was doing for young people.
"There are far too many people in their teens and twenties who are right at the start of their lives - but can feel it's the end of the line," he said.
"No-one's believed in them. No-one's given them a chance. That's what I'm determined to change.
"We are building an aspiration nation, a country where it's not who you know or where you're from but who you are and where you're determined to go."
On Labour's opposition to benefit cuts being rolled out as part of the deficit reduction programme, Mr Cameron said they were "patronising people, patting them on the head and putting a benefit cheque in their hands".
Mr Cameron reflected on adoption rules, saying barriers to mixed-race adoption were "wrong" and would be changed.
On education, he said he wanted the system to be "like the pushiest, most sharp-elbowed, ambitious parent there is" and said he wanted it to "be the norm" for every school leaver to start an apprenticeship or go to university.
He pledged more help for people who want to own their own home.
"We want to be the generation that builds a new property-owning democracy for the 21st Century," he said.
The one-day conference is also due to hear from Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and Home Secretary Theresa May.