Gordon Brown has spoken this weekend of this enduring support for the hard working people of Britain, and that he understands what is making them angry.

If he really did, he wouldn't be offering to listen to what they are saying, because he would already know. Instead he would be offering leadership.

The reason hard working people across the country are feeling betrayed by Labour is that, in these difficult times, it is they who are feeling the pain most.

It is low income households in work, who are affected most by the scrapping of the 10p band of income tax.

It is young graduates, now with high student loans, who cannot afford to get on the housing ladder, because average prices are now 8 times annual earnings, instead of three times as they were 11 years ago.

It is small businesses who are struggling to meet the costs of compliance with the 15 new regulations introduced every working day over the last 11 years.

It is working families who are struggling to make ends meet because of rising prices, mortgage costs and taxes.

But the frustrations of people who are making a contribution to life in Britain is not just limited to taxes and expediture.

Yesterday, I watched with hundreds of residents of Sandgate, near Folkestone, as the Mayor Cllr Geoffrey Boot granted the freedom of the town to the 2nd Battalion Royal Gurkha Rifles. The Gurkhas have been based at the nearby Shorncliffe Barracks since 2001 and are an integral part of the community. The Gurkha soldiers give valiant service in the British army, but only those who have retired since 1997 have the right to remain in the UK and to transfer their pensions into the British army pension scheme at an equal rate. Labour has decided that those who retired before 1997 do not have this right.

Some might say that if we allowed all Gurkhas to do this, we might be suggesting that service in the armed forces with distinction gives foreign nationals a path to British citizenship. Is that such a bad thing, when many others are granted full British citizenship without the record of service shown by the Gurkhas. A particulary strong comparison was the recent case where, thanks to the Human Rights Act introduced by Labour, the murderer of headteacher Philip Lawrence, a non British national, has been allowed to remain in the UK as an expression of his rights, but someone who has served in the British army does not have the same right in law.

The Prime Minister has failed, just like the Babylonian King of the Old Testament, to understand the writing on the wall. The purpose of the local election results in England and Wales, and in particular Boris Johnson's win in London, was not to test Gordon Brown's resolve, but instead to send a message from the hard working and fair minded people of Britain that they have had enough, and want a government that's on their side and shares their values. And if Gordon Brown is standing on his record and experience, its clear that he has failed this test.