Starmer says people are ‘right to be anti-Westminster and angry about what politics has become’
Starmer says people are “right to be anti-Westminster” and right to be angry about what politics has become.
You’re right to be anti-Westminster and angry about what politics has become.
But hold on to any flickering hope in your heart that things can be better, because they can, and you can choose it.
You can reject the pointless populist gestures and the low-road cynicism that the Tories believe is all you deserve. That’s all they have left now. After 14 years, with nothing good to show, no practical achievements to point towards, no purpose beyond the fight to save their own skins.
They can’t change Britain, so they try to undermine the possibility of change itself.”
Key events
Starmer is now on the passage about cleaning up politics. (See 9.25am.)
Starmer says Tories can no longer win election on the economy because that’s become their weakness, not their strength
Starmer says, on the economy, he wants an argument about who growth should serve.
And the answer is – working people.
He says the Tories believe the key to growth is driving down wages.
He says he has read claims that the Tories want to fight the election on the economy.
But what used to be their strength is now their weakness.
They claim to be the part of business, but they don’t support business. And they claim to be the party of tax cuts, despite taking tax levels to a new high.
He says Labour will “close the book on the trickledown nonsense once and for all”.
Starmer says government is too centralised. But, despite hoarding power, it is also short on ambition. It mops up problems after they have occurred, instead of trying to prevent them.
He says Labour’s mission-led approach will mean “tackling tomorrow’s challenges today”.
Starmer is listing some of what Labour would do: reform of the planning system, more police on the streets, cheaper bills because of Labour’s energy policy, opportunities for children, including technical excellence colleges, better menal health support in schools, and the NHS “back on its feet”, with a plan to cut waiting list, paid for by removing non-dom status.
Starmer says what keeps him up at night is “the shrug of the shoulder”, and the fear that people do not believe that change is possible.
Britain needs change, wants change, is crying out for change. And yet – trust in politics is now so low, so degraded, that nobody believes you can make a difference anymore.
That after the sex scandals, the expenses scandals, the waste scandals, the contracts for friends, even in a crisis like the pandemic, people have looked at us and concluded we’re all just in it for ourselves.
A nation that is so exhausted, tired, despairing even, that they’ve given up on hope.
Starmer says, if Labour is not successful with its “project hope”, the Tories will exploit this sense of despair.
They want to take “the change option off the table altogether”.
And they are also trying to “salt the earth” so that, if Labour does win the election, it will find it harder to serve because people have become cynical, he argues.
He says Labour will serve people – if they vote Labour, if they are considering voting Labour, or if they have no intention of voting Labour at all. That’s because it is a party of services, he says.
Starmer says people are ‘right to be anti-Westminster and angry about what politics has become’
Starmer says people are “right to be anti-Westminster” and right to be angry about what politics has become.
You’re right to be anti-Westminster and angry about what politics has become.
But hold on to any flickering hope in your heart that things can be better, because they can, and you can choose it.
You can reject the pointless populist gestures and the low-road cynicism that the Tories believe is all you deserve. That’s all they have left now. After 14 years, with nothing good to show, no practical achievements to point towards, no purpose beyond the fight to save their own skins.
They can’t change Britain, so they try to undermine the possibility of change itself.”
Starmer says being in opposition is frustrating, and he accuses the Tories of treating it as performance art.
He is now on the passage about his career in public service that was posted earlier. See 9.12am.
Keir Starmer is speaking now.
He says at the election power will be transferred, not to him personally, but to voters.
If you’ve been breaking your back to keep trading, steering your business through the pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis, the challenge of Brexit and the chaos of Westminster.
If you’ve been serving our country, whether in scrubs or the uniform of your regiment and what you want now is a politics that serves you, then make no mistake – this is your year.
The opportunity to shape our country’s future rests in your hands.
And that is a new year message of hope: the hope of democracy, the power of the vote, and the potential for national renewal.
We can unite as a country “and get our future back”, he says.
He says he has been working four year on getting the country back and tilting government “back in the interests of working people”.
At the Labour event Claire Hazelgrove, the Labour candidate for Filton and Bradley Stoke, is introducing Keir Starmer.
Filton and Bradley Stoke, which is a constituency just north of Bristol, is a target seat. The Conservative MP there, Jack Lopresti, had a majority of just 5,646 at the 2019 election.
IFS chief says he was ‘surprised’ by report saying Labour considering tax cuts given pressure on public spending
Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the public spending thinktank, told the Today programme this morning that he was “pretty surprised” by the reports saying Labour is considering offering tax cuts at the general election. (See 9.55am.) He explained:
What you can do is cut some taxes while increasing other taxes by more, and that may be what the Labour party are talking about.
But what you can’t do given the state of the public finances, and given that both parties say that they’re focused on getting overall national debt down over the next parliament, if you really want to do that, then you can’t cut taxes and increase spending.
Indeed, you probably can’t cut taxes and keep spending anywhere near where it is. In other words, if you’re going to cut taxes yet get debt down then you’re going to have, frankly, another period of austerity on public services.
Keir Starmer is due to start his speech shortly.
There is a live feed at the top of the blog.
Tax burden high, but Labour tax cuts would have to be ‘fair, sustainable and affordable’, says McFadden
In his Q&A Keir Starmer is likely to be asked about a report in yesterday’s Times saying Labour is considering offering cuts to income tax or national insurance in its manifesto. He will probably echo what Pat McFadden, the party’s national campaign coordinator, told the Today programme when asked this morning if this was true. McFadden said:
We are all conscious that the tax burden on working people is very high. But what we won’t do is do what the Conservatives did in 2022, which is let rip, crash the economy and leave the British people with a bill to pay the price.
The tax burden is very high. We are clear that any tax cuts have to be fair, have to be sustainable and have to be affordable.
Pat McFadden claims Labour has set out more policy ahead of general election than in past
Keir Starmer is regularly accused of not setting out a clear vision of what Labour would do in government. But this morning Pat McFadden, the party’s national campaign coordinator, who was doing a media round, said this was unfair. He said Labour had set out more policy then it had ahead of general elections in the past, including ahead of the 1997 election. He told the Today programme:
If I compare the list … which will be in Keir Starmer’s speech today with the pledge card that we produced in the run up to the 1997 election, I would say we’d set out more policy in advance of this election than we did in the past.
(It’s worth pointing out that complaints about Labour not having an agenda for government are often, on closer inspection, complaints about Labour’s agenda for government being not sufficiently radical. That is a different charge, and one that is easier to sustain. Labour has announced a lot of policy, much of it set out in the 116-page national policy forum report.)
Starmer to pledge to clean up politics with ‘total crackdown on cronyism’
In his speech this morning Keir Starmer will also promise that Labour will clean up politics. He will say:
To change Britain, we must change ourselves. We need to clean up politics. No more VIP fast lanes, no more kickbacks for colleague, no more revolving doors between government and the companies they regulate. I will restore standards in public life with a total crackdown on cronyism: this ends now.
I’ve put expense cheat politicians in jail before and I didn’t care if they were Labour or Tory. Nobody will be above the law in a Britain I lead.
Kiran Stacey wrote about this aspect of the speech on Tuesday.
Keir Starmer to accuse Tories of taking away people’s hope that general election can bring change
Good morning. Keir Starmer is marking the start of the new year with a major speech which he will be delivering at 10am. He did the same thing last year, with a speech that was heavy on policy, but this one is different because, judging by the fairly lengthy advance briefing given to journalists, it’s not about policy, and it’s not even mainly about positioning, or philosophy. It seems to be more basic than that, because it’s about mood: “hope”.
The word appears eight times in the Labour press release with extracts from the speech sent out overnight (or nine, if you include “hopeful”). Starmer will say that it’s an election year, that people want change, and that this should be a moment for hope.
This year, at the general election, against the understandable despair of a downtrodden country, I will ask the British people to believe in it again.
You’re right to be anti-Westminster and angry about what politics has become.
But hold on to any flickering hope in your heart that things can be better, because they can, and you can choose it.
He will argue that the Conservatives has governed so badly that people no longer believe a change of party will make a difference, or provide grounds for hope.
Britain needs change, wants change, is crying out for change. And yet – trust in politics is now so low, so degraded, that nobody believes you can make a difference anymore.
That after the sex scandals, the expenses scandals, the waste scandals, the contracts for friends, even in a crisis like the pandemic, people have looked at us and concluded we’re all just in it for ourselves.
A nation that is so exhausted, tired, despairing even, that they’ve given up on hope.
He will insist that hope is merited, because Labour will govern differently.
We’re trying not just to defeat the Tories, but to defeat their entire way of doing politics, a mindset that seeks out any differences between the people of this country.
I have to warn you all, they will leave no stone unturned this year either. Every opportunity for division will be explored for political potential, that is a given.
But we have to bring the country together, and have to earn trust as well as votes. To truly defeat this miserabilist Tory project, we must crush their politics of divide and decline with Labour renewal.
And he will argue that he personally can ensure that Labour governs differently because of his commitment to public service.
I had a long career before this. At the Crown Prosecution Service, as a human rights lawyer, in my work with the Police Service of Northern Ireland. I’ve looked into the eyes of people I’ve served or represented and I have seen reflected back the knowledge that government can make or break a life.
Literally, when it comes to work, I’ve done with people living on death row. Life and death decisions – placed in your hands.
There’s pressure that comes with that, but that’s the responsibility of justice and public service. And it’s the responsibility of serious government.
This isn’t a game. Politics shouldn’t be a hobby – a pastime for people who enjoy the feeling of power, and nor should it be a sermon from on high, a self-regarding lecture, vanity dressed up as virtue. No, it should be a higher calling.
The line about politics as a hobby seems to be a clear refence to Tories like Boris Johnson, George Osborne and David Cameron. But the reference to politics as “vanity dressed up as virtue” seems to be a dig at his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn.
It remains to be seen how convincing, or powerful, people will find this. The main news today is likely to emerge from the Q&A, and the interviews Starmer is giving later. But elections are often seen a contest between hope and fear and, other things being equal, optimism is normally more appealing. That is why Starmer, who is not often mistaken for a shaft of sunlight, must be attracted to depicting Labour as the party of hope.
Here is Kiran Stacey’s preview, with more from the speech.
And here is the agenda for the day.
10am: Keir Starmer gives a speech at a venue near Bristol, and then holds a Q&A with journalists. He is then doing interviews with the main broadcasters.
10.15am: Steve Barclay, the environment secretary, speaks at the Oxford Farming Conference. Steve Reed, his Labour shadow, is also speaking.
Morning: Rishi Sunak is going a visit in Nottinghamshire, where he is due to speak to regional reporters.
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