Keir Starmer promises change as Rishi Sunak is haunted by the ghosts of prime ministers past in New Year speeches | Beth Rigby
When the Labour leader was up against the flamboyant Boris Johnson, Sir Keir Starmer, at times, struggled to have impact.
But the fall of Mr Johnson, the ensuing Tory chaos, and Labour’s 20-point lead in the polls, has changed the race and seems to have given Mr Starmer a new gear.
His New Year’s speech in east London was, in many ways, straight from the Tony Blair playbook. Mr Starmer was the candidate of change, Labour the party of change and his government the deliverer of political change that would bring about a “decade of renewal”.
Against the backdrop of soaring inflation and recession, a cost of living crisis, crippling strikes and an NHS at breaking point, Mr Starmer has the far easier job: lob rocks at the government and promise a thoroughly fed up public that Labour will do it better.
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What will Starmer do to help people?
The rolling No 10 turmoil during the reign of Mr Johnson and Liz Truss has made it easier still as Mr Starmer used this speech to criticise the “sticking plaster politics” of Westminster which might patch up problems in the immediate moment but doesn’t offer the solutions the country needs.
The Labour leader said: “You saw it yesterday from the prime minister. Commentary without solutions, more promises, more platitudes. No ambition to take us forward, no sense of what the country needs. Thirteen years of nothing but sticking plasters.”
Pitching himself as the candidate of change, Mr Starmer went on to argue that a Labour government would bring in the change, as he promised the public a “Take Back Control Bill” in the first year of a new Labour government to devolve power away from Westminster to local communities.
After being obliterated by Mr Johnson with that slogan in the 2019 general election, Mr Starmer turned it to his own advantage to goad his political rivals. “We will embrace the Take Back Control message, but we’ll turn it from a slogan to a solution, from a catchphrase to change.”
The promise of devolution was made by Mr Stamer last month in a keynote speech, but in his New Year one he again used it as a way of using it to argue that Labour offered a different vision of Britain and said he would outline his “missions” in the coming weeks.
Labour then using 2023 to begin sketching out the policies that will form the basis of its next manifesto.
It was unquestionably a more visionary speech than Mr Sunak’s but Mr Starmer carries none of the baggage of prime ministerial predecessors or the responsibility of being in office weighing Mr Sunak down.
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‘How are you different to previous PMs?’
For if Mr Starmer’s speech was one that sketched an idealised vision of Britain under a new Labour administration doing things differently, Mr Sunak’s was one very much grounded in realism.
Far from a fresh beginning, the Conservative prime minister was haunted by ghosts of PMs past in his New Year speech.
In a nod to the empty promises of Boris Johnson and the recklessness of Liz Truss, Mr Sunak’s pitch was to rebuild trust with the public, only promise what he could deliver and try to quietly get on with the job of working on “the people’s priorities”.
Mr Sunak is dealing with the fallout of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. He’s contending with a recession and soaring inflation, and the legacy of his two predecessors which damaged the reputation of his party and government in the eyes of his voters. His then, is a much harder pitch.
But the big question for both these men is whether their respective visions for the UK will win over the voters.
Mr Sunak knows, after the promises of Mr Johnson and Ms Truss, that voters want delivery from the government and has chosen targets – cutting NHS waiting lists and stopping illegal migration – that he hopes will return disgruntled voters to the Tory fold at the next general election.
Read more:
Starmer promises ‘take back control’ bill aimed at devolving power out of Westminster
Sunak makes five promises on economy, health and immigration in keynote speech
Is Sunak’s five-point plan enough to turn the tide for the Tories?
Mr Starmer has positioned himself as the change candidate – that word uttered 17 times in his speech on Thursday – with the promise of doing politics differently.
But in reality, he doesn’t need much to change this year in order to win the next general election, given Labour is 20 points ahead in the polls.
The candidate that needs change this year is Mr Sunak who made the economy the centrepiece of his five-point plan.
Mr Sunak hopes that falling inflation and economic growth into 2024 will give the Conservatives a shot for the next general election.
Economic recovery will enable the Tories to promise tax cuts whilst also giving them an angle to attack Labour by questioning their economic competence: “Keir Starmer has to set out plans bedded in economic reality too”, is how one No 10 insider put it (there’s a reason Mr Starmer made a point about not getting out the spending chequebook in his speech).
Hints of battles to come. These two leaders this week setting out their stall for 2023 in a year which both parties know will be critical in deciding who will win in 2024.
For now, it’s clear Mr Starmer and Labour are still very much in the driving seat.
The moment could have felt so different. It should have felt so different.
It was supposed to come a long time ago, and it was supposed to be the outcome of a peace process, of reconciliation, of understanding, of coexistence and of healing.
If it had happened the right way, then we’d be celebrating two states living alongside each other, coexisting, sharing a capital city.
As it happened: France recognises Palestinian state
Destroyed buildings in Gaza, as seen from Israeli side of the border.
Pic: Reuters
Instead, the recognition of Palestine as a state comes out of the rubble of Gaza.
It has come as a last-ditch effort to save all vanishing chances of a Palestinian state.
Essentially, the countries which have recognised Palestine here at the UN in New York are jumping to the endpoint and hope to now fill in the gaps.
Those gaps are huge.
Even before the horror of the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, there was almost no realistic prospect of a two-state solution.
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Two-state solution in ‘profound peril’
Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank and Benjamin Netanyahu’s divide-and-conquer strategy for the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza had made reconciliation increasingly hard.
The Hamas attack set back what little hope there was even further, while settlement expansion by the Israelis in the West Bank accelerated since then.
An updated map of Israel and Palestine on the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office website after the UK recognised the state of Palestine
The same questions which have made all this so intractable remain.
How to share a capital city? Who controls Jerusalem’s Old City, where the holy sites are located? If it’s shared, then how?
What happens to the settlements in the West Bank? If land swaps take place, then where? What happens to Gaza? Who governs the Palestinians?
And how are the moderates on both sides emboldened to dominate the discourse and the policy?
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Two-state solution ‘encourages terrorism’
Hope rests with Trump
Right now, Palestinian extremism is holding out in Gaza with the hostages, and Israeli extremism is dominant on the other side, with Netanyahu now threatening to fully annex the West Bank as a reaction to the recognition declarations at the UN.
It all feels pretty bleak and desperate. If there is cause for some hope, it rests with Donald Trump.
Donald Trump is the only man who can influence Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu (below). Pic: AP
Pic: Reuters
Over the next 24 hours in New York, he will meet key Arab and Muslim leaders from the Middle East and Asia to present his latest plan for peace in Gaza.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, Indonesia, and Pakistan will all participate in the meeting.
Delegates applaud after Emmanuel Macron announced France’s recognition of a state of Palestine. Pic: AP
They will listen to his plan, some may offer peacekeeping troops (a significant development if they do), some may offer to provide funding to rebuild the strip and, crucially, all are likely to tell him that his Abraham Accords plan – to forge ahead with diplomatic normalisation between Muslim nations and Israel – will not happen if Israel pushes ahead with any West Bank annexation.
Netanyahu will address the UN at the end of the week, before travelling to the White House on Monday, where he will tell Trump what he plans to do next in both Gaza and the West Bank.
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If Trump wants his Abraham Accords to expand and not collapse – and remember the accords represent a genuine diplomatic game changer for the region, one Trump is rightly proud of – then he will force Netanyahu to stop in Gaza and stop in the West Bank.
He is the only man in the world who can.
World
Israel is increasingly ostracised – and no matter how strong its army, it’s not a good place to be
Emmanuel Macron was in his element. Touring the UN’s main hall, hugging fellow leaders before taking to the podium.
He was here to make history. France, the country that carved up the Middle East over a hundred years ago along with Britain, finally giving the Palestinians what they believe is long overdue.
As it happened: France recognises Palestinian state
Yvette Cooper witnessed the event looking on. Her prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, did the same over the weekend. Foregoing such hallowed surroundings, he beat the French to it by a day.
“Peace is much more demanding, much more difficult than all wars,” said Macron, “but the time has come.”
There were cheers as he recognised the state of Palestine.
The time for what? Not for peace that is for sure. The war in Gaza rages and the West Bank simmers with settler violence against Palestinians.
The French and British believe Israel is actively working against the possibility of a Palestinian state. Attacks on Palestinians, land seizures, the relentless pace of settlement construction is finishing off the chances of a two-state solution to the conflict, so time for unilateral action they believe.
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Could UK recognition of Palestinian state affect US relationship?
Without the horizon of a state of their own, Palestinians will resort to more and more extreme means.
The Israelis say they have already done so on 7 October and this move only rewards the wicked extremism of Hamas.
But the Netanyahu government has undeniably sought to divide and weaken the Palestinians and has always opposed a Palestinian state.
Israel still has the support of Donald Trump, but opinion polls suggest even in America public sentiment is moving against them. That shift will be hard to reverse.
Read more:
Will Trump force Netanyahu’s hand?
More than three quarters of the UN’s member nations now recognise a state of Palestine, four out of five of the security council’s permanent members.
The move is hugely problematic. Where exactly is the state, what are its borders, will it now be held to account for its extremists, who exactly is its government?
But more and more countries believe it had to happen. That leaves Israel increasingly ostracised and for a small country in a difficult neighbourhood that is not a good place to be, however strong it is militarily.
China will evacuate 400,000 people over a super typhoon that slammed into the Philippines and Taiwan today.
Super Typhoon Ragasa, which is heading to southeastern China, has sustained winds of 134mph.
Thousands of people have already been evacuated from homes and schools in the Philippines and Taiwan, with hundreds of thousands more to leave their homes in China.
Filipino forecasters said it slammed into Panuitan Island off Cagayan province with gusts of up to 183mph on Monday.
More than 8,200 were evacuated to safety in Cagayan while 1,220 fled to emergency shelters in Apayao, which is prone to flash floods and landslides.
The projected route of Super Typhoon Ragasa, by the Japanese Typhoon Centre. Pic: Japan Meteorological Agency
Domestic flights were suspended in northern provinces hit by the typhoon, and fishing boats and inter-island ferries were prohibited from leaving ports over rough seas.
In Taiwan’s southern Taitung and Pingtung counties, closures were ordered in some coastal and mountainous areas along with the Orchid and Green islands.
Officials in southern Chinese tech hub, Shenzhen, said they planned to relocate around 400,000 people including people in low-lying and flood-prone areas.
Strong waves batter Basco, Batanes province, northern Philippines, on Monday. (AP Photo/Justine Mark Pillie Fajardo)
Shenzhen’s airport added it will halt flights from Tuesday night.
In Fujian province, on China’s southeast coast, 50 ferry routes were suspended.
According to China’s National Meteorological Centre, the typhoon will make landfall in the coastal area between Shenzhen city and Xuwen county in Guangdong province on Wednesday.
The International Space Station captures the eye of Typhoon Ragasa. (Pic: NASA/Reuters)
A tropical cyclone with sustained winds of 115mph or higher is categorised in the Philippines as a super typhoon.
The term was adopted years ago to demonstrate the urgency tied to extreme weather disturbances.
Ragasa was heading west and was forecast to remain in the South China Sea until at least Wednesday while passing south of Taiwan and Hong Kong, before landfall on the China mainland.
The Philippines’ weather agency warned there was “a high risk of life-threatening storm surge with peak heights exceeding three metres within the next 24 hours over the low-lying or exposed coastal localities” of the northern provinces of Cagayan, Batanes, Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur.
Power was cut out on Calayan island and in the entire northern mountain province of Apayao, west of Cagayan, disaster officials said.
There were no immediate reports of casualties from Ragasa, which is known locally in the Philippines as Nando.
On Monday, Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos Jr suspended government work and all classes on Monday in the capital, Manila, and 29 provinces in the main northern Luzon region.
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