With his pledge to reform education, Sir Keir has embarked on his most personal – and political – ambition yet
Breaking the “class ceiling” with the promise that a child’s start in life won’t determine where they end up. The last of Sir Keir Starmer’s five missions of a would-be Labour government is perhaps the most personal – and political – yet.
Personal because the Labour leader clearly sees himself as the embodiment of his mission to “tear down barriers of opportunity that hold people back”: his story began in a “pebble-dash semi” with working class parents and could end at Number 10 Downing Street as our next prime minister.
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He was the first in his family to go to university and have a white collar profession, going on to become the head of the Crown Prosecution Service and a knight of the realm.
“Our core purpose and my personal cause is to fight – at every stage for every child – the pernicious idea that background equals destiny,” he told his audience at a higher education college in Kent. “Breaking that link, that’s what Labour is for. I’ve always felt it and it runs very deep for me.”
But it is political too: Sir Keir trying to prove to working class voters that this north London lawyer – he’s the third Labour leader in a row to hail from Camden or Islington – shares their values.
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Starmer asked how Labour will level up schools
He is of the view that Labour has drifted too far from working people – not just in the run-up to 2019 when Boris Johnson seized Labour’s red wall, but in the decade before too. A big part of this for Sir Keir, then, was to try to speak to people who are disaffected or, as he says, his toolmaker father was, “disrespected” in a society that values academic qualifications over vocational ones.
While these five “missions” are sometimes criticised for being rather amorphous and lacking in detail, Sir Keir backed this one with a handful of clear policies and pledges: a focus on ‘oracy’ to give all children more confidence, an expansion of creative subjects to the age of 16 to broaden opportunities beyond narrow academia and a promise to have half a million children hitting early learning targets by 2030.
But even the most charitable observer would be hard-pressed to see how the measures Sir Keir announced on Thursday even approaches meeting his breathtaking goal. This is a Labour leader who wants nothing less than an end to the idea that your background will determine where you get to in life.
When asked by Sky News when he wanted to get state schools to the level of private schools, he told me he “hoped” to achieve that within five years of a Labour government.
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Protesters interrupt Starmer speech
Is this would-be prime minister making promises he can’t keep?
It’s hard to see how. On the one hand, the gap between private and state school funding per pupil has doubled in the decade to the end of 2021, according to the Institute of Fiscal Studies, from a difference of £3,100 per pupil in 2010 to £6,500 in 2021. On the other, Sir Keir is clear that there isn’t a pot of money for Labour to pour into schools. As he said himself on Thursday, funding increases can only come through economic growth.
This raises obvious questions as to the mismatch between ambition and reality. Is this would-be prime minister making promises he cannot keep?
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Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Headteachers said of Sir Keir’s plans: “If these ambitions are to be fulfilled, significant additional investment will be needed…it is right to have high ambitions, but schools must have the resources they need if they are to play their part in delivering them.”
Sir Keir knows this. But he too knows that promising big spending pledges opens up a flank on the economy that the Tories will seek to attack. He won’t take that risk.
On average, nineteen points ahead of Rishi Sunak in the polls and with an opponent who is struggling to deliver any of his own five pledges, Sir Keir has probably calculated that he doesn’t need to do much more than not mess up.
Around party conference in October, Labour’s likely to turn the five missions – growing the economy, safer streets, a better NHS, opportunity for all, and clean power – into more precise pledges. But don’t expect big promises on public services from this Labour party ahead of the election.
Sir Keir might talk about being a radical, but when it comes to an election he looks on course to comfortable win, he’s going to be very conservative.
US president-elect Donald Trump has suggested Israel and Hamas could agree a Gaza ceasefire by the end of the week.
Talks between Israeli and Hamas representatives resumed in the Qatari capital Doha yesterday, after US President Joe Biden indicated a deal to stop the fighting was “on the brink” on Monday.
A draft agreement has been sent to both sides. It includes provisions for the release of hostages and a phased Israeli troop withdrawal from Gaza.
Qatar says Israel and Hamas are at their “closest point” yet to a ceasefire deal.
Two Hamas officials said the group has accepted the draft agreement, with Israel still considering the deal.
An Israeli official said a deal is close but “we are not there” yet.
More than 46,500 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel launched its ground offensive in the aftermath of the 7 October attacks, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Read more:
What’s in the proposed deal?
Palestinians inspect the site of an Israeli strike on beachfront cafe in Deir al Balah. Pic: Reuters
Biden hails possibility of agreement
President Biden said it would include a hostage release deal and a “surge” of aid to Palestinians, in his final foreign policy speech as president.
“So many innocent people have been killed, so many communities have been destroyed. Palestinian people deserve peace,” he said.
“The deal would free the hostages, halt the fighting, provide security to Israel, and allow us to significantly surge humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians who suffered terribly in this war that Hamas started.”
Qatari mediators have sent Israel and Hamas a draft proposal for an agreement to halt the fighting.
Analysis:
Deal might be close, but there are many unanswered questions
Pic: Reuters
Trump: ‘We’re very close’
President-elect Donald Trump has also discussed a possible peace deal during a phone interview with the Newsmax channel.
“We’re very close to getting it done and they have to get it done,” he said.
“If they don’t get it done, there’s going to be a lot of trouble out there, a lot of trouble, like they have never seen before.
“And they will get it done. And I understand there’s been a handshake and they’re getting it finished and maybe by the end of the week. But it has to take place, it has to take place.”
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Pic: AP
Israeli official: Former Hamas leader held up deal
Speaking on Tuesday as negotiations resumed in Qatar, an anonymous Israeli official said that an agreement was “close, but we are not there”.
They accused Hamas of previously “dictating, not negotiating” but said this has changed in the last few weeks.
“Yahya Sinwar was the main obstacle for a deal,” they added.
Sinwar, believed to be the mastermind of the 7 October attacks, led Hamas following the assassination of his predecessor but was himself killed in October last year.
Under Sinwar, the Israeli official claimed, Hamas was “not in a rush” to bring a hostage deal but this has changed since his death and since the IDF “started to dismantle the Shia axis”.
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Biden: ‘Never, never, never, ever give up’
Iran ‘weaker than it’s been in decades’
Yesterday, President Biden also hailed Washington’s support for Israel during two Iranian attacks in 2024.
“All told, Iran is weaker than it’s been in decades,” the president said.
Mr Biden claimed America’s adversaries were weaker than when he took office four years ago and that the US was “winning the worldwide competition”.
“Compared to four years ago, America is stronger, our alliances are stronger, our adversaries and competitors are
weaker,” he said.
“We have not gone to war to make these things happen.”
The US president is expected to give a farewell address on Wednesday.
A draft ceasefire deal on the table between Israel and Hamas would see 33 hostages set free and a phased withdrawal of IDF forces from parts of Gaza.
President Joe Biden said an agreement to stop the fighting was “on the brink” and high level negotiations between the two sides resumed in Qatar on Tuesday.
The deal would see a number of things happen in a first stage, with negotiations for the second stage beginning in the third week of the ceasefire.
It would also allow a surge in humanitarian aid into Gaza, which has been devastated by more than a year of war.
Details of what the draft proposal entails have been emerging on Tuesday, reported by Israeli and Palestinian officials.
Relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages hold photos of their loved ones during a protest on 8 January. Pic: AP
Hostages to be returned
In the first stage of the potential ceasefire, 33 hostages would be set free.
These include women (including female soldiers), children, men over the age of 50, wounded and sick.
Israel believes most of these hostages are alive but there has not been any official confirmation from Hamas.
In return for the release of the hostages, Israel would free more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.
People serving long sentences for deadly attacks would be included in this but Hamas fighters who took part in the 7 October attack would not be released.
An arrangement to prevent Palestinian “terrorists” from going back to the West Bank would be included in the deal, an anonymous Israeli official said.
Read more:
A timeline of events since the 7 October attacks
The hostages who still haven’t returned home
Smoke billows as buildings lie in ruin in Beit Hanoun in Gaza. Pic: Reuters
Phased Israeli withdrawal from Gaza
The agreement also includes a phased withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, with IDF troops remaining in the border perimeter to defend Israeli border towns and villages.
Security arrangements would be implemented at the Philadelphi corridor – a narrow strip of land that runs along the border between Egypt and Gaza – with Israel withdrawing from parts of it after the first few days of the deal.
The Rafah Crossing between Egypt and Gaza would start to work gradually to allow the crossing of people who are sick and other humanitarian cases out of Gaza for treatment.
Unarmed North Gaza residents would be allowed to return to their homes, with a mechanism introduced to ensure no weapons are moved there.
“We will not leave the Gaza Strip until all our hostages are back home,” the Israeli official said.
What will happen to Gaza in the future?
There is less detail about the future of Gaza – from how it will be governed, to any guarantees that this agreement will bring a permanent end to the war.
“The only thing that can answer for now is that we are ready for a ceasefire,” the Israeli official said.
“This is a long ceasefire and the deal that is being discussed right now is for a long one. There is a big price for releasing the hostages and we are ready to pay this price.”
The international community has said Gaza must be run by Palestinians, but there has not been a consensus about how this should be done – and the draft ceasefire agreement does not seem to address this either.
In the past, Israel has said it will not end the war leaving Hamas in power. It also previously rejected the possibility of the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited governing powers in the West Bank, from taking over the administration of Gaza.
Since the beginning of its military campaign in Gaza, Israel has also said it would retain security control over the territory after the fighting ends.
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