Aides shed tears of relief as Starmer shrugs off glitter protest to deliver ‘speech of his life’ | Beth Rigby

Published

2 years ago

October 10, 2023

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It was a leader’s speech received with such defining and raucous applause that Sir Keir Starmer and his wife Victoria, having exited the stage, came back for an encore.

You probably never thought of Starmer as a rockstar politician, but in that hall this cautious, steady lawyer had undoubtedly electrified his crowd.

It was, shadow cabinet minister Thangam Debbonaire told me as the hall cleared, “the speech of his life” – while one of his core team told me they’d cried after he delivered it.

The anxiety giving way to jubilation and relief – a reflection of how much that speech mattered to the party, and the man who wants to become your next prime minister.

The awful start, where a protester threw glitter over the Labour leader could have thrown him off course.

Instead, he took off his jacket and literally rolled up his sleeves to deliver a speech that both spoke of his values and set up the campaigning messages for those Labour supporters to take to the country.

The beginnings of the Labour election slogans were laid out by Starmer as he sought to answer the question “Why Labour?”

His five missions of government were to get Britain building again, switch on Great British Energy, get our NHS back on its feet, take back our streets and tear down barriers to opportunity.

But in truth this was not a speech packed with policies to win over wavering voters. His main pledge on housing – to build 300,000 new homes a year – mimicked what his Tory counterparts have already promised, while Labour’s pledges on police and the NHS had already been made.

That’s because the real aim of this speech was something different. His task was to appeal directly to voters beyond the hall.

Sir Keir had come to his conference determined that it was not enough for the Conservatives to lose. He had to give the public a vision for Britain that was enough for Labour to win a mandate for what he describes as a “decade of renewal”.

His message was one of hope as he told his audience: “What is broken can be repaired, what is ruined can be rebuilt. Wounds do heal. And ultimately that project – their project – will crash against the spirit of working people in this country. They are the source of my hope.”

He did not whitewash the scale of the task as he looked back on the challenges for Labour leaders past.

“If you think our job in 1997 was to rebuild the crumbling realm. That in 1964 it was to modernise an economy left behind by the pace of technology. In 1945 to build a new Britain out of the trauma of collective sacrifice. Then in 2024 it will have to be all three.”

A speech not for the hall, but for the public

The pitch and tone of his speech undoubtedly gave the hall more confidence Sir Keir is determined to replicate the mood of 1996, not 1991 – set to be the heir to Blair, rather than fall short as Neil Kinnock did in 1992 when John Major’s Conservatives narrowly clung on.

For this was a speech not for the hall, but for the public. And just like Blair in 1996, Starmer used his moment to appeal beyond his room to the undecided and doubters, to convince the public his party had really changed and was a party that instead of holding people back would help them on.

There were echoes of Blair when Sir Keir promised to prioritise economic growth, work with business, champion a competitive tax regime and back enterprise.

He told the audience he had led a “changed Labour party” no longer in the thrall to gesture politics and protest politics. And to “despairing” Conservative voters, he issued a direct appeal: “If you feel our country needs a party that conserves…you can join it. It’s this Labour party.”

This speech was a pitch from Starmer that he really is the heir to Blair.

He was speaking to a crowd that, after nearly 14 years out of power, is united around a singular goal – to win the next general election.

The mood in the conference centre was certainly more confident after this speech that Sir Keir can lock in the win. I suspect after that speech and its reception, he will be too.

Politics

‘No doubt’ UK will spend 3% of GDP on defence in next parliament, defence secretary says

Published

3 hours ago

May 31, 2025

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'No doubt' UK will spend 3% of GDP on defence in next parliament, defence secretary says

There is “no doubt” the UK “will spend 3% of our GDP on defence” in the next parliament, the defence secretary has said.

John Healey’s comments come ahead of the publication of the government’s Strategic Defence Review (SDR) on Monday.

This is an assessment of the state of the armed forces, the threats facing the UK, and the military transformation required to meet them.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has previously set out a “clear ambition” to raise defence spending to 3% in the next parliament “subject to economic and fiscal conditions”.

Mr Healey has now told The Times newspaper there is a “certain decade of rising defence spending” to come, adding that this commitment “allows us to plan for the long term. It allows us to deal with the pressures.”

A government source insisted the defence secretary was “expressing an opinion, which is that he has full confidence that the government will be able to deliver on its ambition”, rather than making a new commitment.

The UK currently spends 2.3% of GDP on defence, with Sir Keir announcing plans to increase that to 2.5% by 2027 in February.

This followed mounting pressure from the White House for European nations to do more to take on responsibility for their own security and the defence of Ukraine.

The 2.3% to 2.5% increase is being paid for by controversial cuts to the international aid budget, but there are big questions over where the funding for a 3% rise would be found, given the tight state of government finances.

While a commitment will help underpin the planning assumptions made in the SDR, there is of course no guarantee a Labour government would still be in power during the next parliament to have to fulfil that pledge.

A statement from the Ministry of Defence makes it clear that the official government position has not changed in line with the defence secretary’s comments.

The statement reads: “This government has announced the largest sustained increase to defence spending since the end of the Cold War – 2.5% by 2027 and 3% in the next parliament when fiscal and economic conditions allow, including an extra £5bn this financial year.

“The SDR will rightly set the vision for how that uplift will be spent, including new capabilities to put us at the leading edge of innovation in NATO, investment in our people and making defence an engine for growth across the UK – making Britain more secure at home and strong abroad.”

Sir Keir commissioned the review shortly after taking office in July 2024. It is being led by Lord Robertson, a former Labour defence secretary and NATO secretary general.

The Ministry of Defence has already trailed a number of announcements as part of the review, including plans for a new Cyber and Electromagnetic Command and a £1bn battlefield system known as the Digital Targeting Web, which we’re told will “better connect armed forces weapons systems and allow battlefield decisions for targeting enemy threats to be made and executed faster”.

On Saturday, the defence secretary announced a £1.5bn investment to tackle damp, mould and make other improvements to poor quality military housing in a bid to improve recruitment and retention.

Mr Healey pledged to “turn round what has been a national scandal for decades”, with 8,000 military family homes currently unfit for habitation.

He said: “The Strategic Defence Review, in the broad, will recognise that the fact that the world is changing, threats are increasing.

“In this new era of threat, we need a new era for defence and so the Strategic Defence Review will be the vision and direction for the way that we’ve got to strengthen our armed forces to make us more secure at home, stronger abroad, but also learn the lessons from Ukraine as well.

“So an armed forces that can be more capable of innovation more quickly, stronger to deter the threats that we face and always with people at the heart of our forces… which is why the housing commitments that we make through this strategic defence review are so important for the future.”