‘Huge difference’ between Labour and Tories, Starmer declares as he rejects ‘cautious’ criticism
Sir Keir Starmer has rejected claims he is being too cautious and timid in his offer to the public – and insisted there is a “huge difference” between Labour and the Conservatives.
Setting out his stall at the start of a year that is likely to see voters go to the polls, the Labour leader said the “clock is ticking” on the Tories’ time in power and his party is “ready” for a general election whenever it comes.
Politics latest: Sir Keir Starmer makes direct appeal to voters in major speech
In a new year’s speech, he set out his vision for change in politics to disillusioned and disaffected voters.
He told them “things can be better” and promised them a “politics that serves you” – and the chance to “turn the page” on the Tory government.
Sir Keir said “the moment power is taken out of Tory hands and given, not to me, but to you, that moment is getting closer by the second”.
“We don’t just expect an election on the economy,” he said. “We want an election on the economy and we’re ready for that fight.”
On the prospect of tax cuts, Sir Keir said he wanted people to “have more money in their pocket”. But he stressed his priority before that will be getting the economy growing again.
His critics, including within the party, have warned Labour against being “too timid” and “limping into Number 10”.
Asked by Sky’s political editor Beth Rigby whether his pitch to vote Labour is simply to see the back of the Tories, Sir Keir said the “change that we are offering, the difference that we want to make, between 14 years of decline and a decade of national renewal, they are fundamentally different things”.
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Will Starmer turn voters off?
“Underpinning the decade of national renewal, these are not just words. I’ve set out over the last few months five national missions that we will seek to achieve over the period of the next Labour government,” he said.
“They are really ambitious,” he continued, adding there is a “huge, huge difference” between Labour and the Tories.
Asked whether he will be willing to take part in TV debates with Rishi Sunak when the general election is called, Sir Keir said reports he will “duck them” are “nonsense”.
“I’ve been saying bring it on for a very long time, I’m happy to debate anytime,” he said.
“I don’t think anyone can accuse me of ducking scrutiny and debate. As I’ve said many times – just bring it on.”
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‘Starmer quiet on tax cuts’
In his speech at a research centre near Bristol, Sir Keir urged voters to reject “pointless populist gestures” and pledged to crack down on cronyism as he sought to outline the dividing lines between Labour and the Conservatives.
He said: “I don’t see our job as going back to some kind of golden age, I don’t think that’s how working people look at things at all. Government in this country is too centralised and controlling, and, because of that, too disconnected from the communities it needs to serve.”
He accused the Tories of “denigrating the people who serve this country” and said there has been “a total lack of respect” for public sector workers.
Sir Keir promised to “clean up politics” of sleaze, adding: “No more VIP fast lanes, no more kickbacks for colleagues, 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.”
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‘May election the worst kept secret in Parliament’
He pointed to his legal career as a record of his anti-sleaze zeal, claiming he helped send both Labour and Tory “expense cheat politicians” to jail in the wake of the 2009 expenses scandal, while serving as the director of public prosecutions.
Sir Keir also set out to highlight the differences between the Labour Party under his leadership – and that of his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn.
He said it was longer “a party of protest” but a “renewed” Labour with a distinctive target – to “defeat this miserabilist Tory project” and “crush their politics of divide and decline” with a new “Project Hope”.
The Labour leader used the word “hope” 18 times during his speech.
“This isn’t a game. Politics shouldn’t be a hobby or a pastime for people who enjoy the feeling of power. Nor should it be a sermon from on high, a self-regarding lecture, vanity dressed up as virtue,” he said.
“It should be a higher calling, the power of the vote, the hope of change and renewal married to the responsibility of service. That’s what I believe in.”
Looking ahead to the pending election, which could see his party sweep to power, Sir Keir added: “Nobody will be above the law in a Britain I lead.
“But with respect and service, I also promise this: a politics that treads a little lighter on all of our lives.”
Update (April 3, 5:43 am UTC): This article has been updated to add information on the STABLE Act and GENIUS Act.
The US House Financial Services Committee has passed a Republican-backed stablecoin framework bill, which will now head to the House floor for a full vote.
The Committee passed the Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy, or STABLE Act, with a 32-17 vote on April 2, with six Democrats voting in favor.
The bill was introduced on Feb. 6 by committee Chair French Hill and the chair of its Digital Assets Subcommittee, Bryan Steil — reportedly drafted with the help of the world’s largest stablecoin issue, Tether.
Source: Financial Services GOP
The bill would provide rules around payment stablecoins, a crypto token tied to a currency such as the US dollar, and aims to ensure issuers give information about their business and how they back their tokens.
During an earlier markup session, the committee’s leading Democrat, Maxine Waters, who later voted against the bill, criticized her Republican peers for “setting an unacceptable and dangerous precedent” with the STABLE Act.
She said President Donald Trump could use the bill to allow his family’s stablecoin to be used in government payments, and argued the bill validates Trump “and his insiders’ efforts to write rules of the road that will enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else.”
In late March, the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial crypto venture launched a stablecoin, World Liberty Financial USD (USD1). Meanwhile, the US Housing Department, which oversees social housing, was reportedly looking to experiment with using stablecoins for some of its functions.
Stablecoin GENIUS Act also weaves through Congress
Other stablecoin-related bills are also working their way through Congress, including the Republican-led Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins, or GENIUS Act, which lays out oversight and reserve rules for issuers.
Related: Crypto has a regulatory capture problem in Washington — or does it?
The US Senate Banking Committee voted through the GENIUS Act in an 18-6 vote on March 13, after Senator Bill Hagerty, one of the bill’s co-sponsors, updated it following consultation with the Committee’s Democrats.
Before the vote, Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand said the updated GENIUS Act made “significant improvements to a number of important provisions” in areas such as consumer protections and authorized stablecoin issuers.
Both the STABLE Act and GENIUS Act will now wait until debate time on the floor of the House and Senate, respectively, before they head for a floor vote.
Crypto journalist Eleanor Terrett reported on X that two unnamed crypto lobbyists said there is likely to be “a coordinated push behind the scenes over the next few weeks to get the two bills to mirror each other, as there are still some differences between them.”
Doing so would “avoid having to set up a so-called conference committee which is formed so members from both chambers can negotiate to create a final version of the bill everyone agrees on,” she added.
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Tulip Siddiq has told Sky News her “lawyers are ready” to handle any formal questions about allegations she is involved in corruption in Bangladesh.
Asked whether she regrets apparent links with the Bangladeshi Awami League political party, Ms Siddiq said “why don’t you look at my legal letter and see if I have any questions to answer… [the Bangladeshi authorities] have not once contacted me and I’m waiting to hear from them”.
The London MP resigned as a Treasury minister in January after being named in several corruption inquiries in Bangladesh.
In her first public comments since leaving government, Ms Siddiq said “there’s been allegations for months on end and no one has contacted me”.
Last month, the interim leader of Bangladesh told Sky News the MP had “wealth left behind” in the country “and should be made responsible”.
Lawyers acting for Ms Siddiq wrote to the Bangladeshi Anti Corruption Commission (ACC) several weeks ago saying the allegations were “false and vexatious”.
The letter said the ACC must put questions to Ms Siddiq “by no later than 25 March 2025” or “we shall presume that there are no legitimate questions to answer”.
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Staff from the NCA visited Bangladesh as part of initial work to support the interim government in the country.
In a post online today, the former minister said the deadline had expired and the authorities had not replied.
Sky News has approached the Bangladeshi government for comment.
The allegations against Ms Siddiq are focused on links to her aunt Sheikh Hasina – who served as the prime minister of Bangladesh for 20 years.
Ms Hasina was forced to flee the country in August following weeks of deadly protests.
She is accused of becoming an autocrat, with politically-motivated arrests, extra-judicial killings and other abuses allegedly happening on her watch. Hasina claims it’s all a political witch hunt.
Electrocuted on their genitals and mouths sewn up: Inside Bangladesh’s ‘death squad’ jails
Ms Siddiq was found to have lived in several London properties that had links back to the Awami League political party that her aunt still leads.
She referred herself to the prime minister’s standards adviser Sir Laurie Magnus who said he had “not identified evidence of improprieties” but added it was “regrettable” Ms Siddiq had not been more alert to the “potential reputational risks” of the ties to her aunt.
Ms Siddiq said continuing in her role would be “a distraction” for the government but insisted she had done nothing wrong.
Cryptocurrency exchange OKX reportedly hired former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to advise it over the federal probe that resulted in the firm pleading guilty to several violations and agreeing to pay $505 million in fines and penalties.
Cuomo, a New York-registered attorney, advised OKX on legal issues stemming from the probe sometime after August 2021 when he resigned as New York overnor, Bloomberg reported on April 2, citing people familiar with the matter.
“He spoke with company executives regularly and counseled them on how to respond to the criminal investigation,” Bloomberg said.
The Seychelles-based firm pled guilty to operating an unlicensed money-transmitting business in violation of US Anti-Money Laundering laws on Feb. 24 and agreed to pay $84 million worth of penalties while forfeiting $421 million worth of fees earned from mostly institutional clients.
The breaches occurred from 2018 to 2024 despite OKX having an official policy preventing US persons from transacting on its crypto exchange since 2017, the Department of Justice noted at the time.
A spokesperson for Cuomo, Rich Azzopardi, told Bloomberg that Cuomo has been providing private legal services representing individuals and corporations on a variety of matters since resigning as New York governor.
“He has not represented clients before a New York city or state agency and routinely recommends former colleagues for positions,” Azzopardi added.
OKX reportedly wasn’t willing to comment on its relationships with outside firms.
Cuomo also influenced OKX to make executive appointments: Bloomberg
Cuomo, who is now running for mayor of New York City, also advised OKX to appoint his friend US Attorney Linda Lacewell to OKX’s board of directors, Bloomberg said.
Lacewell, a former superintendent of the New York Department of Financial Services, was added to the board in 2024 and was named OKX’s new chief legal officer on April 1, according to a recent company statement.
Source: Linda Lacewell
Related: New York bill aims to protect crypto investors from memecoin rug pulls
After the investigation concluded, OKX said it would seek out a compliance consultant to remedy the issues stemming from the federal probe and bolster its regulatory compliance program.
“Our vision is to make OKX the gold standard of global compliance at scale across different markets and their respective regulatory bodies,” OKX CEO Star Xu said in a Feb. 24 X post.
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