Sir Keir Starmer to launch election campaign with vow to change the ‘character of politics’

Published

1 year ago

January 4, 2024

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Sir Keir Starmer is launching his election campaign on Thursday – and will promise the “character of politics will change” if Labour enters power.

The government has until December this year to call an election – although if it decides to go to the polls so late, the vote itself will not happen until January 2025.

Sir Keir’s speech follows similar events held by Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey and Reform UK head Richard Tice.

The prime minister is yet to hold such a launch for his campaign – and this week has been marred by controversy over a claim the government has cleared the asylum backlog, which the UK’s stats watchdog is now probing.

Labour has held a double-digit lead over the Conservatives in polling since before Rishi Sunak entered Number 10, according to the Sky News poll tracker.

Speaking in the West of England, Sir Keir is set to say: “No matter the road the Tories take this year, I believe that if people see the commitment to service is always there in politics, and if they can see that people in power respect their concerns, then a lot of people across this country, after everything we’ve been through over the past 14 years, will find some hope in that.

“It will feel different. The character of politics will change, and with it the national mood. A collective breathing out, a burden lifted, and then, the space for a more hopeful look forward.

“Because the truth is, it’s this kind of politics and only this kind of politics that can offer real change.

“So do not listen to the siren voices that say we’re all the same. We’re not, and we never will be.”

Sir Keir setting out his stall to voters this early marks a contrast to last year, when Rishi Sunak spoke ahead of his Labour adversary and announced his five pledges.

In his address last year, the Labour leader promised to end “sticking plaster politics” – a phrase he has often repeated since.

Voters ‘right to be anti-Westminster’

Returning to this year, Sir Keir will also ask voters to “believe” in a “downtrodden” UK again.

He is set to say: “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.

“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.”

The Labour leader will also play on recent scandals to highlight a “need to clean up politics”.

He will add that under Labour there will be “no more VIP fast lanes, no more kickbacks for colleagues, no more revolving doors between government and the companies they regulate” – adding that he “will restore standards in public life with a total crackdown on cronyism: this ends now”.

He will point out that “trust in politics is now so low, so degraded” following “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”.

And as he further distances himself from the Corbyn era, Sir Keir will say that Labour is “no longer a party of protest, but a party of service”.

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Speaking ahead of the event, Conservative Party chairman Richard Holden said: “Nothing is more cynical and populist than a weather vane Labour leader who has a consistent track record of telling people whatever he thinks they want to hear on any given day.

“He was for a second Brexit referendum, then he wasn’t. He told Labour members when he was running to be leader he would nationalise industry and scrap tuition fees, but then dropped these policies as soon as the contest was over. And he says he opposes Jeremy Corbyn now despite campaigning twice to make him prime minister and calling him his ‘friend’.

“The only thing we know for certain about Keir Starmer is that he has a £28bn black hole in his spending promises which will mean thousands of pounds of tax rises every year for families.”

Politics

Chancellor Rachel Reeves says she is ‘totally’ up for the job of chancellor in first comments since tearful PMQs

Published

2 hours ago

July 3, 2025

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Chancellor Rachel Reeves says she is 'totally' up for the job of chancellor in first comments since tearful PMQs

The chancellor has said she was having a “tough day” yesterday in her first public comments since appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions – but insisted she is “totally” up for the job.

Rachel Reeves told broadcasters: “Clearly I was upset yesterday and everyone could see that. It was a personal issue and I’m not going to go into the details of that.

“My job as chancellor at 12 o’clock on a Wednesday is to be at PMQs next to the prime minister, supporting the government, and that’s what I tried to do.

“I guess the thing that maybe is a bit different between my job and many of your viewers’ is that when I’m having a tough day it’s on the telly and most people don’t have to deal with that.”

Politics latest: PM sets out 10-year NHS plan

She declined to give a reason behind the tears, saying “it was a personal issue” and “it wouldn’t be right” to divulge it.

“People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday. Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job,” she added.

Ms Reeves also said she is “totally” up for the job of chancellor, saying: “This is the job that I’ve always wanted to do. I’m proud of what I’ve delivered as chancellor.”

Asked if she was surprised that Sir Keir Starmer did not back her more strongly during PMQs, she reiterated that she and the prime minister are a “team”, saying: “We fought the election together, we changed the Labour Party together so that we could be in the position to return to power, and over the past year, we’ve worked in lockstep together.”

PM: ‘I was last to appreciate’ that Reeves was crying

The chancellor’s comments come after the prime minister told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby that he “didn’t appreciate” that she was crying behind him at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday because the weekly sessions are “pretty wild”, which is why he did not offer her any support while in the chamber.

He added: “It wasn’t just yesterday – no prime minister ever has had side conversations during PMQs. It does happen in other debates when there’s a bit more time, but in PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang. That’s what it was yesterday.

“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”

During PMQs, Tory leader Kemi Badenoch branded the chancellor the “human shield” for the prime minister’s “incompetence” just hours after he was forced to perform a humiliating U-turn over his controversial welfare bill, leaving a “black hole” in the public finances.

The prime minister’s watered-down Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill was backed by a majority of 75 in a tense vote on Tuesday evening – but a total of 49 Labour MPs voted against the bill, which was the largest rebellion in a prime minister’s first year in office since 47 MPs voted against Tony Blair’s lone parent benefit in 1997, according to Professor Phil Cowley from Queen Mary University.

Reeves looks transformed – but this has been a disastrous week for the PM

It is a Rachel Reeves transformed that appears in front of the cameras today, nearly 24 hours since one of the most extraordinary PMQs.

Was there a hint of nervousness as she started, aware of the world watching for any signs of human emotion? Was there a touch of feeling in her face as the crowds applauded her?

People will speculate. But Ms Reeves has got through her first public appearance, and can now, she hopes, move on.

The prime minister embraced her as he walked on stage, the health secretary talked her up: “Thanks to her leadership, we have seen wages rising faster than the cost of living.”

A show of solidarity at the top of government, a prime minister and chancellor trying to get on with business.

But be in no doubt today’s speech on a 10-year-plan for the NHS has been overshadowed. Not just by a chancellor in tears, but what that image represents.

A PM who, however assured he appeared today, has marked his first year this week, as Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby put to him, with a “self-inflicted shambles”.

She asked: “How have you got this so wrong? How can you rebuild trust? Are you just in denial?”

They are questions Starmer will be grappling with as he tries to move past a disastrous week.

Ms Reeves has borne a lot of the criticism over the handling of the vote, with some MPs believing that her strict approach to fiscal rules has meant she has approached the ballooning welfare bill from the standpoint of trying to make savings, rather than getting people into work.

Ms Badenoch also said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.

Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she will, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”

Downing Street scrambled to make clear to journalists that Ms Reeves was “going nowhere”, and the prime minister has since stated publicly that she will remain as chancellor “for many years to come”.