Sir Keir Starmer will promise the country a “decade of national renewal” if Labour gets into power at the next general election.
Delivering a speech to his party’s conference in Liverpool on Tuesday, Sir Keir will pledge to fight the next contest on growing the economy, saying he will be “totally focused on the interests of working people”.
And he will claim his leadership will “turn our backs on never-ending Tory decline”, to give British people the “government they deserve”.
The key speech will come on the third day of the annual event following a raft of appearances from shadow ministers, as they attempt to rally the membership ahead of the election campaign, and appeal to the public before they go to the polls.
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Sir Keir Starmer is being urged to be less ‘timid’, as our political editor Beth Rigby reports
Reiterating his five missions of “economic growth, safer streets, cheaper homegrown British power, better opportunities, and a rejuvenated NHS”, Sir Keir will warn of a tough road ahead due to the current state of the public purse.
But he will say “what is broken can be repaired”, adding: “An economy that works for the whole country will require an entirely new approach to politics: mission government, ending the Tory disease of ‘sticking plaster politics’ with a simple Labour philosophy that together we fix tomorrow’s challenges, today.”
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The Labour leader will tell members: “We have to be a government that takes care of the big questions so working people have the freedom to enjoy what they love.
“More time, more energy, more possibility, more life.
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“We all need the ability to look forward, to move forward, free from anxiety. That’s what getting our future back really means.”
Sir Keir will also celebrate his party’s turnaround since the disaster of the 2019 election, with the party now leading the polls, saying: “A changed Labour Party, no longer in thrall to gesture politics, no longer a party of protest… those days are done. We will never go back.”
He will put particular focus on the latest victory in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election, where his party ousted the SNP from their seat by over 9,000 votes on Thursday, saying: “Let the message from Rutherglen ring out across Britain – Labour serves working people in Scotland because Labour serves working people across all these islands.”
But the leader himself still has work to do to win over voters as polling continues to show he is not cutting through and people don’t know what he stands for.
Image: A word cloud collated for the BBC, asking people what they thought Sir Keir Starmer stood for, may not have been easy reading for the Labour leader
Addressing the public, Sir Keir will echo the words of a former Tory prime minister, promising a country “strong enough, stable enough, secure enough for you to invest your hope, your possibility, your future”, and one where people can be “certain that things will be better for your children”.
He will conclude: “People are looking to us because they want our wounds to heal and we are the healers.
“People are looking to us because these challenges require a modern state and we are the modernisers.
“People are looking to us because they want us to build a new Britain and we are the builders.”
Thousands of savers face potential losses after a $2.7 million shortfall was discovered at Ziglu, a British crypto fintech that entered special administration.
Another hint that tax rises are coming in this autumn’s budget has been given by a senior minister.
Speaking to Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander was asked if Sir Keir Starmer and the rest of the cabinet had discussed hiking taxes in the wake of the government’s failed welfare reforms, which were shot down by their own MPs.
Trevor Phillips asked specifically if tax rises were discussed among the cabinet last week – including on an away day on Friday.
Tax increases were not discussed “directly”, Ms Alexander said, but ministers were “cognisant” of the challenges facing them.
Asked what this means, Ms Alexander added: “I think your viewers would be surprised if we didn’t recognise that at the budget, the chancellor will need to look at the OBR forecast that is given to her and will make decisions in line with the fiscal rules that she has set out.
“We made a commitment in our manifesto not to be putting up taxes on people on modest incomes, working people. We have stuck to that.”
Ms Alexander said she wouldn’t comment directly on taxes and the budget at this point, adding: “So, the chancellor will set her budget. I’m not going to sit in a TV studio today and speculate on what the contents of that budget might be.
“When it comes to taxation, fairness is going to be our guiding principle.”
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Afterwards, shadow home secretary Chris Philp told Phillips: “That sounds to me like a barely disguised reference to tax rises coming in the autumn.”
He then went on to repeat the Conservative attack lines that Labour are “crashing the economy”.
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10:43
Chris Philp also criticsed the government’s migration deal with France
Mr Philp then attacked the prime minister as “weak” for being unable to get his welfare reforms through the Commons.
Discussions about potential tax rises have come to the fore after the government had to gut its welfare reforms.
Sir Keir had wanted to change Personal Independence Payments (PIP), but a large Labour rebellion forced him to axe the changes.
With the savings from these proposed changes – around £5bn – already worked into the government’s sums, they will now need to find the money somewhere else.
The general belief is that this will take the form of tax rises, rather than spending cuts, with more money needed for military spending commitments, as well as other areas of priority for the government, such as the NHS.