Rishi Sunak won’t call election ‘because he thinks he’ll lose’, says Sir Keir Starmer
Rishi Sunak is “completely wrong” to say nobody wants a general election and won’t call one now “because he thinks he’ll lose”, Sir Keir Starmer has said.
Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby asked the Labour leader what he thought about the prime minister’s comments last week that an election is “not what the country wants”.
“He’s completely wrong about that,” Sir Keir said. “What he really meant was he’s not happy to go to the electorate because he thinks he will lose.”
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Sir Keir challenged the prime minister to re-think his position and go to the polls.
Referencing Mr Sunak’s speech at the Tory conference last week, Sir Keir told Beth Rigby: “He said something that I agree with, which is that the last few years have been the wrong decisions and we need change.
“I say, spot on, let the country decide the change that it needs. That can be done through a general election.”
Mr Sunak made those comments as he justified the controversial axing of the northern leg of HS2.
Asked why he wasn’t putting his plans to the country in a general election to secure a mandate – given he lost the Tory leadership race to Liz Truss last summer before being selected by MPs to replace her – Mr Sunak replied: “Because that’s not what the country wants.”
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However, he insisted he was not scared of an election after months of lagging behind Labour in the polls, saying he believed he could still win.
The next general election must happen by the end of January 2025, but it is thought Mr Sunak will call one sooner – either in the spring or autumn of 2024.
Sir Keir has said his cabinet is primed for one to happen as soon as May and used his speech at the annual party conference to outline his vision for two terms in power, promising a “decade of national renewal” with plans to “rebuild Britain”.
This includes plans to clear the NHS backlog – however, in his interview with Beth Rigby, Sir Keir went further than he has previously by committing to reducing health waiting lists by five million by the end of his first term as prime minister, matching what it was when Labour was last in power.
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He also rejected the suggestion the address was lacking in policy ideas, saying the aim of it was to “create an emotional connection with the future and speak to the country”.
Sir Keir said he has wanted to do that for four years but knew he must change the party first after the turbulent era under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, which ended with the worst election defeat in decades.
“I think we’ve earned the right to a hearing with the country and we’re now inviting people to join us on this,” Sir Keir said.
The CARF regulation, which brings crypto under global tax reporting standards akin to traditional finance, marks a crucial turning point.
The nascent real-world tokenized assets track prices but do not provide investors the same legal rights as holding the underlying instruments.
Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.
Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.
MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.
Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.
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Rachel Reeves’s fiscal dilemma
In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.
“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.
“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.
“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”
Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.
The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.
It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.
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Why was the chancellor crying at PMQs?
Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch 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 would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”
In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.
“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”
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Reeves is ‘totally’ up for the job
Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.
“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “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.”
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