Starmer maps out his vision for a brighter future
KEIR Starmer will use this month’s Labour conference to outline his “road map for Britain” – and how he offers “the fresh start it needs”.
He pledged to use the Liverpool get-together to outline the policies he believes will propel him to No10 and finally end years of Tory rule.
Offering a glimpse of the agenda, the former director of public prosecutions promised a “big plan on the economy and how we’re going to grow it, a big plan on the NHS and how we get through the winter … and very strong commitments on law and order – as you would expect from someone who has devoted much of his life to the criminal justice system”.
He promised specific policies, adding: “In my conference speech I am going to set out our road map, our plan for Britain and how Labour will give Britain the fresh start it needs.”
Starmer’s vision includes “fixing the short-term problems like the cost of living crisis, the National Health Service crisis and the law and order crisis”.
Then he will tackle longer term challenges such as “rebuilding our economy, growing our economy, seeing the climate crisis not just as an obligation but as an opportunity for the next generation of jobs (and) rebuilding our public services”.
Top of his agenda is setting out the help Labour would offer families battling today’s living standards disaster as inflation rampages at 10.1 per cent, the energy price cap rockets from £1971 to £3549 on October 1 and mortgage rates climb amid fears of a recession.
He said: “People are constantly saying to me, ‘I can’t pay my bills, Keir, I’m really worried’. It ranges from those who are right on the edge, who are genuinely going to have to make really difficult decisions about heating and eating to pensioners who are really worried about what time they’ll get out of bed saying, ‘I’m going to get out of bed until more like lunchtime so I don’t have to put the heating on’.
“The other thing I’ve been struck by is people on a reasonable salary who would not consider themselves particularly hard-up saying, ‘I can’t afford £3500 on average for my energy bill and I certainly can’t afford £4000 at the turn of the year’. People are worried sick across the whole country”
He said he remembers as a 10-year-old listening to his parents Rodney, a toolmaker, and Josephine, a nurse, discussing how to pay bills and how their phone was cut off as they could not afford the connection.
He added: “I’m not claiming great poverty but … money was tight at times. That meant we had to decide what utilities we could dispense with – and the telephone was one when we couldn’t pay the bill. “I know what it’s like to realise on a weekly or monthly basis that the numbers don’t add up and something’s got to go.”
Labour’s plan to help families with fuel bills includes freezing the energy cap until April – partly funded by another windfall tax on oil and gas giants.
Starmer said: “We have to address how people are going to get through the winter. It’s a national emergency.”
He also insisted he was “completely unfazed” by the prospect of facing a new PM “offering more of the same, more of the tired, worn-out policies”.
Starmer wished Boris Johnson “a long and happy retirement”, adding: “It’s good for the country that he’s gone – he should stay gone.”
People are worried sick across the whole country KEIR STARMER ON THE COST OF LIVING CRISIS