Labour leader toasts success on visit to city

Sir Keir Starmer has praised a city gin distillery for turning its hand to producing hand sanitiser during the pandemic while thanking residents for ‘pulling together in times of trouble’. RICHARD LEMMER met the Labour leader on his visit to the city.

LABOUR leader Keir Starmer has praised Portsmouth as a ‘great city’ during a visit to a distillery – and called for more people to join the News campaign to support local businesses.

Sir Keir, alongside Portsmouth South MP Stephen Morgan and shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds, visited The Portsmouth Distillery in Fort Cumberland on Thursday ahead of Small Business Saturday.

The party leader praised the gin-maker for using its facilities to turn out hand sanitiser during the pandemic – and said he looked forward to trying the firm’s more appetising wares.

The MP for Holborn and St Pancras said: ‘It’s always good to come to Portsmouth and to support small business.

‘(The Portsmouth Distillery) is an example of what small business in Portsmouth and elsewhere have been doing during the pandemic.

‘People are proud of businesses like this. They love the idea of people pulling together in times of trouble.’

He added; ‘I haven’t tried any of the gin – I have a number of meetings today so I didn’t think it was a good idea – but I’m sure I’ll try it sooner or later.’

The Labour leader encouraged more people to take part in Small Business Saturday, a campaign which promotes local shopping, as well as The News campaign to get more shoppers supporting local businesses.

He said: ‘We all should all be saying shop locally – safely, of course – not just this

Saturday, but all of the time.

‘And The News is important – local media is really important. We need to support it. Lots of people will go first to their local outlet and trust it in a way they don’t necessarily with the national media.’

During his last visit to the city in February, Sir Keir’s travelled to The Hard to hear about the impact of Brexit on small businesses, and has previously meet with staff at Croxton’s Kitchen in Palmerston Road and The Southsea Deli in Elm Grove during the election campaign last year.

Stephen Morgan said: ‘Every time Keir has visited Portsmouth he’s tried to visit a small business.

‘It’s fantastic to have a leader of the Labour Party visit Portsmouth so many times.’

Giles Collighan, one of the founders of The Portsmouth Distillery, welcomed the rallying call to support growing businesses during the pandemic – and called on politicians to tackle an issue stifling small distilleries.

Giles said: ‘In terms of looking to the future, one issue we would like to raise is that small brewers get a 50 per cent rate reduction – but small distillers do not, so we pay the same as a large distillery like Diageo.’

Shadow chancellor Anneliese Dodds said: ‘We are aware of it and we will see what we can do.’

With many businesses in the city concerned about Brexit’s impact, Sir Keir also stressed that any forthcoming problems are due to the government – not people ‘on the ground’ in Portsmouth.

He said: ‘What we can’t afford is for the government to turn around in January and say it’s the fault of those on the ground in places like Portsmouth – no, it is the fault of the government for not making a plan properly.

NHS Staff in Queen Alexandra Hospital were also praised by Sir Keir, who said he was aware that staff are facing a spike in seriously ill Covid-19 patients.

He said: ‘The first thing I’d say is thank you. It’s really tough at the moment. This has been going on for eight months and all those front-line staff have been doing this day-in, day-out...and it is really stressful.

‘What the government needs to do is to actually do good by these frontline workers and not freeze their pay.’