Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has criticised the Boris Johnson’s conference speech, arguing his jokes are going to “wear thin” when people across the country are hit in the pocket.
Starmer said the “showman” prime minister keeps pretending “he’s just sort of just landed from the moon” – arguing Britain is in a cost of living crisis because of the way the Tories have governed.
It comes as polling showed the public preferred the Labour leader’s conference speech in Brighton last week to the Conservative leader’s address in Manchester on Wednesday.
Some 63 per cent of respondents agreed with what Starmer had to say, compared to only 51 per cent who agreed with what Johnson said, the Opinium survey found.
The pollster also found 68 per cent of voters thought Starmer’s speech showed he cares about ordinary people, while only 37 per cent said Johnson’s speech showed he cared about ordinary people.
“The cost of living crisis I think is going to unfold as we go through the winter months, it’s going to hit millions of families very, very hard,” Starmer told ITV’s Peston.
“And I think you know that the showman, the jokes are all very well but they’re going to wear thin when people are hit in their wallet and they’re going to be hit very, very hard in their wallet.”
Asked if he agrees with Mr Johnson’s view that the UK has to move to a high-wage, high-productivity economy, Starmer insisted the Tories should have already achieved this after 11 years in power.
“Look, the prime minister is playing this game where he’s pretending that he’s just sort of just landed from the moon and he’s looking around and saying, ‘things look pretty awful around here, we need a bit of levelling up, things are so awful’.
“Of course, we want a high-wage, high-skilled, high-productivity economy – but we need a plan for that, and a plan for that isn’t fuel shortages, gaps on our supermarket shelves and pretending that this is some cunning plan to drive up wages and drive up skills.”
On £20-a-week cuts to universal credit, Starmer claimed a more generous benefit system should not be funded by more borrowing. “We will balance the books … it will have to be paid for as day-to-day spending.”
Starmer’s party drover a van around the perimeter of the conference venue in Manchester during Johnson’s speech on Wednesday – displaying a poster urging ministers to “cancel the cut”.
Among the business leaders criticising Johnson’s speech, the Federation of Small Businesses noted that Labour, and not the Conservatives, are the only party with a “pro-small business policy”.
