Keir Starmer has issued a call for Britain’s voters to punish Liz Truss at the ballot box for the financial mayhem unleashed by her mini-Budget, telling them: “Don’t forget. Don’t forgive.”
In a direct pitch for traditional Conservative voters, he said that Labour was now the party of “sound money … home ownership [and] responsible government”, while Truss’s “spectacular” irresponsibility had sent the pound plummeting, stoked inflation and destroyed Tory claims to be “the party of aspiration”.
In a sign of growing confidence that power is within grasp at the general election expected in 2024, Sir Keir cited earlier Labour victories achieved after long periods of Tory rule as he told cheering delegates: “As in 1945, 1964 and 1997, this is a Labour moment.”
Mr Starmer unveiled plans for a publicly-owned electricity generation company, to be funded from an £8bn national wealth fund announced by shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves on Monday with a remit to invest in clean energy from wind, solar, tidal and nuclear.
And he announced a target of 70 per cent home-ownership, with first-time buyers given first options on homes in their areas.
The Great British energy proposal won warm applause from a packed hall in Liverpool and TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady hailed it as “a big, bold move that will cut bills and secure our energy future”.
But trade union Unite said that Mr Starmer needed to be “bolder” in his response to the cost-of-living crisis, while campaign group Labour for a Green New Deal said he should commit the party to public ownership of the whole energy system.
Instead, GBE would operate alongside private firms, with an independent board free to take investment decisions under a mandate set by ministers. Labour aides said their ambition was for it to eventually take a similar proportion of the market as state-owned power companies in countries like France or Sweden.
Sir Keir said that his green prosperity plan to make UK electricity fossil fuel-free was a reflection of the fact that action on the climate crisis was no longer a question of “austere self-denial” but was at the heart of Britain’s future economic opportunities.
But the focus of the rapturously-received speech was more on establishing a vision for what Starmer termed “a fairer, greener future”, as well as setting down clear dividing lines with Conservatives.
Twelve years of Tory-led governments had left Britain “all at sea”, with working people anxious for their future, raw sewage being pumped into rivers, backlogs at borders and in hospitals and crimes like burglary going “totally unpunished”, he said.
For the past decade, Conservative ministers had lambasted Labour for failing to “fix the roof while the sun was shining”, he said.
“But take a look around Britain,” he told delegates. “They haven’t just failed to fix the roof. They’ve ripped out the foundations, smashed through the windows and now they’ve blown the doors off for good measure.”
And he added: “We can’t go on like this. What we’ve seen in the past few days has no precedent.
“The government has lost control of the British economy – and for what? They’ve crashed the pound – and for what?
“Higher interest rates. Higher inflation. Higher borrowing. And for what?
“Not for you. Not for working people. For tax cuts for the richest 1 per cent in our society.
“Don’t forget. Don’t forgive. The only way forward is to stop this – with a Labour government.”
In a speech which was light on personal touches, Mr Starmer recalled growing up in modest circumstances in the 1970s, when rising prices once saw his family’s phone cut off because they could not pay the bill.
But he said that his parents still had hope because of the “unwritten contract” that hard work would be rewarded with a better life for their children.
Now that contract had been “broken”, he said, adding: “That’s the deep cost of Tory failure. They keep talking about aspiration, but they don’t understand how they’ve choked it off for working people.”
To loud applause, he again firmly ruled out any deal with the Scottish National Party in the case of a hung parliament.
And he borrowed a slogan from Sir Tony Blair to declare: “We are the party of the centre-ground. Once again, we are the political wing of the British people and we can achieve great things.”
Mr Starmer’s speech was enthusiastically hailed by shadow cabinet minister Peter Kyle, who told The Independent: “Keir set out his vision for a better Britain on his own terms.
“This is the moment that Labour overtook the Tories in the battle of ideas and having the leadership that will deliver. We have left them flailing in the dust.”
But a Conservative spokesperson said: “On his eleventh relaunch to date, this was yet another details-light speech full of vacuous slogans, rehashed phrases and empty promises.
“There’s nothing ‘new’ about Keir Starmer’s Labour, no matter how much he tries to emulate Tony Blair.”
