Markus Andrews

Keir Starmer mentioned around a dozen policy areas in a wide-ranging speech to Labour conference on Wednesday. Most of the policies were repeats of things the party had previously announced – but there were a few new ones in there as well.Reinstate two weeks of compulsory work experienceThe main new policy in the speech was a promise to make it compulsory again for children to take two weeks work experience. This was previously the case until 2012 but Sir Keir said he would restore the policy. Home insulation programme The Labour leader mentioned his party’s policy on home insulation, describing it as a “national mission”. Though specifics were not included in the speech the party briefed afterwards that it would involve £6 billion annual expenditure to convert 19 million homes. This could save families as much as £400 a year, he said. New NHS mental health targets Sir Keir said he would set a new NHS target to give people mental health support within one month. The speech is not the first time we have heard the policy, as it to newspapers ahead of the address.Add digital skills to the school curriculum Alongside the compulsory work experience policy, Sir Keir said he would make digital skills one of the major components of curriculum, alongside the “three Rs”, reading, writing and, and arithmetic. He did not elaborate on what this would involve.Tougher sentences for rapists, stalkers, and domestic abusers The Labour leader restated his party’s policy that it would “fast-track rape and serious sexual assault cases and we will toughen sentences for rapists, stalkers and domestic abusers”. Change time horizon for company directors Sir Keir restated Labour’s policy of changing company law to allow directors to consider a company’s long-term future. He referred to this as changing “the priority duty of directors” and said he would have the “blessing of British business” to do so.Commitment for 3% GDP go into research and developmentThis policy was restated by Sir Keir in his conference speech: it was first announced by ex shadow chancellor John McDonnell in 2015 and restated by shadow science minister Chi Onwurah five days ago.All children offered chance to play instrument and sportSir Keir repeated Labour’s existing policy that all children would be offered a chance to play a musical instrument and play competitive sport – it was drawn from Labour’s 2017 policy review. Net zero test The Labour leader said that “everything we do in government will have to meet a ‘net zero’ test to ensure that the prosperity we enjoy does not come at the cost of the climate”. He did not elaborate on what the test would involve or how it would be applied. More

Sir Keir Starmer was disrupted by repeated heckling from left-wing Labour members waving red cards in the air during his first in-person conference speech to the party faithful.“Normally this time on a Wednesday it’s the Tories who are heckling me. It doesn’t bother me then – and it doesn’t bother me now,” he joked as other members of the audience told the hecklers to “shut up”.A small group of Sir Keir’s critics held up red cards and shouted “£15” at various points during the speech — a reference to the Labour leader’s refusal to back a £15 minimum wage earlier this week.Another heckler chose to direct their anger at Sir Keir’s Brexit policy during his tenure in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, while others opted to shout “boring”, or ask the Labour leader: “Where’s Peter Mandelson?”.Forced to raise his voice over the hecklers, Sir Keir told members: “Shouting slogans or changing lives, conference?”.He also told his detractors in the hall “you can chant all day,” before going on to claim he had used the conference to “get our own house in order”.Carole Vincent, one of those in the hall that heckled Sir Keir during his speech, told journalists it was an “absolute disgrace” the Labour leadership was not supporting a £15 minimum wage — an issue that became a flashpoint during the conference after the resignation of Andy McDonald from the shadow cabinet.Speaking after Sir Keir’s speech, she said she expected him to face a leadership challenge at “some point”, and went on: “He had ignored — and this conference has ignored — people that have been standing up and asking him to guarantee the 15 per cent rise for the NHS, a £15 minimum wage.”During his speech, Sir Keir thanked party members and loyal Labour voters for “saving this party from obliteration,” he said: “My job as leader is not just to say thank you to the voters who stayed with us – it is to understand and persuade the voters who rejected us.”In a pointed message to his critics on the left, Starmer added: “That’s why it has been so important to get our own house in order this week and we have done that … So, let’s get totally serious about this – we can win the next general election.”At least one Labour member could be heard trying to interrupt Starmer as he finished speaking about the death of his mother. Other delegates held up red pieces of paper at the beginning of his speech to show they were giving Starmer’s leadership “the red card”.Broadcaster Piers Morgan said it was “disgusting” to see Starmer “being rudely heckled by shrieking Corbynites as he speaks so movingly about his mother dying in hospital”.He tweeted: “To borrow the buzz word of the Labour conference, they’re ‘scum’. They’re also empowering Starmer, who’s making the best speech of his life.”Speaking after the speech, Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary said he thought the heckling was “underwhelming”, adding: “You see, the thing is, Keir, I thought, demonstrated a razor-sharp with in dealing with them.“He reminded me of John Smith, in the way he dealt with rather foolish hecklers in the Commons, from the Tory hecklers. If you are going to heckle, you better ensure that the principal on the stage hasn’t got a heavy comeback. And he did. He put those very squawkers in their place”.A Labour spokesman later said it was not unexpected that critics heckled Sir Keir, adding the fact a “number of people” had red pieces of paper to hold up to oppose the leadership may have suggested the hecklers were organised. But he added: “Obviously there was clearly a view that there could be those who would want to express an opinion in the speech.”Labour’s low-pay policy has been at major bone of contention at the conference, with Mr McDonald quitting as shadow employment rights secretary after being told to argue against a national minimum wage of £15 per hour. A 2019 photo of Starmer campaigning next to McDonald’s workers fighting for £15 minimum wage went viral, as left-winger activists accused him of going back on previous support for the hike.A group of MPs from the party’s left bloc used a fringe rally in Brighton on Tuesday evening to attack the leader, with Zarah Sultana accusing Sir Keir of “waging war on the left”. In scathing remarks, Lloyd Russell-Moyle MP said: “It has been a goddamn awful conference with a goddamn awful leadership.” More

Watch live as Keir Starmer gives keynote speech at Labour conferenceSir Keir Starmer has described Boris Johnson as a “trivial man” and “a trickster who’s played his one trick”, during his closing Labour conference speech.Attacking Mr Johnson’s government as “lost in the woods”, Sir Keir added: “Once he’d said the words, ‘get Brexit done’, his plan ran out. There is no plan.”The Labour leader suffered some heckles as he delivered his high-stakes conference speech in Brighton on Wednesday, during which he sought to draw a firm line under the Jeremy Corbyn era, having indicated he is ready to see Labour’s far-left split from the party.It comes after the shock resignation of shadow cabinet ministers Andy McDonald, who alleged that the final straw came after he was instructed to vote against a campaign to raise the minimum wage to £15 an hour. In a message read out to leftwing activists at an event on Tuesday evening, during which they accused Sir Keir of “waging war” against the party’s left, Mr McDonald suggested he should seek a new “mandate” if he fails to honour pledges made during the leadership contest.Meanwhile, in what would represent a significant change of approach from the party, shadow justice secretary David Lammy said a Labour government would seek to “fix” Mr Johnson’s Brexit deal – raising the prospect of more talks with the EU.Show latest update

1632927309‘Keir knocked it out the park,’ Wes Streeting saysHere’s the reaction from Wes Streeting – one of the four Labour politicians whose name was floating around Brighton as Starmer’s potential successor, according to the Evening Standard.“Keir knocked it out the park. It was the speech we’ve all been waiting for,” Mr Streeting said. “Those of us who work with Keir, we know him, we know his values, we know what makes him tick. “By God, did we get that powerful story about what motivates him, his lifetime of public service, the decency, the seriousness that he would bring to government as prime minister.”Welsh Labour’s deputy leader Carolyn Harris was equally effusive:And former Blair spin doctor Alastair Campbell suggested it was “rich in values and integrity”, welcoming the praise for former Labour governments.Andy Gregory29 September 2021 15:551632926683Starmer’s speech ‘important step forward’ but lacking ‘meaningful detail’, business leaders sayWith Keir Starmer’s speech, “the Labour Party has taken an important step forward by outlining an agenda where businesses can find common ground”, the Confederation of British Industry has suggested.“Its ambitions to decarbonise the economy and build a better future for everyone through improving education are shared by business,” said director general Tony Danker. “Lifelong learning is the bedrock of productivity, growth, and in turn, rising wages.”But while his counterpart at the British Chambers of Commerce, Shevaun Haviland, said businesses would “welcome the focus on digital skills, investment in R&D and the need to make Brexit work”, she said: “Despite the warm rhetoric, what firms really need are concrete, costed proposals and meaningful detail on delivery.”Andy Gregory29 September 2021 15:441632926328Labour ‘more divided than ever, Tory Party co-chair saysOliver Dowden, the Conservative Party co-chair, has claimed Labour is “more divided than ever and has no plan”, adding: “Labour spent five days talking to themselves about themselves instead of to the country.“From resignations in the middle of their own conference, to their union backers deserting them, to disrupting their leader’s speech, Labour are too preoccupied fighting amongst themselves to put forward a plan for our country.”However, the BBC’s policy editor suggests that the move to reignite Labours “forever” war “appears to be part of the strategy” – describing a situation in which Labour leaders feel forced to confront the party’s left in order to gain legitimacy in the eyes of some of the electorate.Andy Gregory29 September 2021 15:381632925628Here’s one explanation for the length of the speech:Andy Gregory29 September 2021 15:271632925264Corbyn-era shadow cabinet members take aim at Starmer’s criticism of 2019 campaignSir Keir Starmer’s fellow Corbyn-era shadow cabinet members have issued a reminder of his role in the 2019 campaign.Sir Keir was met with a heckle of “it was your Brexit policy” as he spoke of the party’s 2019 election defeat and pledged that Labour “will never under my leadership go into an election with a manifesto that is not a serious plan for government.”Andy Gregory29 September 2021 15:211632925205Labour ‘clearly not there yet’ with Starmer at helm – UniteUnite’s national officer Rob MacGregor said that Sir Keir Starmer was lacking in passion while talking about societal injustices in his Labour conference speech today.Mr MacGregor said: “If you’re a Unite member worried about the cost of living crisis, empty petrol pumps, abhorrent fire and rehire in our workplaces and the end of furlough just hours away, there wasn’t much for you in this speech.“We needed to hear a Labour leader who is as angry as we are about the harm being done to our workers, and as determined as Unite to stand up against abusive employers.“We’re clearly not there yet.”Unite is the UK’s largest trade union and the Labour Party’s biggest donor.Lamiat Sabin29 September 2021 15:201632924807Labour member appears to tell Starmer his father ‘never stopped telling us how proud of you he is’As he left the stage, a Labour member from Surrey East shouted to Sir Keir Starmer that his father “never stopped telling us how proud of you he is”, according to The Mirror’s Rachel Wearmouth.Andy Gregory29 September 2021 15:131632924005Some trade unions react warmly to Starmer’s speechFrances O’Grady, general secretary of the TUC, said: “Keir’s speech today shows that Labour has a plan for fixing the cost of living crisis, for delivering decent pay work and pay, and for giving our children a brighter future.”Christina McAnea, general secretary of public sector union Unison said: “Keir set out a new vision for the party and a new vision for the country. “With the focus on education, public services, rights at work and mental health, Labour is offering just what the country needs after 11 years of Tory mismanagement.”Paddy Lillis, general secretary of retail workers’ union Usdaw, said: “Keir Starmer today made clear Labour is the party of working people, explaining that he is of working people and for working people.“That is demonstrated by his commitments to a well-paid and secure workforce through a new deal for workers and we know that he will deliver.“This is in stark contrast to the Tories who are pulling the rug from under low-paid families with an unfair cut in Universal Credit and increased National Insurance, as we face a looming cost of living crisis.”Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, said: “Labour have understood that any government serious about education needs both a strategy to reduce child poverty and a strategy on boosting schools’ capacity to serve every local child.”Lamiat Sabin29 September 2021 15:001632922805Starmer speaks mainly about parents, work, and toolsIt appears that Sir Keir Starmer’s repeated use the word “tool” has not remained unnoticed by journalists at Labour conference.The former human rights QC’s father was a toolmaker and his mother was a nurse, and it seems his team has been keen to use his keynote speech to remind the electorate of his working-class roots.In his speech, Sir Keir also said the words “mum” and “dad” 17 and 11 times respectively, and “work” 69 times.The couple were Labour supporters and named their son after the party’s first parliamentary leader, Keir Hardie.In his speech, Sir Keir said: “This is a big moment that demands leadership. Leadership founded on principles that have informed my life – and with which I honour where I’ve come from. “Work. Care. Equality. Security. They’re British values. They’re the tools of my trade. And with them, I’ll go to work.”Lamiat Sabin29 September 2021 14:401632921605Pidcock says Starmer’s ‘long’ speech was ‘quite uninspiring’Former Labour MP Laura Pidcock described Sir Keir Starmer’s conference speech as “quite uninspiring” and “long”.The National Secretary of The People’s Assembly was MP for North West Durham from 2017 to December 2019.Her comments outside the conference chamber in Brighton comes hours after she said on LBC radio that Sir Keir must offer a “credible alternative” to the working class who are facing “an intense crisis” dealing with high living costs.Lamiat Sabin29 September 2021 14:20 More

Insulating homes will be a Labour government’s “national mission” Keir Starmer has said.Speaking at the party’s annual conference in Brighton the Labour leader said Britain had “least energy-efficient housing in Europe”.And a spokesperson for the party said following the speech that this would involve upgrading 19 million homes in a decade at an annual cost of £6 billion.”If we are serious about climate change we will need to upgrade our homes. The Tories inherited plans from Labour to make every new home zero carbon,” the Labour leader said during his address.”They scrapped them and now we have a crisis in energy prices emissions from homes have increased and we have the least energy-efficient housing in Europe. “So it will be Labour’s national mission over the next decade, to fit out every home that needs it, to make sure it is warm, well-insulated and costs less to heat and we will create thousands of jobs in the process.”Labour says insulation will save some households in the worst insulated properties £400 a year.It comes amid concerns of surging heating bills over the winter as gas and fuel prices rise. More

Keir Starmer branded Boris Johnson “a trickster who has performed his one trick” by delivering Brexit, as he cast himself as the serious leader Britain needs.In a conference speech interrupted by repeated heckles by Jeremy Corbyn supporters, the Labour leader urged the party faithful not to “comfort yourself” that the prime minister is “a bad man”.Instead, he said: “I think he is a trivial man. I think he’s a showman with nothing left to show. I think he’s a trickster who has performed his one trick.“Once he had said the words ‘Get Brexit Done’ his plan ran out. He has no plan.”Sir Keir contrasted his record – as a former director of public prosecutions – with Mr Johnson’s pre-Downing Street life as an entertainer on TV shows and maverick columnist.“Boris Johnson was a guest on Top Gear where, in reference to himself, he said to Jeremy Clarkson ‘you can’t rule out the possibility that beneath the elaborately constructed veneer of a blithering idiot, lurks a blithering idiot’,” he joked.And, while the future Labour leader was working on the Stephen Lawrence murder case, the Tory leader was “writing an article declaring a war on traffic cones”, he said.Sir Keir said the country needed answers to big questions such as how to recover from Covid and tackle “the climate crisis, our relationship with Europe, the future of our union”.“These are big issues, but our politics is so small. These times demand a responsible leader with clear values,” he told the Brighton conference hall.The Labour leader offered no clues about how Labour would seek to plug gaps in the Brexit deal, beyond saying he believed it is possible to ‘Make Brexit Work’.“I do see a way forward after Brexit if we invest in our people and our places, if we deploy our technology cleverly and if we build the affordable homes we so desperately need,” he claimed.But he sought to claim the prime minister’s ‘levelling up’ slogan by – in stark contrast to his predecessors – heaping praise on the Blair and Brown governments.“Let me offer the Conservative party a lesson in levelling up,” Sir Keir said, adding: “If they want to know how to do it, I suggest they take a look at our record the last time we were in government.“Hospital waits down, GCSE results up, 44,000 more doctors, 89,000 new nurses, child poverty down 1 million, pensioner poverty down 1 million, rough sleepers down 75 per cent, a National Minimum Wage. You want levelling up? That’s levelling up.”In one of repeated references to being the son of a toolmaker, Sir Keir said: “Work, care, equality, security. These are the tools of my trade – and with them I will go to work.” More

Keir Starmer has pledged to make it again compulsory for school pupils to take two weeks work experience. The pledge was the main new policy in Sir Keir’s speech to Labour conference, alongside giving all children the option of seeing a careers advisor.”I can promise that Labour, as the name tells you will make a priority of getting this country ready for work,” he told party delegates in Brighton.”That’s why we will focus on practical life skills. We will reinstate two weeks of compulsory work experience and we will guarantee that every young person gets to see a careers advisor.”Work experience for Key Stage 4 pupils aged 14 to 16 was compulsory until 2012, when the policy was changed by the coalition government.The move is backed by groups including the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and the British Chambers of Commerce.Sir Keir also promised to improve the teaching of computer skills in schools, claiming that the UK does “worse in computer skills than most of our economic rivals”.He said “digital skills” would sit alongside the three “Rs” – Reading, writing, and arithmetic. “We need to ensure that every child emerges from school ready for work. And ready for life,” he said.Sir Keir added: “If you can’t level up our children you are not serious about levelling up at all.”Other policies included in the speech but briefed ahead of it include a new NHS target for mental health support to be offered within one month. Sir Keir also said Labour would toughen sentences for rapists, stalkers and domestic abusers. The Labour leader largely used the speech to speak about his personal history and values.Discussing his previous job as leader of the Crown Prosecution Service, Sir Keir said that “Crown Prosecution Service” was comprised of “three very important words”. He said: “Crown brings home the responsibility of leading part of the nation’s legal system. Prosecution tells you that crime hurts and victims need justice to be done. Service is a reminder that the job is bigger than your own career advancement.” More

Britain’s Conservative government is beset with problems, from a still-rumbling coronavirus pandemic to a fuel crisis that’s draining gas pumps across the country. This should be a great time for the country’s main opposition party.But Labour Party leader Keir Starmer is struggling to break through to a largely indifferent public. He’s hoping to change that with a speech Wednesday at the party’s annual conference, arguing that Labour is “back in business” after being out of power for a decade.Starmer has troubles of his own. Labour is deeply divided following its election disappointments. Allegations of anti-Semitism under Starmer’s hard-left predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn tarred the party. Issues from nationalizing utilities to transgender people’s rights are causing bitter internal feuds.Starmer also struggled to make an impact with the wider public while the country’s attention was consumed by the coronavirus pandemic, which has left 135,000 people in Britain dead — the highest toll in Europe after Russia.Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservatives won a thumping 80-seat majority in Parliament in December 2019 by wooing voters in working-class northern England towns where people felt neglected by successive governments. Starmer wants to win them back. In his speech, he plans to stake his claim to be Britain’s next prime minister, and tackle many voters’ biggest concern about Labour — that the social democratic party will hike taxes and hobble the economy. “Too often in the history of this party our dream of the good society falls foul of the belief that we will not run a strong economy,” according to extracts of his speech released in advance. “But you don’t get one without the other. And under my leadership, we are committed to both.” Televised conference speeches are one of the few chances politicians have to address the public directly outside of election campaigns. Britain is not scheduled to hold a national election until 2024, though many expect Johnson to call one at least a year sooner.Party conferences are an annual fixture of British politics, though the pandemic curtailed them in 2020. This year, the country’s political clans are gathering in seaside resorts or provincial cities for meetings that are part pep rally, part campaign pitch and part political sideshow.Labour’s conference ends Wednesday in the English south coast city of Brighton The governing Tories hold their own four-day shindig starting Sunday in Manchester, northwest England.Labour has not governed the U.K. since 2010, a decade that brought the country three Conservative prime ministers: David Cameron, Theresa May and Johnson.A former national chief prosecutor, Starmer was elected Labour leader in April 2020 to replace Corbyn, who had led the party to two heavy election defeats in 2017 and 2019 — the latter Labour’s worst result since 1935. Starmer is now caught between two wings of the fractious party. Many Labour members think the party must veer to the center to win, as it did under former Prime Minister Tony Blair, who won three successive election victories. But Corbyn’s still-numerous supporters want Starmer to stick to his predecessor’s socialist policies of nationalization and spending hikes.A pro-Corbyn lawmaker, Andy McDonald, quit as Starmer’s employment spokesperson mid-conference, saying the party’s economic proposals to raise the minimum wage were not bold enough.Senior lawmaker John McDonnell, a Corbyn ally, said Wednesday’s speech could be Starmer’s last chance to save his leadership.“I think if Keir gets the speech right on Wednesday, he can lift everyone’s spirits and go further,” he said. “If he doesn’t, and we’re not lifting in the polls, Keir is a sensible enough person to actually sit down and assess his own future.” More

The supply crisis which has seen fights at petrol forecourts and empty supermarket shelves could continue until Christmas, a cabinet minister has conceded.Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng said he hoped the immediate upheaval with fuel shortages was easing – revealing that soldiers would be “on the ground” and driving tankers within a few days.Despite the emergency measures taken by the government, Mr Kwarteng admitted that Britain’s country’s supply chain woes caused by the drastic shortage of lorry drivers could last for months.Asked if the government was certain the problems would be solved for the run-up to Christmas, Kwarteng said: “I’m not guaranteeing anything. All I’m saying is that, I think the situation is stabilising.”Mr Kwarteng told broadcasters: “The last few days have been difficult, we’ve seen large queues. But I think the situation is stabilising, we’re getting petrol into the forecourts. I think we’re going to see our way through this.”The Petrol Retailers Association (PRA) has there are “early signs” that the crisis at the pumps is ending, and James Spencer, head of Portland Fuel, told the BBC on Wednesday that “the worst is behind us”.However, Steve McNamara, general secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association in London, said there was little sign of the situation improving on the ground on Wednesday morning. “It has not got any better.”Fuel industry chief have said it could take another month to recover fully from the immediate crisis after an outbreak of panic-buying left thousands of pumps dry in recent days.Boris Johnson said on Tuesday that the government was making plans for the UK to cope “through to Christmas and beyond” with the threat of empty shelves and fuel shortages, despite saying the immediate crisis was starting to “improve”.“What we want to do is to make sure we have all the preparations needed to get through to Christmas and beyond, not just in supply for petrol stations but all parts of the supply chain,” he said.It comes as the boss of retail giant Next warned of price hikes and said staff shortages could impact its deliveries in the run-up to Christmas.The government has also committed to issuing 5,000 temporary, three-month visas to foreign drivers, but Next chief executive Lord Wolfson – a prominent Brexit supporter – called on the government to take a “decisive approach” by further easing immigration rules.“I hope that going forward the government looks further into the future and doesn’t wait until the crisis is upon it,” said the Brexit backer.Labour frontbencher David Lammy blamed the Brexit deal for Britain’s ongoing driver shortage. “There are not queues to get fuel in France, in Spain, in Germany, but there are fuel queues in our own country,” the MP told ITV’s Good Morning Britain.Meanwhile, shortages at filling stations in Scotland are still “more acute” than normal, deputy first minister John Swinney said on Wednesday – though he insisted that the situation north of the border was “improving”.The SNP minister said that if there was a “need to prioritise access for emergency personnel, we will take the steps to do that” – but added that this would have to be done “in consort with the UK government”. More