Sir Keir Starmer has warned that the arrival of a new Conservative Prime Minister on Tuesday is not a “new dawn”, as he made a fresh pitch to voters to back Labour.
The Labour leader used a piece in the Sunday Telegraph to say he backs “common-sense, practical solutions over ideological purity” as the UK heads towards a long and difficult winter.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is widely tipped to defeat Rishi Sunak on Monday, taking charge in Downing Street the following day amid soaring energy bills and a worsening cost-of-living crisis.
Sir Keir writes: “The appointment of a fourth Tory prime minister in 12 years is no new dawn for Britain.
“As summer turns to autumn, the shadows of crisis are lengthening, looming over the whole country.
“There is no sign that either Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss have grasped the scale of what is facing us, let alone possesses the answers to it.”
Sir Keir, who warns that the “centre is not holding” and that things are “falling apart”, stresses his own pragmatism and desire for progress on energy bills, the NHS and crime.
He writes: “I came to politics after a long career. That makes me impatient.
“It also means I favour common-sense, practical solutions over ideological purity. If I were stepping into Downing Street this week, I’d ensure no-one would pay a penny more for their energy bill this winter.”
Labour is proposing a six-month freeze on energy bills at the current £1,971 price cap, funded in part by expanding the windfall tax on oil and gas profits.
“The crisis facing Britain feels different because, this time, we are truly all in it together.
“It is a crisis of the energy we all need; the health service we all depend upon; the neighbourhoods we all share. The incoming prime minister has to get to grips with them or we will all lose out,” he writes.
Sir Keir, who this week turned 60, had earlier told the Mirror that he would use his forthcoming conference speech to set out Labour’s “road map, our plan for Britain and how Labour will give Britain the fresh start it needs”.
He promised plans that include “fixing the short-term problems like the cost-of-living crisis, the National Health crisis and the law and order crisis”, while also looking ahead to rebuilding the economy and tackling the climate crisis.
It comes as Labour shadow health secretary Wes Streeting accused the Conservatives of intentionally trying to lose the next general election.
Mr Streeting, in a lengthy interview with the Telegraph, said that he is confident Labour is going to win the next general election and predicted that the Tories will intentionally try to lose.
Mr Streeting, 39, seen as a potential future leader of the party, told the Telegraph: “I think the Conservatives are planning to lose the next general election.”
According to the newspaper, he points to the decision by the current Government to cap the number of medical students as evidence for his claim.
The Conservatives have “concluded there’s no point recruiting medicine trainees because they’re not going to come into work until there’s a Labour government in place. I think that’s recklessly short-sighted”, he is quoted as saying.
“I don’t know what other explanation there is. For them to turn away bright young people from university places they desperately want to take up. That is threatening the future pipeline. We should be developing our homegrown talent for the NHS.”
Only last month Education Secretary James Cleverly defended the Government’s refusal to lift the cap on medical student admissions this year and insisted it was increasing NHS recruitment.
Elsewhere in the interview, Mr Streeting hit out at Tory plans for the NHS as he indicated that extra funding for the health service would have to come with some kind of reform.
“There’s no doubt in my mind – and this is why Liz Truss is being dishonest with the public – that there isn’t a fix to the NHS crisis that doesn’t involve more investment,” he told the paper.
“This is a bit more difficult for a Labour audience to hear, there isn’t a fix for the NHS in the long term that can involve huge amounts of extra money every year. Because at that point, the NHS begins to look unsustainable. We can’t just keep on pouring in more money.”
Discussing his own successful treatment for kidney cancer, he said: “We can’t let our reverence [for the NHS] prevent us from making the changes that are needed to make it fit for the 21st century.”
“With the best will in the world, there are always producer interests that creep in and I will have no truck with producer interest.
“There will always be people in the system who say, ‘But that’s not how we do things’.
“I want to work with the system rather than to fight the system. But, ultimately I’ll always do what’s in the best interest of patients.”
Putting the fact that Labour is looking good and Keir Starmers words are welcome sign of intelligence returning to the party, I would be proud of our country and its political system even if that weren’t the case. We are fortunate, despite the all too often silliness in parliament, that we don’t have to put up with the crazy truths are false and opposers are terrorists stuff that the US government is inflicting on its population. I honestly love the UK, I love being a Brit and above all I love our politics.
*** Disclaimer ***
All common sense solutions must be approved by the right wing press.
>”This is a bit more difficult for a Labour audience to hear, there isn’t a fix for the NHS in the long term that can involve huge amounts of extra money every year. Because at that point, the NHS begins to look unsustainable. We can’t just keep on pouring in more money.”
Unsustainable how? And what is the definition of “extra money”? Bringing NHS funding up to the levels it needs to recover to what it offered in the 00’s isn’t “extra money”, it’s the required amount of money.
And this unsustainable line makes no damn sense. The US private healthcare system takes in a lot more of the public’s money per capita than the NHS does. As long as we stay below that number the NHS is perfectly sustainable thanks very much.
Red or blue, Tories are still Tories
Common sense sounds a bit 60s dad, I’m not sure he’s reading the electorate right. Common sense is something people want to tell others to use, not as a virtue for someone to say they have.
I hope this isn’t going to be the marketing approach
> Sir Keir, who warns that the “centre is not holding” and that things are “falling apart”,
He talks about common sense but I see him heralding the end of the world.
Yeah no need for policy when Tories will crash at next GE and you win by default.His policies won’t be much different from Boris just presented a different way.He won’t fix the country.
He is delusional. Every time he comes up with a plan, it falls apart shortly after that. Just like the Tories, the labour lot aren’t united.
Except Starmer’s Labour have no policies nor much common sense…
Gash leader and by far the worst in my lifetime
how about a plan?
More warm words but nothing tangible
He HAS to go. Utterly corrupt and compromised right wing cancerous FILTH. Put him on the pile with all the others. I will never forget how this man abandoned every policy he ran on. Essentially, he’s a liar. A professional liar. He’s a neo-liberal liar. In bed with healthcare companies and wealthy donors. His day of reckoning will come.
Oh Christ. The much-touted British pragmatism. Dogmatism in casual clothes.
I can smell the focus group from here.
He criticised someone the other day because they had “supported Labour in the last GE, and Labour lost” so we should not listen to that critic of his.
KEIR YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN SUPPORTING LABOUR IN THE LAST GE CAMPAIGN TOO!!!
You want to talk about firing Tarry for collective responsibility and for how it makes a GE attempt look, maybe start with how you and your cretin mates acted during the 2019 GE.
It is common sense to take strategically critical infrastructure into state ownership. Bleeding money out of a state owned enterprise – such as the NHS – in the name of “competition” is a farcical subsidy to shareholders.
The bottom line is that the patient pays the invoice through taxation or billing. No matter what. The Taxpayer pays.
Pretending that it is unsustainable for the taxpayer to pay taxes to provide the NHS is a lie. If politicians imagine the Taxpayer can afford to pay private health invoices then those same taxpayers can pay their taxes which amount to a quarter, or less, of that private healthcare bill. If it is unsustainable in the public sector then it is completely unsustainable in the private sector.
Sensible Step 1: remove **all** profit from the NHS. It is not ideological. It is simple, common sense.
17 comments
Sir Keir Starmer has warned that the arrival of a new Conservative Prime Minister on Tuesday is not a “new dawn”, as he made a fresh pitch to voters to back Labour.
The Labour leader used a piece in the Sunday Telegraph to say he backs “common-sense, practical solutions over ideological purity” as the UK heads towards a long and difficult winter.
Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is widely tipped to defeat Rishi Sunak on Monday, taking charge in Downing Street the following day amid soaring energy bills and a worsening cost-of-living crisis.
Sir Keir writes: “The appointment of a fourth Tory prime minister in 12 years is no new dawn for Britain.
“As summer turns to autumn, the shadows of crisis are lengthening, looming over the whole country.
“There is no sign that either Rishi Sunak or Liz Truss have grasped the scale of what is facing us, let alone possesses the answers to it.”
Sir Keir, who warns that the “centre is not holding” and that things are “falling apart”, stresses his own pragmatism and desire for progress on energy bills, the NHS and crime.
He writes: “I came to politics after a long career. That makes me impatient.
“It also means I favour common-sense, practical solutions over ideological purity. If I were stepping into Downing Street this week, I’d ensure no-one would pay a penny more for their energy bill this winter.”
Labour is proposing a six-month freeze on energy bills at the current £1,971 price cap, funded in part by expanding the windfall tax on oil and gas profits.
“The crisis facing Britain feels different because, this time, we are truly all in it together.
“It is a crisis of the energy we all need; the health service we all depend upon; the neighbourhoods we all share. The incoming prime minister has to get to grips with them or we will all lose out,” he writes.
Sir Keir, who this week turned 60, had earlier told the Mirror that he would use his forthcoming conference speech to set out Labour’s “road map, our plan for Britain and how Labour will give Britain the fresh start it needs”.
He promised plans that include “fixing the short-term problems like the cost-of-living crisis, the National Health crisis and the law and order crisis”, while also looking ahead to rebuilding the economy and tackling the climate crisis.
It comes as Labour shadow health secretary Wes Streeting accused the Conservatives of intentionally trying to lose the next general election.
Mr Streeting, in a lengthy interview with the Telegraph, said that he is confident Labour is going to win the next general election and predicted that the Tories will intentionally try to lose.
Mr Streeting, 39, seen as a potential future leader of the party, told the Telegraph: “I think the Conservatives are planning to lose the next general election.”
According to the newspaper, he points to the decision by the current Government to cap the number of medical students as evidence for his claim.
The Conservatives have “concluded there’s no point recruiting medicine trainees because they’re not going to come into work until there’s a Labour government in place. I think that’s recklessly short-sighted”, he is quoted as saying.
“I don’t know what other explanation there is. For them to turn away bright young people from university places they desperately want to take up. That is threatening the future pipeline. We should be developing our homegrown talent for the NHS.”
Only last month Education Secretary James Cleverly defended the Government’s refusal to lift the cap on medical student admissions this year and insisted it was increasing NHS recruitment.
Elsewhere in the interview, Mr Streeting hit out at Tory plans for the NHS as he indicated that extra funding for the health service would have to come with some kind of reform.
“There’s no doubt in my mind – and this is why Liz Truss is being dishonest with the public – that there isn’t a fix to the NHS crisis that doesn’t involve more investment,” he told the paper.
“This is a bit more difficult for a Labour audience to hear, there isn’t a fix for the NHS in the long term that can involve huge amounts of extra money every year. Because at that point, the NHS begins to look unsustainable. We can’t just keep on pouring in more money.”
Discussing his own successful treatment for kidney cancer, he said: “We can’t let our reverence [for the NHS] prevent us from making the changes that are needed to make it fit for the 21st century.”
“With the best will in the world, there are always producer interests that creep in and I will have no truck with producer interest.
“There will always be people in the system who say, ‘But that’s not how we do things’.
“I want to work with the system rather than to fight the system. But, ultimately I’ll always do what’s in the best interest of patients.”
Putting the fact that Labour is looking good and Keir Starmers words are welcome sign of intelligence returning to the party, I would be proud of our country and its political system even if that weren’t the case. We are fortunate, despite the all too often silliness in parliament, that we don’t have to put up with the crazy truths are false and opposers are terrorists stuff that the US government is inflicting on its population. I honestly love the UK, I love being a Brit and above all I love our politics.
*** Disclaimer ***
All common sense solutions must be approved by the right wing press.
>”This is a bit more difficult for a Labour audience to hear, there isn’t a fix for the NHS in the long term that can involve huge amounts of extra money every year. Because at that point, the NHS begins to look unsustainable. We can’t just keep on pouring in more money.”
Unsustainable how? And what is the definition of “extra money”? Bringing NHS funding up to the levels it needs to recover to what it offered in the 00’s isn’t “extra money”, it’s the required amount of money.
And this unsustainable line makes no damn sense. The US private healthcare system takes in a lot more of the public’s money per capita than the NHS does. As long as we stay below that number the NHS is perfectly sustainable thanks very much.
Red or blue, Tories are still Tories
Common sense sounds a bit 60s dad, I’m not sure he’s reading the electorate right. Common sense is something people want to tell others to use, not as a virtue for someone to say they have.
I hope this isn’t going to be the marketing approach
> Sir Keir, who warns that the “centre is not holding” and that things are “falling apart”,
He talks about common sense but I see him heralding the end of the world.
Yeah no need for policy when Tories will crash at next GE and you win by default.His policies won’t be much different from Boris just presented a different way.He won’t fix the country.
He is delusional. Every time he comes up with a plan, it falls apart shortly after that. Just like the Tories, the labour lot aren’t united.
Except Starmer’s Labour have no policies nor much common sense…
Gash leader and by far the worst in my lifetime
how about a plan?
More warm words but nothing tangible
He HAS to go. Utterly corrupt and compromised right wing cancerous FILTH. Put him on the pile with all the others. I will never forget how this man abandoned every policy he ran on. Essentially, he’s a liar. A professional liar. He’s a neo-liberal liar. In bed with healthcare companies and wealthy donors. His day of reckoning will come.
Oh Christ. The much-touted British pragmatism. Dogmatism in casual clothes.
I can smell the focus group from here.
He criticised someone the other day because they had “supported Labour in the last GE, and Labour lost” so we should not listen to that critic of his.
KEIR YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN SUPPORTING LABOUR IN THE LAST GE CAMPAIGN TOO!!!
You want to talk about firing Tarry for collective responsibility and for how it makes a GE attempt look, maybe start with how you and your cretin mates acted during the 2019 GE.
It is common sense to take strategically critical infrastructure into state ownership. Bleeding money out of a state owned enterprise – such as the NHS – in the name of “competition” is a farcical subsidy to shareholders.
The bottom line is that the patient pays the invoice through taxation or billing. No matter what. The Taxpayer pays.
Pretending that it is unsustainable for the taxpayer to pay taxes to provide the NHS is a lie. If politicians imagine the Taxpayer can afford to pay private health invoices then those same taxpayers can pay their taxes which amount to a quarter, or less, of that private healthcare bill. If it is unsustainable in the public sector then it is completely unsustainable in the private sector.
Sensible Step 1: remove **all** profit from the NHS. It is not ideological. It is simple, common sense.