Keir
Starmer warns of tough times ahead to fix ‘Tory ruins’
Labour
leader tells working people rot left by Conservatives is so much worse than
imagined and improvement won’t happen overnight
Toby Helm
Sat 24 Aug
2024 22.30 BST
British
people will have to endure even worse economic and social pressures in the
months to come as the Labour government takes “unpopular decisions” to rebuild
the country from “rubble and ruin” left by the Tories, Keir Starmer will warn
this week.
With the
prime minister under mounting pressure from within his own party to help people
struggling with rising fuel payments and millions of families in poverty,
Starmer will strike a defiant note against those demanding U-turns from his
ministers, saying “tough choices” will have to be made before any recovery is
possible.
Starmer’s
speech on Tuesday is being billed by Downing Street as “a direct message to the
working people across Britain”.
He will say
that the “rot” left by the Conservatives is so deep and so much worse than he
had imagined that improvement “won’t happen overnight”.
The prime
minister will make the extraordinary claim that those who took part in recent
riots were doing so because they knew society had been left broken and that
there were not enough prison places.
“Not having
enough prison spaces is about as fundamental a failure as you can get,”he will
say.
“Those
people throwing rocks, torching cars, making threats – they didn’t just know
the system was broken. They were betting on it. They were gaming it. They saw
the cracks in our society after 14 years of populism and failure – and they
exploited them. That’s what we have inherited.”
Starmer will
deliver the tough messages in a speech before the return of MPs to Westminster
on 2 September, setting the stage for a serious of difficult decisions on tax
and spending this autumn.
He will say
his government has inherited “not just an economic black hole but a societal
black hole”, adding that “this is why we have to take action and do things
differently. Part of that is being honest with people about the choices we
face. And how tough this will be.”
Rachel
Reeves is under pressure to reverse her decision to cut winter fuel payments.
View image
in fullscreen
Rachel
Reeves is under pressure to reverse her decision to cut winter fuel payments.
Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images
He will say:
“Frankly, things will get worse before we get better.”
Since
Labour’s landslide victory in the 4 July general election, Starmer and the
chancellor, Rachel Reeves, have been at pains to blame the Tories for leaving
them with a terrible inheritance and no room for financial manoeuvre.
But with MPs
returning from their summer breaks and the party conference season approaching,
Starmer is facing growing demands from many of his own MPs and the unions to
deliver more help for those facing economic struggles, rather than additional
austerity.
A string of
motions has been tabled to the TUC conference early next month calling for
emergency wealth taxes to fund a massive boost to public investment, the end
of the two-child cap on benefits and the scrapping of the recently announced
restrictions on winter fuel payments.
Before her
first budget as chancellor on 30 October, Reeves is facing calls to perform a
U-turn, and the threat of rebellion, over her recent announcement to limit the
winter fuel payment to only the poorest pensioners.
The issue
flared into an incendiary row on Friday after the energy regulator announced,
as had been widely predicted for months, that gas and electricity prices would
be rising by 10% this winter.
On Saturday,
party grandee Harriet Harman gently hinted that the party might have to shift
its position and adopt “a different cut-off point” for winter fuel payments,
adding in an interview with Times Radio that such discussions might be under
way.
The
financial expert Martin Lewis, meanwhile, has suggested that the benefit should
be widened to include all pensioners in council tax bands A to D, taking in far
more households, and easing the pressures on the many of the poorest.
Many Labour
MPs are furious that a policy to restrict winter fuel payments was announced
shortly before the pricing decision by the energy regulator, which had been
known about and predicted for many months.
The Labour
MP for York Central, Rachael Maskell, said that changes to the policy were
needed if Labour were to show that it really cared about the poorest and most
vulnerable.
She said:
“With winter on its way, when parliament returns, MPs will need a package of
support to reassure our constituents that Labour will help them through this
winter with their energy costs.
“Many will
struggle if the Social Fund Winter Fuel Payment Regulations 2024 pass in
September without changes being made or being withdrawn altogether.
“While
longer-term reforms are needed, and work on reducing energy bills has started
through Ed Miliband’s energy sprint to renewables and retrofit programmes, the
challenge facing older people right now are the winter months ahead.”
Another
Labour MP said the worry was that “old people will get ill and will die”,
adding: “Old people won’t put on the heating – they don’t like getting into
debt. It is not what they do. We have to move on this.”
The prime
minister will argue that sacrifices now are the only way to get long-term
benefits for the whole of society: “I won’t shy away from making unpopular
decisions now if it’s the right thing for the country in the long term. That’s
what a government of service means.
“This
shouldn’t be a country where people have to fear walking down the street, or
watch cars and buildings being set on fire. This shouldn’t be a country where
the prime minister can’t guarantee prison spaces. But it also shouldn’t be a
country where people are paying thousands more on their mortgage or waiting
months for hospital appointments they desperately need.
“So, when I
talk about the inheritance the last government left us – the £22bn black hole
in our finances – this isn’t about lines on a graph, this is about people’s
lives.
“And the
Tories are still not being honest about it. They haven’t recognised what
they’ve cost the country and they haven’t apologised for what they’ve cost you.
“But I
promise this: you will be at the heart of our government, in the forefront of
our minds and at the centre of everything we do. That this government is for
you, back in your service.”
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário