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Starmer: ‘I think you win from the centre ground’ because people don’t like ‘extremes of right or left’
In an interview in the Times, Keir Starmer has said he believes that elections are won from the “centre ground”, because that is where most people in the country are.
He told the newspaper “I think you win from the centre ground, the centre ground is where most people are. As a nation, broadly speaking we’re a pretty reasonable, tolerant bunch but we are in the centre ground of politics. People don’t like the extremes of the right or the left. They are reasonably tolerant. They want themselves, their families and the country to improve and make progress.”
Stressing his message that he has changed the Labour party, he said you did not have to be a lifelong Labour supporter to be part of his mission. He said “One of the invitations we’ve thrown out is to say we want a decade of national renewal. The national bit is really important to people. This isn’t a tribal Labour. You don’t have to be a lifelong Labour supporter and voter to want to have a decade of national renewal. Very many Tories would want it. I want it to be wide enough to accommodate people who wouldn’t identify as Labour. They’d vote Labour this time.”
Starmer told the Times that he wanted “politics that treads a little lighter on all our lives”, saying many politicians had become “too self-entitled”. He said “There would be a mindset shift if we are privileged enough to come and serve.”
He said he believed Labour needed to pass a test in the eyes of voters on whether it could trusted primarily on the economy and on security.
Key events
Keir Starmer did take some questions from the media after that event, with the lines dropping on the wires so far that he was asked about Diane Abbott and concerns among Black voters that the row might have caused.
Starmer said “I dealt with that issue yesterday. Today is about taking our argument to the country and getting people back to work. Let me give my message to voters, because I think this is very, very important, which is if you want change, the power is with you. You have to vote for change.”
LBC asked Starmer about the pressing issue of D:Ream saying Labour shouldn’t use their song Things Can Only Get Better and that they regret allowing Tony Blair to have used it. “Well, look, we’re not in 1997. We’re in 2024,” said Starmer, adding “The choice before the country is absolutely stark. We’ve had now 14 years of chaos and division. And if the Tories get back in there’s just going to be more of the same.
“We can turn the page, we can start anew rebuild our country with Labour. And we will have a song for that moment if we’re privileged enough to come in to serve.”
PA Media have a couple of key facts about Labour’s battlebus, which is going to start a 5,000 mile tour of the country.
Starting in Uxbridge, where Keir Starmer once suggested that London’s expanded ultra-low emission zone (Ulez) cost it a byelection victory, PA notes the bus is Ulez compliant. Someone has also counted up that it says “Change” on the side 15 times.
Of the planned tour, Angela Rayner said she had been “looking forward to this day”, adding “I’m going to really enjoy being out and about up and down the country on our bus. We want to send a message to the people of this country – we are a changed Labour party, in the service of working people. And we will never ride high and roughshod on the economy.”
Ed Davey has made the most of some photo opportunities this week as a way to attract attention to the Liberal Democrats and their policies, but he has posted a message to social media to point out that he won’t be out campaigning today.
In the message, the Liberal Democrat leader said:
This weekend I get to do the most joyful and important thing I do: being a dad. Together, Emily and I care for our wonderful son John, who has severe physical and learning disabilities.
Carers – paid and unpaid – are the lifeblood of our NHS and our economy. The work they do is undervalued and underappreciated. I’m looking forward to putting them front and centre of the Liberal Democrats campaign next week.
This weekend I get to do the most joyful and important thing I do: being a Dad.
Together, Emily and I care for our wonderful son John, who has severe physical and learning disabilities. pic.twitter.com/zhSaN7QqJg
— Ed Davey (@EdwardJDavey) June 1, 2024
Davey added in a further message “I’ve loved every minute of this election campaign so far – meeting people across our United Kingdom and hearing directly about their hopes for the future and their strong desire for change.”
Keir Starmer appeared in good spirits at this event and attempted a couple of jokes.
Standing beside the red Labour bus with “Change” written down the side, he joked that buses were like Tory defectors, saying “You wait for ages and then three come along in a row.”
In recent weeks the Labour party has welcomed former Tory MPs Dan Poulter and Natalie Elphicke, and this week Mark Logan, who represented Bolton North East, joined them. All three former MPs are stepping down at this election.
Starmer then moved on to say of the bus that “I’m reliably told it has got a fridge in the back of it. So check that Boris Johnson isn’t in there. He used to be around these parts.”
The former prime minister famously ended up hiding inside a fridge during the 2019 election campaign to avoid an interview. The Labour battlebus was being launched in Uxbridge, where Johnson used to be an MP. Angela Rayner will be using it to tour the country.
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves launch Labour’s battle bus in Uxbridge, West London.
“It’s almost like Tory defectors. You wait for ages and then three come along in a row,” Starmer says of buses. #GE2024 pic.twitter.com/LgZbRmAdBC
— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) June 1, 2024
Starmer: Tories ‘shredding their economic credibility’ during election campaign
Keir Starmer has said that the Conservative campaign has been “shredding their economic credibility” with daily unfunded policy announcements.
Starmer said “They are saying today about some levelling up. I remember them saying that five years ago. Have they done it? No. I don’t think they’ll do it now.
“They say in politics the worst thing you can do is prey on people’s fears. What they’re doing with this is preying on people’s hopes, their hope that things will level up after non-delivery.
“What they’ve done today with this is another unfunded commitment. There’s one a day. They’re using the same money that last week they said was going to pay for a teenage Dad’s Army. They are shredding their economic credibility. The Tories cannot be trusted with the finances of the country.”
He added “We need Rachel [Reeves]. We need a stable economy. And we need to give working people the foundation that they need for the life that they want to build.”
On the subject of the NHS, Starmer said “When Labour left office we had the lowest waiting list and the highest satisfaction in the NHS. They’ve turned that completely on its head. So now we have the highest ever waiting list, and the lowest ever satisfaction. I don’t care what political party you support. If you leave our NHS worse than when you found it in government, you don’t deserve one day more in government.”
“They’re not going to change,” he said. “They’ve already failed. They’ll fail again. And it will be costing every single person in this country.”
Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves spoke next. She said “I will never play fast and loose with the public finances in the way that the Conservatives have. Because when you do that, you put family finances at peril. And that is why we will bring stability back to our economy.”
She said Labour would “power up Britain … so that our economy can fulfil its potential so that everyone can contribute wherever you live.”
Angela Rayner has said she is looking forward to being on the campaign bus, and promised to bombard Keir Starmer with pictures from every stop. She said:
This is what this general election is about. It is about putting the country first, about giving people that hope and opportunity that 14 years of the Tories have taken away. They’ve crashed the economy. Nothing works any more. People can’t get appointments for their GP. People waiting on the hospital NHS waiting lists. We’ve got to turn the page, we’ve got to change this country, and on 4 July we can make that change happen together.
Danny Beales, the Labour candidate for Uxbridge & South Ruislip has opened this event in London for the party, and introduced Angela Rayner, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves.
He said when he spoke on the doorstep to people they were “terrified about the next bill coming through the door, worried about rising waiting lists, the state of the local hospital after 14 years of no progress under the Conservatives, terrified about what the future holds for their children, and whether they’ll ever get on the property ladder.”
Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves will shortly be launching Labour’s campaign bus. You can watch the event here.
Swinney: Tories ‘deserve the democratic drubbing coming their way’ for imposing Brexit and austerity on Scotland
SNP leader John Swinney has urged people to take part in a “Scottish national service” by using the general election to vote Tory MPs out of office, PA Media reports.
Scotland’s first minister said his party could “remove the remaining rump of Tory MPs”.
Swinney said they had been “cheerleaders for a Westminster government which has imposed austerity, Brexit and a cost-of-living crisis on Scottish communities”.
He added “Every Scottish Tory MP who, at the last general election, backed Boris [Johnson] and backed Brexit must now face the consequences for the damage their political choices have caused. They deserve the democratic drubbing that is coming their way.”
The Green party of England and Wales has issued a fundraising message this morning, as it seeks to achieve its target of getting four MPs elected.
Co-leader Carla Denyer said the party had already raised a third of the £400,000 it was seeking, but contrasted it with the “tens of millions” that the Conservatives and Labour were spending in what she said was “the most expensive election campaign” in UK history.
She said the party wanted its campaign “to remind voters that there is an alternative to the Sunak v Starmer show”.
The four constituencies that the Greens have as their targets are:
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Brighton Pavilion – Siân Berry
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Bristol Central – Carla Denyer
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North Herefordshire – Ellie Chowns
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Waveney Valley – Adrian Ramsay
Lorna Slater, the co-leader of the Scottish Greens, has backed the introduction of low emission zones (LEZs) in three major Scottish cities.
PA Media reports she said “There is no such thing as a safe level of air pollution, and LEZs have a key role to play in delivering cleaner, greener and safer cities. If we are to have liveable and clean cities then we need to reduce the numbers of cars on our roads, and LEZs are a big step towards doing that.
“It has taken a lot of work by a lot of people to get here, but these zones will save lives, and have a positive impact that will be felt for years to come.”
Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen have introduced the regulations in the city centres this week, one year after Glasgow did the same.
The Scottish Green have reacted angrily to the fact that they have been excluded from STV’s Monday night election debate, which will only feature representatives from the SNP, Labour, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, despite the Scottish Greens being the fourth largest party at Holyrood.
The centrepiece of Labour’s campaign message today is its “Back to Work plan”. The party is announcing that it intends to target an increase in the employment rate from 75 per cent to 80 per cent, which it says would be the highest in the G7.
Keir Starmer said “With Labour, those who can work, will work. We want more people into work, to get on at work and to get the benefits bill down. Under the Tories, there are too many people who are not in work, who should be. Too many people stuck in jobs with no promise of earning a better income. Young people who are yet to experience work, at risk of falling off the radar. We can’t go on like this. It’s time for change.”
Saying that the country needed to get a grip on what he described as “the spiralling welfare bill” he said “We will set about, within days of a future government, reforming work support to get more people into work.”
Shadow work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall said the policies “includes a youth guarantee that will mean training, an apprenticeship or help to work for all 18- 21 year olds.”
She added there will also be “New local plans, supported by Mayors across the country, to get people from economic inactivity and into work. And a national jobs and careers service to help people not only get into work but get on at work.”
Starmer: ‘wealth creation’ is ‘number one mission’
In another section of his interview with the Times, Keir Starmer has said that “you could say our number one mission is wealth creation,” saying “It’s the only way our country can go forward and we should nourish and encourage that. Not just individuals but businesses.”
Confirming that Labour will stick to Conservative plans to freeze income tax thresholds until 2028, a move which is expected to drag millions of people into paying income tax for the first time, Starmer said “We’re going to keep the decision as it is because we cannot afford to do otherwise.”
He said he had told his team “there are good Labour things that we won’t be able to do as quickly as we would like” and an emphasis will be on public service reform rather than simply increasing public spending.
He gave job centres as an example, saying “I think the government has turned the DWP and job centres into places where they administer the rules on benefits rather than get people back to work”, and promising that a national careers service offering advice and free training courses would be embedded in them.
Who Targets Me have picked up an interesting new Facebook advert from the Conservatives, which they suggest “appears to be leaning into Davos/WEF/Great Reset conspiracy theories” by asking whether Keir Starmer prefers Davos or Westminster.
It is a somewhat disingenuous line, as while Rishi Sunak himself has not been seen at the Davos World Economic Forum gathering over the last couple of years, Kemi Badenoch and Grant Shapps were there in 2023, and in January this year the government sent Jeremy Hunt and David Cameron, and was happily issuing press releases about what they would achieve there for the UK.
Sunak to campaign in northern England with promise of extra cash for 30 more towns in UK
Prime minister Rishi Sunak has pledged cash to 30 more towns as part of a bid to try to capitalise on the party’s levelling up agenda.
Tamworth, Preston, Corby, Halifax, Bognor Regis, Newtown, Flint, Perth and Newry would be among the places to benefit.
PA Media reports Sunak said: “We, the Conservatives, have a plan for towns because we know they are the beating heart of our country. This bold action will transform 30 more towns – reviving their high streets, growing their local economies and making people feel proud of the place they call home.”
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner has described the Tories levelling up agenda as “a scam and a sham”. She said “For 14 years the Tories have failed to do what they promised and held back Britain’s potential. Levelling up was a phoney gimmick which has now been abandoned to fund mandatory national service. It was a scam and a sham, and we should call it what it is.”
Keir Starmer has said that his wife’s work gives him a greater insight into the NHS. He told the Times his wife Victoria will continue to work in occupational health if Starmer becomes prime minister, saying “She’s absolutely going to carry on working, she wants to and she loves it. It’s also good for me because it gives me an insight into the NHS.”
Starmer also said the election had come at an unfortunate time for one of his children, who is in the middle of his GCSEs. He said the Labour team had been preparing for an election for four-and-a-half years, and were “buzzing” when it was called, but on the exam front “At the moment I just want to create the environment where he can get on with what he’s got to get on with as untroubled as he can be.”
Starmer: ‘I think you win from the centre ground’ because people don’t like ‘extremes of right or left’
In an interview in the Times, Keir Starmer has said he believes that elections are won from the “centre ground”, because that is where most people in the country are.
He told the newspaper “I think you win from the centre ground, the centre ground is where most people are. As a nation, broadly speaking we’re a pretty reasonable, tolerant bunch but we are in the centre ground of politics. People don’t like the extremes of the right or the left. They are reasonably tolerant. They want themselves, their families and the country to improve and make progress.”
Stressing his message that he has changed the Labour party, he said you did not have to be a lifelong Labour supporter to be part of his mission. He said “One of the invitations we’ve thrown out is to say we want a decade of national renewal. The national bit is really important to people. This isn’t a tribal Labour. You don’t have to be a lifelong Labour supporter and voter to want to have a decade of national renewal. Very many Tories would want it. I want it to be wide enough to accommodate people who wouldn’t identify as Labour. They’d vote Labour this time.”
Starmer told the Times that he wanted “politics that treads a little lighter on all our lives”, saying many politicians had become “too self-entitled”. He said “There would be a mindset shift if we are privileged enough to come and serve.”
He said he believed Labour needed to pass a test in the eyes of voters on whether it could trusted primarily on the economy and on security.
Welcome and opening summary …
Good morning! It may be the weekend, but a general election campaign never sleeps, and we will bring you the latest developments as they unfold today. Here are your headlines …
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Rishi Sunak is heading to north-east England today after a scratchy start to his campaign
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Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves will be launching a battle bus in London. He maybe could have done with that yesterday to avoid awkward headlines about private jets
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Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson Sarah Olney will be visiting Eastbourne, while Scotland’s first minister John Swinney will be in Aberdeen with Stephen Flynn
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D:Ream have said they won’t let Labour use their anthem Things Can Only Get Better
It is Martin Belam here today for the next few hours. I always try to read all of your comments, but if you want to get my attention then email is usually the best way – martin.belam@theguardian.com.
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