‘The purpose Labour picked this photograph of Keir Starmer to plaster on billboards’

Standing tall with his shirt sleeves rolled up, this is Keir Starmer ready for action.

From today, this black and white image of the Labour leader will start popping up on billboards in battleground seats across the country. The party is spending more money on this advertising blitz than on anything it has done since the last general election.

Campaign strategists have deliberately chosen a photo they believe shows Keir is ready to get stuck into the job.

And they have picked six promises they hope their candidates will be able to explain easily to people on doorsteps. For quite some time some voters have complained that they don’t actually know what Labour would do if it got into power.

Here in simple bullet points, the party is trying to get across what its “first steps” would be if it gets the keys to No10. From talking about the NHS to tackling crime and improving schools – these are the bread-and-butter issues that decide elections.

And in an effort to show jaded voters it is serious about what it is promising, Labour is explaining exactly how it will pay for the pledges. The 40,000 extra appointments to cut NHS waiting times funded by closing tax loopholes for wealthy non-doms, the cash for the 6,500 new teachers from ending tax breaks for public schools.

Putting a list of promises on a pledge card is obviously nothing new. Labour is deliberately taking ideas from the 1997 campaign when Tony Blair swept to victory.

At a rally today in Essex where he will officially unveil the pledges, Labour is hoping people will start to see Keir as the man who could be our next PM. Speaking without notes in the midst of a group of voters, he will explain how he will change Britain for the better.

Even though we still don’t know the date of the election, there is no doubt now the campaign has truly begun.