Downbeat Keir Starmer complains ‘we do not dwell in an excellent world’
A downbeat Sir Keir Starmer defending abandoning a string of Labour policies today – saying the country can no longer afford them.
In a media round on day two of the general election campaign the opposition leader was challenged on his former backing for issues including scrapping university tuition fees.
Sir Keir ran for the Labour leadership in 2020 on the back of a list of 10 pledges. But he has faced criticism, including from within his own party for backtracking on many of them.
Other issues like abolishing the House of Lords have been put on the backburner, while he is also facing a row with his backbenchers over his refusal to support lifting the two-child benefit cap if he becomes PM.
But he defended his new-found miserliness today. Asked about tuition fees on the BBC he said he needed to use the money to fund the NHS instead, levelling blame at the Covid pandemic and the economic turmoil during Liz Truss‘s short-lived premiership.
Asked by BBC Radio 4’s Today programme if he would consider scrapping the two-child benefit cap, the Labour leader said: ‘In an ideal world, of course. But we haven’t got the resources to do it at the moment.
In an media round on day two of the general election campaign the opposition leader was challenged on his former backing for issues including scrapping university tuition fees and pouring money into green energy.
Sir Keir ran for the Labour leadership in 2020 on the back of a list of 10 pledges. But he has faced criticism, including from within his own party for backtracking on many of them.
‘What I will do, because child poverty is something I am absolutely set against, the last Labour government had an anti-child poverty strategy and we managed to do a huge amount of good stuff on child poverty.
‘We will do the same thing and have a child poverty strategy, but there are other elements to it.’
Sir Keir was later asked if he is still committed to scrapping the House of Lords as Labour has previously signalled it wants to do.
He said: ‘I do want to abolish the House of Lords. The question is what are the priorities straight away.’
Sir Keir Starmer did not accept claims he would have to raise taxes, make spending cuts or change Labour’s fiscal rules if his party wins power.
The Labour leader said he did not agree with the findings of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: ‘I do think that we can go for growth.
‘I think if you have got a comprehensive plan for growth that is thought through and have the detailed discussions with partners for growth we can do it.’
He claimed previous governments had gone ’round and round in circles’ with short-term solutions.
Sir Keir added: ‘If we just do sticking plasters and tax rises, spending cuts, these are levers which in the end aren’t taking our country forward, they are fiddling.
‘I want to take our country forward and the only way to do that is to have a comprehensive plan for growth that is in the sense of a driving sense of purpose for government that we stick to.’
