Keir Starmer vows no extra austerity as he guarantees hope for ‘modified Britain’

Keir Starmer has promised he won’t plunge Britain into another round of austerity in order to fix the mess left behind by the Tories.

The Prime Minister said public services are still suffering from years of cuts and said he’s “not going down that road”. In an exclusive interview on the eve of Labour conference, Mr Starmer said he would give people hope for a “changed Britain” after gloomy warnings about tough choices to come.

The PM and Chancellor Rachel Reeves have been warning that next month’s Budget will be painful, sparking fears of cuts to public spending. But asked if he could promise there would be no more austerity, he said: “Yes. Austerity did us a huge amount of damage.

“I was running a public service when the Coalition Government went down the austerity route. It did a huge amount of damage to our public services and we are still feeling the damage even now. So we are not going down the road of austerity.”

Speaking to the Sunday Mirror from No10 Downing Street, the PM said he would not “put off the difficult decisions” in the Budget. We’re going to deal with the difficulties in the economy in the Budget and we’re going to deal with it straight away,” he said.

He refused to say whether he would heed calls from unions to impose a wealth tax. But he said: “I’m acutely aware that working people have already paid a lot in extra taxes under the last Government and that we need to create the conditions for our economy to grow and for investors to want to put their money in our economy.”

The PM said he had given a “raw and honest assessment” of the state of the country but he would use his speech in Liverpool to spell out how people will feel better off by the next election.

“We’ve got to deal with the problems we’ve inherited, that’s what we are doing,” he said. “What we’ll set out at conference is the why. What do you get for this? The hope, the changed Britain.”

Labour’s key commitments on driving up living standards, fixing the NHS, clean energy, offering opportunities to young people and driving down crime are at the top of his agenda. “This would be a massively different and better country, real sunny uplands stuff,” he said. “But to get there we have to do the tough thing to start with.”

The PM said the state of the NHS was one of the worst things in his in-tray, pointing to a damning report by Lord Darzi which found the health service was in “critical condition”.

“It’s shocking,” he said. “They (the Conservatives) inherited an NHS with the lowest waiting times in history and the highest satisfaction – and they’ve turned that into the longest waiting lists ever and the lowest satisfaction. That should make anybody angry.”

Mr Starmer said he wants to see A&E waiting times fall “as soon as possible” and put an end to ambulances queuing up outside emergency departments. He said the Government has “got to take steps to try and ensure that doesn’t happen this winter”, adding: “We’ve got to rise to the challenge, however difficult the circumstances”.

Ending the long-running doctors’ dispute will help to drive down waiting lists and ease the pressure on the health service, he said. But he admitted it will take time.

“Changing the country isn’t like flicking a switch. It’s going to take time. I’m not going to pretend everything is going to be fixed by Christmas because it isn’t. But we intend to deliver on the change that we’ve promised. I know we’ll be judged – and we should be judged – on whether we’ve delivered that by the time we get to the next election.”

Mr Starmer said he wanted to make “good progress” on setting up a National Care Service for social care by the end of this Parliament. Sorting out wages for under-paid social care staff is a priority through fair pay agreements is a “first step”, he said. But the Government wants to consult on setting up the National Care Service as it needs to endure for generations like the NHS, he said.

After a difficult week of headlines about accepting freebies from donors, Mr Starmer dismissed claims he’s ‘out of touch’ – saying people would judge him on how successfully he improves the country. On Friday, he vowed he would stop accepting donations of free high-end clothes for himself and his wife Victoria in the future.

But asked if he understood people were disappointed to see him taking freebies after criticising Rishi Sunak and Boris Johnson for doing the same, he insisted he was following the rules – saying: “Rules matter. Transparency matters.”

“My criticism was actually more about Johnson than Sunak, because I don’t think [Sunak] needs to take donations,” he quipped. “I’ve reiterated that this side of the election people are entitled to see whether you’ve taken gifts, and if so, what are they for?” he said.

The biggest ticket item on Mr Starmer’s register of interests is access to a box at Arsenal football matches – accepted from the club because the PM’s security wouldn’t be able to guarantee his safety in the stands.

“Now that is a gift, but I think accepting that is more understandable,” he said. “If I insisted on going in the stands, that would cost the taxpayer more money through extra security.”

But he dismissed the idea the row would hurt him in the eyes of voters in the long run – saying what mattered was delivering on the promises he made at the election. “I think in the end, that is what people will judge me on,” he said.

Within weeks of taking office, Mr Starmer was plunged into a national crisis, as the horrific killings in Southport spiralled – with the help of the far-right and online provocateurs – into riots on the streets.

Mr Starmer’s hardline response – rounding up perpetrators and fast-tracking them into significant prison sentences – was criticised by some Tories, as well as Reform leader Nigel Farage, who argued the government should calm the tension by addressing “concerns” about immigration.

But the PM’s approach proved to be the right one, stopping the violence in its tracks. Mr Starmer said he had “no truck” with people making excuses for thugs, and swift justice had been required to end the disorder. And he said there were lessons to learn from the riots that could be applied in fighting other kinds of crime.

“I knew that the response had to be a strong law and order response,” he said, highlighting the importance of gathering the police and prosecutors round a table to make sure they had a clear message: “If you engage in disorder, you can expect to go through the criminal justice system quickly.”

“I said to everyone round the table, we’re not going to go out there blaming people, finger pointing,” he said. “That’s what the last government did. I’m going to support you to take the difficult decisions that you need to. And I asked them to step up a huge task of law enforcement, and they did.”

“I do think there are lessons that we can take out to other areas,” he added. “I think collaboration, bringing people together around the table and delivering justice more swiftly is a lesson that we can take out of it.”

Asked about Mr Farage’s behaviour during the disorder, Mr Starmer said: “I don’t spend my time worrying about Nigel Farage.”

“I think the way to deal with what I call ‘the politics of the easy answer’ is to deliver,” he added. “We’ve got to meet that politics, which is a threat, with real delivery in government. That’s why we work every day towards those five goals I’ve set out.”