Labour leader wants a fresh start for the UK
At the Labour Party's annual conference in Liverpool, British opposition leader Keir Starmer pledged to launch "a decade of national renewal" if he wins the general election expected for 2024. In his conference speech he promised new houses, cheaper energy and economic growth. What to make of these promises?
Full of platitudes
The Daily Telegraph is not impressed:
“It was short on detail and often vacuous in content. Sir Keir said that Labour needed to get the NHS back on its feet and that it could not continue without reform. But the question is how to do it? Once again, Labour's answer seems to be more spending, with the money coming from taxing non-doms, cash that already seems to have been pledged to dozens of projects. ... There could be more than a year to the next election and he may well have another conference speech to make next autumn. It will need to have more detailed policy and fewer platitudes.”
Steady Starmer
The Times hopes Starmer will, above all, prove to be more reliable than his predecessors:
“Sir Keir Starmer is not a born actor like Tony Blair or a born jester-like Boris Johnson. But then, that is his appeal to many: he is your bank manager, accountant or solicitor. And though he may not set the world alight in terms of oratory, that cautious demeanour suggests that he will not be seduced, either, into invading Iraq or attending an illegal lockdown-busting party in Downing Street. In his conference speech yesterday, Sir Keir sounded like a prime minister-in-waiting. An ever so slightly boring and managerial one, perhaps. But there was nothing wrong with that.”