Labour leader will say Tories have governed so badly people no longer believe a change of party will make a difference
Good morning. Keir Starmer is marking the start of the new year with a major speech which he will be delivering at 10am. He did the same thing last year, with a speech that was heavy on policy, but this one is different because, judging by the fairly lengthy advance briefing given to journalists, it’s not about policy, and it’s not even mainly about positioning, or philosophy. It seems to be more basic than that, because it’s about mood: “hope”.
The word appears eight times in the Labour press release with extracts from the speech sent out overnight (or nine, if you include “hopeful”). Starmer will say that it’s an election year, that people want change, and that this should be a moment for hope.
This year, at the general election, against the understandable despair of a downtrodden country, I will ask the British people to believe in it again.
You’re right to be anti-Westminster and angry about what politics has become.
Britain needs change, wants change, is crying out for change. And yet – trust in politics is now so low, so degraded, that nobody believes you can make a difference anymore.
That after the sex scandals, the expenses scandals, the waste scandals, the contracts for friends, even in a crisis like the pandemic, people have looked at us and concluded we’re all just in it for ourselves.
We’re trying not just to defeat the Tories, but to defeat their entire way of doing politics, a mindset that seeks out any differences between the people of this country.
I have to warn you all, they will leave no stone unturned this year either. Every opportunity for division will be explored for political potential, that is a given.
I had a long career before this. At the Crown Prosecution Service, as a human rights lawyer, in my work with the Police Service of Northern Ireland. I’ve looked into the eyes of people I’ve served or represented and I have seen reflected back the knowledge that government can make or break a life.
Literally, when it comes to work, I’ve done with people living on death row. Life and death decisions – placed in your hands.
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