Labour leader will say Tories have governed so badly people no longer believe a change of party will make a difference
In his speech this morning Keir Starmer will also promise that Labour will clean up politics. He will say:
To change Britain, we must change ourselves. We need to clean up politics. No more VIP fast lanes, no more kickbacks for colleague, no more revolving doors between government and the companies they regulate. I will restore standards in public life with a total crackdown on cronyism: this ends now.
I’ve put expense cheat politicians in jail before and I didn’t care if they were Labour or Tory. Nobody will be above the law in a Britain I lead.
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.
