Latest updates: Labour leader to say growth matters to party as much as redistribution in speech about economic growth
Good morning. Keir Starmer will make a speech this morning arguing that a key problem facing Britain is that, for at least a decade, growth has been feeble. It is an argument that Starmer and his shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, have been making for some time (the trend rate of growth was higher before the financial crash, when Labour was in power, and low growth ultimately means lower living standards and less money for public services). But suddenly this territory is now rather croweded. In the Tory leadership contest Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss are both promising to unleash growth, and some of Truss’s comments in particular about how dismal the government’s record has been over the last decade could be copy and pasted straight into a Starmer speech.
Starmer will address that point in his speech. According to extracts released in advance, here are two of the points he will make.
You will see a clear contrast between my Labour party and the Thatcherite cosplay on display tonight [in the Tory leadership debate]. The difference between a Labour party ready to take Britain forward. And a Tory party that wants to take us back into the past.
Between Labour growth and Tory stagnation. That will be the choice at the next election and we are ready.
The approach to growth I have set out today will challenge my party’s instincts.
It pushes us to care as much about growth and productivity, as we have done about redistribution and investment in the past. Not to hark back to our old ideas in the face of new challenges.
