The Labour leader offered real policy substance on letting communities take back control, in contrast to the PM’s wafer-thin pledges
A salvo of speeches opened the election season, so who won? No contest, but it’s an unfair competition when all the weapons are on Labour’s side. What a blunder Rishi Sunak made in rushing to get in first at a copycat venue for a face-off bound to expose his impossible weakness and his own thin offer. Was that it, the BBC asked. He provided the perfect backdrop for Keir Starmer to make his best speech yet, offering “competent and compassionate” government to push power out of Westminster for “a decade of national renewal.”
Sunak inadvertently set up this imagery of the past and the future as he stood on his burning platform in some kind of asbestos of denial. He seemed impervious to the fires licking around his feet, as if oblivious to those who can’t heat homes, buy enough food, call an ambulance, summon police to a burglary, post a letter or catch a train, while wages fall and credit card debts rise.
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
