Keir Starmer is giving his big speech at noon today, the first one he’s been able to give to a packed conference hall since becoming leader. He seems to think that this means he needs to reintroduce himself to his own party and the electorate, and to that end we’ve been promised more detail on his backstory. But the Labour leader’s problem is not so much that people don’t know who he is as that they don’t really know what he stands for.
Starmer is expected to take Labour away from the Corbyn era
To that end, Starmer does plan to make a sweep of policy announcements, only a handful of which have been trailed. We know to expect an emphasis on wellbeing and mental health. The former has been something that a lot of his frontbenchers, including Jon Ashworth and Ed Miliband, have been talking about throughout this week. The leader will pledge to ‘create an economy in which people are healthy and well-educated’. He wants to set tougher targets for mental health services. He’ll promise that Labour will train more teachers.
Starmer is also expected to take Labour away from the Corbyn era, though how explicitly isn’t clear. We’ve been told not to expect him to name Corbyn or launching personal criticism. The emphasis will be more on the ‘under new management’ line that he used early in his leadership.
But will it be enough? This week in Brighton has lacked a thread telling us what Labour stands for. Largely it has involved shadow ministers announcing things that sound quite nice but that neither creates dividing lines with the Corbyn era or the Tory party. A fight with the left involving internal party rules is one thing. Policies that show Labour isn’t just offering free ponies for everyone, as the 2019 manifesto did, is another. Talking about a backstory that most people already know isn’t going to cut it.
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