Starmer’s fundamental economic mistake

Keir Starmer’s speech on economic recovery, delivered at Labour’s Southside HQ on Thursday, was hyped as one of the most pivotal moments of his leadership so far. A Labour insider told Politico it had been ‘six months in the making with a huge amount of work going into it’. It was designed to establish a clear ‘fork in the road’ between the Conservatives’ and Labour’s economic visions, both in the short term — leading up to the Budget next month — but also in the future, as Starmer pledged to shape the economy ‘to look utterly unlike the past’.

But for a speech that was supposedly months in the making, there was surprisingly little substance. Starmer’s main proposals for an alternative Budget were pledges to extend support schemes already brought in by the government to assist with relief, including the uplift to Universal Credit and the extension of free school meals.