Keir Starmer warned of ‘tough decisions’ looming and tried to stop people from calling him ‘PM’ today as he kicked off his Red Revolution.
At his first press conference in Downing Street, the Labour leader said questioners could call him ‘Keir’ as he acknowledged that his government will be ‘judged on actions, not on words’.
He said the government will need to make ‘tough decisions and take them early’ – saying that there would be ‘raw honesty’ about what needs to be done, although he denied that meant tax hikes.
Instead, he stressed that crime could be a crucial area after it emerged his new prisons minister had suggested two-thirds of people in jail should not be there. Sir Keir said there were ‘too many prisoners, not enough prisons’.
Sir Keir also confirmed that the Rwanda policy pursued by Rishi Sunak was ‘dead and buried’, despite claims it was affecting Channel boats.
Asked if he was getting used to being referred to as ‘Prime Minister’, Sir Keir chuckled and said: ‘I’m very happy to be called Keir or Prime Minister.’
The comments came after jubilant senior ministers met in No10 for the first time after his dramatic landslide triumph.
Flanked by deputy PM Angela Rayner, Sir Keir warned his team they have a ‘huge amount of work to do’.
After it became evident how enormous his triumph was—despite Labour gaining fewer votes than under Jeremy Corbyn in 2017—the prime minister named the Cabinet last night.
Yvette Cooper is the Home Secretary, and Rachel Reeves is the first female Chancellor of the United Kingdom.
Sir Keir spoke to a host of foreign leaders last night, including reaffirming the ‘Special Relationship’ with Joe Biden and telling EU Commission president Ursula von der Leyen he wanted ‘close cooperation’.
Meanwhile, incoming Health Secretary Wes Streeting has already opened talks with the BMA over the junior doctors’ strikes, sparking fears he could offer big concessions to their demands for 35 per cent pay hikes.
And new Transport Secretary Louise Haigh has pledged to nationalise Britain’s railways ‘as soon as possible’.
As the United Kingdom adjusts to a drastically altered political landscape:
Sir Keir is promising to go on tour around the four UK nations in the coming days saying he will not be ‘tribal’ and wants to work with devolved administrations;
Furious Tory manoeuvring is underway as a leadership contest looms, with calls for the party to shift to the Right;
Nigel Farage is set to do a walkabout in Essex with another of the five Reform MPs;
Asked if he would be willing to raise taxes to fund public services, the PM said ‘We’re going to have to take the tough decisions and take them early’.
Sir Keir said he would approach the challenges with a ‘raw honesty’ but insisted that was ‘not a sort of prelude to saying there’s some tax decision that we didn’t speak about before’.
‘In relation to the tough decisions, we’re going to have to take them and take them early. And we will do that with a raw honesty,’ he said.
‘But that is not a sort of prelude to saying there’s some tax decision that we didn’t speak about before that we’re going to announce now.
‘It’s about the tough decisions to fix the problem and being honest about what they are.’
On Channel boats, Sir Keir said: ‘The Rwanda scheme was dead and buried before it started. It’s never been a deterrent.
‘Look at the numbers that have come over in the first six and a bit months of this year, they are record numbers, that is the problem that we are inheriting.
‘It has never acted as a deterrent, almost the opposite, because everybody has worked out, particularly the gangs that run this, that the chance of ever going to Rwanda was so slim, less than 1%, that it was never a deterrent.
‘The chances were of not going and not being processed and staying here, therefore, in paid for accommodation for a very, very long time.
‘It’s had the complete opposite effect and I’m not prepared to continue with gimmicks that don’t act as a deterrent.’
Shortly before the press conference, Sir Keir told Cabinet: ‘Look colleagues, it is absolutely fantastic to welcome you to the Cabinet, our first meeting.
‘And it was the honour and privilege of my life to be invited by the King, His Majesty the King yesterday to form a government and to form the Labour Government of 2024.
‘And now we hold our first Cabinet meeting. So I welcome you to it.
‘We have a huge amount of work to do, so now we get on with our work.’
Sir Keir made a raft of appointments last night as he swapped places with defeated Rishi Sunak and basked in the blow of Labour’s historic landslide.
All this is not going to be a short haul, it’s going to be long and drawn out, and if they do push through as promised, allowing all 16-year-olds to vote, it’s going to be even longer – happy days.
Labour will soon be selling 12-year-olds chocolates in exchange for their votes, and now that Labour is in, they will push through reforms which ensure they retain power for a very long time.
The judicial system has to be updated, and the jail system is flawed. There are far too many prisoners who qualify for the Probation Service yet are instead incarcerated. Labour needs to invest more in the Probation Service because of its extremely low funding.
Prisons are at bursting point, and then the police have to make fewer arrests, but I’m not shocked by this. We need harsher prison sentences for serious crimes and fewer for those which are misdemeanours.
Sir Keir Starmer, I understand the concept of taxing everyone, but we are being taxed multiple times and then some. Then there is the cost of living crisis. Honestly, tax – fair enough, but don’t take the proverbial Jimmy (Riddle).
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 