Politics latest: Sir Keir Starmer making direct appeal to disillusioned voters in major

Westminster’s expecting 2024 will be the election year after the PM confirmed as much to journalists before Christmas (as opposed to waiting until the very last moment in January 2025).

The spotlight’s therefore on Sir Keir Starmer today as he gives a set piece new year speech in Bristol, which is effectively launching the party’s election campaign and gives us a real insight into his strategy for the year ahead.

It’s designed to emphasise key dividing lines between Labour and the Conservatives, but also between his “changed” Labour Party versus the situation under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership – arguing the party is no longer a party of “protest” but a party of “service”.

The overarching message is that the “character of politics will change” if Labour enters power – with a direct appeal to disillusioned voters that they’re “right to be anti-Westminster and angry about what politics has become” but that they’re not “all the same” and “things can be better”. 

So far, so Sir Tony Blair in 1997.

But Sir Keir will develop his theme by referencing a series of recent Tory scandals – from “VIP fast lanes” to “sex scandals, expenses scandals, waste scandals” – arguing that as a human rights lawyer and former director of public prosecutions he is the right man to clean up politics and “crack down on cronyism”.

It sounds like the speech will be relatively light on new policy details – despite the party’s National Campaign Coordinator Pat McFadden telling Sky News this morning it will include lots of concrete plans, including a strategy to go after billions lost to COVID fraud. 

Most of Mr McFadden’s other examples we’ve heard plenty about before – banning zero hours contracts, ending fire and rehire and the creation of publicly owned green energy company.

However, it seems unlikely we’ll get much more detail on the planned £28bn annual investment in green technology which underpins this last promise-– as the policy has become a key target for Tory attacks questioning Labour’s commitment to fiscal responsibility (though Labour insist this investment only be possible when the economy has improved). 

The prime minister will also be out campaigning today – meeting members of the public at a community centre in the East Midlands.

But the national media haven’t been invited and the whole set up seems far more low key.

It’s a real contrast to Rishi Sunak’s big New Year speech of 2023 when if you remember he set out those five pledges – only one of which, halving inflation, he’s been able to meet so far.

Clearly all the opposition parties – Labour today, the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK at their campaign launches yesterday – are hoping to put pressure on Mr Sunak to call an early May election – or at least create the perception he’s dithering if he doesn’t, like Gordon Brown back in 2007.

It seems likely the PM will want to wait until the autumn in the hopes of more good news on the economy – but there are arguments on both sides.