As Starmer aims to get Labour on front foot, UK inflation hits new 30-year high

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Keir Starmer is on the last leg of his three-day tour during parliamentary recess, spending today in Erdington. This is where Labour candidate Paulette Hamilton hopes to replace Jack Dromey as the MP on March 3rd, and where the council seats of Birmingham are all up on May 5th. A group of Labour canvassers were last week shouted at about Jimmy Savile while door-knocking in Erdington, but campaigners are not very worried about losing the Labour seat. Of course, there are the usual warnings about not being complacent and still having to work hard. The party is confident about its candidate, however, an award-winning councillor and child of the Windrush generation who has lived in Erdington for 35 years. LabourList will be visiting the seat and interviewing her soon.

What has been the purpose of the Labour leader’s tour? With parliament on a break until February 21st, “the Tories are going skiing this week”, one insider remarked drily. It was therefore decided that this was the perfect time to get across a proactive Labour message: communicating not only that the Conservatives are doing a bad job of running the country, amid ‘partygate’ and the rising cost of living and a pitiful energy policy, but also what Labour would do in power. Getting on the front foot, as Labour did on energy prices, is key – in particular by ensuring that voters actually know what the party is offering, as Lisa Nandy has stressed. And Starmer is relishing the opportunity to get out there and meet people, we’re told, after pandemic recesses that did not allow such in-person visits.

While Labour is determined to show off its positive ideas as well as its criticisms, what many will be focused on today is UK inflation hitting a new 30-year high. The latest Office for National Statistics data shows that consumer prices rose by 5.5% in the 12 months to January. Higher energy costs are a major driver. “This is the stuff of nightmares. Households already feeling the pinch will be aghast at this latest hike in living costs,” UNISON general secretary Christina McAnea said.

Wages are failing to keep up with inflation. “If there’s no extra cash for inflation-beating wage rises, health, care, council, police and education services could lose so many staff they’ll no longer be able to deliver for the public,” McAnea added. In responding to the inflation news this morning, the CBI concluded that the UK is “caught in a low growth trap” and must “avoid another lost decade” – words that LabourList readers might recognise from a speech last month by Rachel Reeves. “The choice ahead of our country is this: another lost decade of low growth, high taxes, and a deepening cost of living crisis,” the Shadow Chancellor said – or Starmer’s contract with the public.

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