Send message to Tories on cost of living, Starmer urges at Bury campaign launch

Keir Starmer is set to urge voters to “send the Tories a message they cannot ignore” on the cost of living by voting for his party in the upcoming May elections, as the opposition leader launches Labour’s campaign in Bury on Thursday.

In a speech ahead of the local elections, the Labour leader will declare that his party is “on your side”, while attacking government policies for leaving households across the country thousands of pounds worse off this year.

The launch is being held in Bury, where Labour recently gained a new MP, defector Christian Wakeford, and where the party hopes to win back the other parliamentary constituency, Bury North, which the Tories won in 2019 by just 105 votes.

The event led by Starmer, who will be joined by Angela Rayner, is set to kick off the campaign to see Labour councillors elected in authorities across Wales, Scotland and parts of England.

“In exactly five weeks, you get the chance to send the Tories a message they cannot ignore. A message that Britain deserves better than the pathetic response we got to the Conservative cost-of-living crisis in the mini-Budget,” the Labour leader will say.

“You know the reality – prices are going through the roof, and wages are going through the floor. What did we get in that mini-Budget? A Conservative government that takes far more than it gives to working people.

“The biggest drop in living standards since the 50s. Taxes the highest in 70 years. Even allowing for everything the Chancellor announced, families are £2,620 worse off. Britain deserves better than this.”

Rishi Sunak used the Spring Statement last week to announce a fuel duty cut for 12 months, raise the threshold at which workers start paying National Insurance contributions (NICs) by £3,000 a year and announce a 1p reduction in income tax in 2024.

“Britain has a lot to be proud of, but Britain does not have a government on the side of businesses, working families and pensioners. That’s what Labour promises to be: on your side. Labour’s contract with you will be based on three principles: security, prosperity and respect,” Starmer will say.

He will argue that working families feel “more insecure than ever” given rising prices and the decision to raise NICs “at exactly the wrong time”. The National Insurance hike raising £12bn a year for health and social care will kick in from April.

“That’s why Labour would tackle the Tory cost-of-living crisis by cutting your bills by up to £600 funded by a windfall levy on the excess profits of the oil and gas companies,” he is expected to say.

Starmer will also declare that Labour would reform employment law “so scandals like P&O would never happen on our watch” and would introduce police hubs in every neighbourhood as “crime is still too high and too often people don’t feel safe”.

MP for Bury South Christian Wakeford, elected to represent one of the ‘Red Wall’ constituencies lost to the Tories in the 2019 general election, defected from the Conservatives to join the Labour Party in January this year.

Bury North was taken by the Tories at the 2019 general election. James Daly overturned Labour’s majority of 4,375 to oust James Frith – who is expected to stand for selection again – and the seat is now the second most marginal in the country.

Rachel Reeves and national campaign co-ordinator Shabana Mahmood will also be attending campaign launches, in Worthing and Derby respectively, as Labour begins a new doorstep and digital attack campaign highlighting the £2,620 hit to families.

Sunak told MPs in his Spring Statement that sanctions imposed by the UK government on Russia in light of the war on Ukraine were “not cost free for us at home”. But Reeves argued that the invasion of Ukraine was not the cause of rising prices in the UK.

“The cost-of-living crisis predates Putin’s attack on Ukraine. In October, inflation was already forecast to be double the Bank of England’s target, and yet the Prime Minister said that fears of inflation were unfounded,” the Shadow Chancellor said.

Inflation rose from 5.5% in January to 6.2% last month, representing a 30-year high. The Office for Budget Responsibility this month downgraded its economic growth forecast for the year, which was 6% in October 2021, to 3.8%.

Reeves told the Chancellor that the measures announced in the Spring Statement, which Sunak said were aimed at helping households with rising bills, showed that the government “does not understand the scale of the challenge”.