Sharon Graham, the general secretary of the Unite union, criticized Keir Starmer’s “bleak vision” in his first major speech as prime minister, calling for the change that Labour promised. She emphasized the need for Labour to make the right choices and fight for change for workers and communities, advocating for taxing the wealthiest 1% to address the financial challenges. Graham disagreed with Starmer’s emphasis on stimulating growth in the economy, stating that Britain can’t wait for growth and industries can’t wait for investment. Unite is calling on Labour to implement an emergency 1% wealth tax on the super-rich to fund pay rises for public sector workers and fill NHS vacancies, highlighting tensions between the government and parts of the union movement.
Unite criticises Starmer’s ‘bleak vision of Britain’ as Sunak says warning of ‘painful’ budget lays ground for tax rises – live | Politics
Unite chief says ‘bleak vision of Britain is not what we need now’ after Starmer’s speech
Sharon Graham, the general secretary of the Unite union, has criticised the “bleak vision” Keir Starmer delivered in his first major speech as prime minister, saying it’s “time to see the change that Labour promised”.
Graham, an outspoken critic of some of Labour policies, said:
We don’t need more excuses about fiscal responsibility or talk of wealth creation. We should not pit pensioners against workers, that is not a choice that should be on the table.
We now need Labour to have the courage to make the right choices. To be Labour and fight for change for workers and our communities.
She acknowledged that Britain “is in crisis” but said there is money to rebuild industry, infrastructure and public services if it is found in the right places. “If we taxed 1% on the wealthiest 1%, the so-called black hole would be gone,” she wrote in a tweet thread on X.
Starmer emphasised trying to stimulate growth in the economy (instead of just relying on tax rises or spending cuts), but Graham said Britain “can’t wait for growth” and the country’s industries “can’t wait for investment”.
WE NEED CHANGE NOT CUTS
Austerity mk 2 is not the answer to the UK’s problems
💬 A bleak vision of Britain is not what we need now. It is time to see the change that @UKLabour promised. #Labour
🧵1/6 ⬇️
— Sharon Graham (@UniteSharon) August 27, 2024
Unite is calling on Labour to bring in an emergency 1% wealth tax on the assets of the super-rich to pay for 10% pay rises for public sector workers and fill more than 100,000 NHS vacancies.
The demand from Unite, Britain’s second biggest trade union, is in one of several motions to the Trades Union Congress, which meets in Brighton next month, that will expose tensions between the government and parts of the union movement.
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Updated at 11.26 BST
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More than half a million applications for help have been made as part of a Scottish scheme that aims to help less well-off families with the costs of raising their children, PA Media reports.
Figures published by Social Security Scotland showed since the Best Start grant and Best Start food schemes were set up, a total of £164.4m has been paid out. That comes after a total of 503,630 applications for help were received.
The figures were published ahead of the fifth anniversary of the introduction of two of the four payments included in the Best Start package of grants.
The Best Start grant school age payment provides families on certain benefits with a one-off payment of £314.45 being made to help with the costs of a child starting primary school. Since being established in 2019, it has provided £33.5m to more than 100,000 parents and carers.
Meanwhile, the Best Start foods payment is worth up £42.40 every four weeks to eligible families, with the money going to help them with the costs of buying healthy food. Overall, the scheme has given 86,000 parents and carers across Scotland assistance worth £57.1m.
To mark the fifth anniversary of these payments, social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville urged Scots to check and see if they could be eligible for help.
She said: “Eradicating child poverty is the most important priority for our government and we are committed to making sure every child in Scotland has the best start in life.
“We have built a different social security system, one grounded in dignity, fairness and respect. Part of this is making it as straightforward as possible for people to access the financial support that people are entitled to.”
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PA Media is reporting that Crown Prince of Bahrain Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa has arrived in Downing Street.
Three Range Rovers are stationed outside Number 10 while the bilateral meeting takes place.
The Crown Prince and prime minister Keir Starmer are set to discuss heightened tensions and conflict in the Middle East, and trade and investment.
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The End Fuel Poverty Coalition warns of potential ‘public health emergency’ this winter
As we reported in an earlier post, Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is set to extend the household support fund, which is due to end next month and helps tens of thousands of households at risk of destitution with cash, food parcels, fuel vouchers and clothing.
The End Fuel Poverty Coalition said this is the “least” Labour needs to announce. The campaign group says the Treasury also needs to expand the warm home discounts, restore winter fuel payments and “evolve” standing charges, the daily fees that are applied whether you use any electricity or not.
Continuing the Household Support Fund is the least @Keir_Starmer needs to announce. We also need to see @hmtreasury support:
– Ending energy debt
– Expanding Warm Home Discounts
– Evolving standing charges
– Restoring Winter Fuel Payments to more peoplehttps://t.co/p7V7XGRmef
— End Fuel Poverty Coalition (@EndFuelPoverty) August 27, 2024
Reacting to Starmer’s speech, Simon Francis, coordinator of the End Fuel Poverty Coalition, said:
The winter fuel payment axe is not about rot in the system, it is about basic fairness for older people facing soaring energy bills.
In real terms, the changes this winter mean that some older people will face the highest energy bills on record.
This has the potential to create a public health emergency which will actually create more pressure on the under-pressure NHS which the prime minister says he wants to fix.
The impact of living in cold damp homes is particularly harsh on those older people with a disability, a long term health condition or with poor mental health. It results in people turning to an NHS and, in some cases, can result in additional winter deaths.
Ending energy debt, extending the Household Support Fund, expanding Warm Home Discounts and evolving standing charges are all now needed urgently to help mitigate the impact of high bills and the axe to the Winter Fuel Payment.
But as well as support this winter, the public need to see a clear timetable for when the very real benefits of cheaper renewable energy and the Warm Homes Plan will kick in.
If the prime minister needs to find some ‘broad shoulders’ to pay for this support, let’s not forget that every month we hear about more massive profits for firms in the wider energy industry.
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Updated at 13.02 BST
Sunak: Starmer’s speech is clearest indication of Labour’s plan to raise taxes
Rishi Sunak, the leader of the opposition, has responded to Keir Starmer’s speech this morning from Downing Street’s rose garden.
In a post on X, the former prime minister wrote:
Keir Starmer’s speech today was the clearest indication of what Labour has been planning to do all along – raise your taxes.
Keir Starmer’s speech today was the clearest indication of what Labour has been planning to do all along – raise your taxes.
— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) August 27, 2024
During the general election, Sunak repeatedly said during ITV’s head-to-head debate with Starmer that “independent Treasury officials” had costed Labour’s policies “and they amount to a £2,000 tax rise for everyone”. Starmer said this claim was a lie.
Amid dire polling numbers, the Conservatives said they would rule out changes to council tax bands and cutting discounts, would maintain protections on homes from capital gains tax, and would not increase stamp duty. Labour said it would match all those pledges. Starmer insisted today that he would not raise tax on “working people” (while not clarifying what this actually means), namely national insurance, VAT and income tax.
During his speech this morning, Starmer, who won July’s general election in a landslide, warned “things are worse than we ever imagined” because of a £22 billion “black hole” in the public finances, claiming to have found out last week that the Tories had borrowed almost £5 billion more than the Office for Budget Responsibility expected.
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SNP will lose Scottish election without complete rethink, say senior party figures
Libby Brooks
Libby Brooks is the Guardian’s Scotland correspondent, based in Glasgow
The Scottish National party will lose the next Holyrood election without a fundamental rethink of purpose and policy while carrying out long-delayed internal reforms, senior figures have warned.
However, some have expressed doubt that the party’s leader, John Swinney, is strong enough to direct the scale of change required.
Before the SNP’s annual conference at the end of August, the Guardian spoke to more than 20 influential voices within the party, including current and former Scottish government ministers, senior activists and those ousted in July’s catastrophic general election defeat – in which the SNP was reduced from 46 to nine MPs as Labour swept the board across the country.
John Sweeney stepped into the role as SNP leader barely two weeks before the general election was called. Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA
Many predict the SNP, which has enjoyed stratospheric electoral success over the past decade, faces “a doing” at the Scottish parliament elections in 2026 as Scottish Labour capitalises on the UK party’s Westminster win.
“The way things are now, we run the real risk of not winning in 2026,” said one senior MSP. “We have to change course and John needs to be decisive.”
Stewart McDonald, a former MP for Glasgow South, who had cleared his Westminster desk before 4 July because he was so certain of defeat, said: “What does an SNP that has learned its lesson look and sound like? I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the scale of the challenge we are facing as a party.”
Almost all argued that countering the Labour message of change to voters who were desperate to get the Tories out of Downing Street was “incredibly difficult if not impossible”, as one former MP described it.
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Starmer’s speech shows he is ‘taking the British public for fools’, Kemi Badenoch says
Shadow housing secretary, Kemi Badenoch, who is the current frontrunner to be the next leader of the Tory party, said Starmer’s speech shows he is “taking the British public for fools”.
In one of the first reactions from a senior Conservative MP, Badenoch was quoted by the BBC as saying: “Keir Starmer is taking the British public for fools, but his dishonest analysis won’t wash.”
“He campaigned on promises he couldn’t deliver and now he is being found out,” she adds.
Kemi Badenoch is in the running to be the next leader of the Conservative party. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
Badenoch has long been considered the frontrunner in the Tory leadership contest (as per this recent YouGov poll). She has said the Conservatives “will speak the truth again” and return to its roots if she wins it. The MP for north west Essex has argued for leaving the European convention on human rights, a major dividing line within her party.
Kemi Badenoch is the frontrunner in our new poll of Tory members for the 2024 leadership contest
% saying is their preferred candidate…
Kemi Badenoch: 24%
Tom Tugendhat: 16%
James Cleverly: 14%
Robert Jenrick: 12%
Priti Patel: 11%
Mel Stride: 2%
Don’t know: 19%… pic.twitter.com/ubGRLBUCUh
— YouGov (@YouGov) August 23, 2024
The former business secretary previously ran for the Tory leadership after the resignation of Boris Johnson and came fourth.
Rishi Sunak, the former prime minister and current leader of the opposition, will hand over to his successor on 2 November after an extended Conservative leadership contest.
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The public didn’t vote for Labour to endure ‘more economic pain’, Green party co-leader says
The Green party co-leader, Carla Denyer, has reacted to Starmer’s speech. She said that people didn’t vote for Labour for more “economic pain” and said that the party could improve people’s lives if their economic agenda was bolder. She singled out Labour’s “refusal to tax the super-rich” as an example of a business as usual approach to politics.
Denyer, the newly elected MP for Bristol Central, has said she believes the four Green MPs elected to the Commons can put pressure on Starmer from the left. She wants Labour to be more radical on the climate, the housing crisis and the funding of public services.
In reaction to Starmer’s Downing Street speech, she said:
Enduring more economic pain and hardship isn’t what people voted for. They were told they were voting for change. Not voting for things to get worse before they get better. Labour needs to be honest about the fact that they could choose to make things better for everyone if they were bolder and braver.
What is being framed as tough choices is actually about political choices. People don’t need a constant reminder that the Tories broke Britain. They need a new approach, not misguided fiscal rules that are set to make things worse.
We must generate the funds needed for investment by shifting the burden away from the poorest onto the wealthiest. Labour’s refusal to tax the super-rich shows that business as usual is very much still in business.
Keir Starmer says the violent riots earlier this month exposed a deeply unhealthy society. But the health of a society can’t be improved if it is forced to swallow the same failed medicine. The government can choose to provide the investment our communities are crying out for. This would help create hope and unleash the goodness of people to improve their communities.
The Green Party manifesto proposed to raise up to £151bn a year in new taxes by 2029, including a new tax on the wealthy, which they claimed would raise about £15bn. Some analysts said many people this would affect would have likely left the UK to avoid paying the extra cash. The party also said there would be a tax rise for earners on more than £50,270.
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Updated at 12.03 BST
Main takeaways from Starmer’s Downing Street speech
Here are some of the key takeaways from Keir Starmer’s first major speech as prime minister:
Starmer warned that the government’s forthcoming Budget will be “painful” as he asked the country to “accept short-term pain for long-term good”.
Starmer said those with the “broadest shoulders” will carry the heaviest burden. He stressed that taxes on “working people” – namely national insurance, VAT and income tax – will not be increased in the 30 October budget, but stressed that “things will get worse before they get better”.
Starmer said removing winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners in England and Wales was difficult. There will be more “difficult” decisions to come, he said, pointing to the government inheriting a £22bn black hole in the public finances from the Conservatives.
Starmer claimed to have found out last week that the Tories had borrowed almost £5 billion more than the Office for Budget Responsibility expected.
Starmer said his government inherited a “societal black hole” made worse by recent rioting, which he said exposed the state of a “deeply unhealthy society”.
The prime minister said his government has done more in seven weeks than the Conservative government did in seven years.
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Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, has reacted to the prime minister’s speech. He said “only the out-of-touch Conservative Party will deny the scale of the challenges” facing the government, striking a broadly supportive tone of Starmer.
Davey – whose party won 72 seats in the general election (12.2% of the vote) – said:
From the millions stuck on NHS waiting lists to the millions struggling to make ends meet, the last Conservative government has left a toxic legacy. We need bold and ambitious action from the government to fix this mess.
Liberal Democrats will work tirelessly to put our positive ideas forward and hold the new government to account if they fail to rise to the challenges facing the country. Above all, people want urgent, ambitious action to fix the health and care crisis.
Only by getting people off NHS waiting lists can we get the economy growing strongly again and ensure more funding for our public services in the long-term.
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Unite chief says ‘bleak vision of Britain is not what we need now’ after Starmer’s speech
Sharon Graham, the general secretary of the Unite union, has criticised the “bleak vision” Keir Starmer delivered in his first major speech as prime minister, saying it’s “time to see the change that Labour promised”.
Graham, an outspoken critic of some of Labour policies, said:
We don’t need more excuses about fiscal responsibility or talk of wealth creation. We should not pit pensioners against workers, that is not a choice that should be on the table.
We now need Labour to have the courage to make the right choices. To be Labour and fight for change for workers and our communities.
She acknowledged that Britain “is in crisis” but said there is money to rebuild industry, infrastructure and public services if it is found in the right places. “If we taxed 1% on the wealthiest 1%, the so-called black hole would be gone,” she wrote in a tweet thread on X.
Starmer emphasised trying to stimulate growth in the economy (instead of just relying on tax rises or spending cuts), but Graham said Britain “can’t wait for growth” and the country’s industries “can’t wait for investment”.
WE NEED CHANGE NOT CUTS
Austerity mk 2 is not the answer to the UK’s problems
💬 A bleak vision of Britain is not what we need now. It is time to see the change that @UKLabour promised. #Labour
🧵1/6 ⬇️
— Sharon Graham (@UniteSharon) August 27, 2024
Unite is calling on Labour to bring in an emergency 1% wealth tax on the assets of the super-rich to pay for 10% pay rises for public sector workers and fill more than 100,000 NHS vacancies.
The demand from Unite, Britain’s second biggest trade union, is in one of several motions to the Trades Union Congress, which meets in Brighton next month, that will expose tensions between the government and parts of the union movement.
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Updated at 11.26 BST
Rachel Reeves to extend support fund to help poorest households
Jessica Elgot
Jessica Elgot is the Guardian’s deputy political editor
Rachel Reeves is set to extend the household support fund, which is due to end next month and helps tens of thousands of households at risk of destitution with cash, food parcels, fuel vouchers and clothing.
The chancellor is understood to be looking at a fifth extension of the scheme, which was launched in autumn 2021 to allow councils to distribute small grants for essentials for people in need. The details of the extension have not been finalised.
The fund was extended four times by the previous government, costing about £2bn, and is a key funder of food vouchers to help struggling parents feed children during school holidays.
The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that Reeves was likely to agree an extension beyond 30 September when the fund is due to expire, partly as a way to soften the impact of the end of the winter fuel allowances for all but the poorest pensioners.
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Updated at 12.28 BST
The press conference is over now. Starmer refused to say whether more safe and legal routes to the UK would be created under his leadership.
Asked if safe and legal routes would be extended, he said:
So far as stopping the boats is concerned, we have got to take down the gangs that are running the vile trade in the first place, which is why we’re setting up the Border Security Command.
It’s why, when we had the European political community meeting just two weeks after I was elected and we had 46 European leaders to Blenheim.
I discussed with them in some detail how we would work better together to take down the gangs that are running this bar trade in the first place. I’m absolutely clear in my own mind that that’s how it will be most effectively done.
Starmer added that he would be drawing on his “experience of having taken down terrorism gangs, those that smuggle guns and drugs” in his previous role as chief prosecutor.
The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, recently announced plans to recruit 100 investigators and intelligence officers to target people-smuggling gangs as part of measures to clampdown on illegal migration.
More than half of the passengers travelling to the UK on small boats have come from countries, such as Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq and Iran, so unstable there is no chance they can be returned. Almost all come from states with which the UK has no agreement to return those not granted asylum.
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‘I can’t build a prison by Saturday’, Starmer says as he defends early release scheme
Starmer was asked if he can guarantee early-released prisoners won’t commit crime. From 10 September, thousands of prisoners will start being released 40% of the way through their sentence as part of emergency measures. The prime minister said a framework has been put in place to ensure those who “create the greatest risk” are not released.
Starmer said the previous government pretended that you could have “longer and longer sentences”, while not building more prison spaces to deal with the increase in numbers in the prison estate.
“Here we are without the prison places we need,” Starmer said, adding that opening up prison space will take time.
“I can’t tell you how shocked I was when I discovered the full extent of what they’ve done with our prisons, and it’s going to take time to fix it. I can’t build a prison by Saturday,” he told the media.
“I shouldn’t be sitting in the Cobra room with a list of prison places across the country on a day by day basis, trying to work out how we deal with disorder. But that’s the position I was put in.”
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Updated at 11.04 BST
Starmer said that he will stick to his general election campaign pledge that he will not increase income tax, VAT or national insurance on “working people”. He said that spending cuts and tax rises are not the only levers the Treasury has at its disposal.
The prime minister stressed that his government will focus on growing the economy, and says fixing the transport system and the NHS will both help this. He acknowledged, though, that he will have to take “tough decisions” to plug the black hole left by the Tories but did not specify what these decisions will be.
Starmer was asked specifically if spending cuts are being considered. The prime minister said he won’t “pre-empt the chancellor” in relation to the 30 October budget. There is speculation there could be wealth taxes, pension tax raids and a crack down on non-doms in the budget.
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Updated at 10.54 BST
Starmer is taking questions from journalists. Kiran Stacey, the Guardian’s political correspondent, asked why Starmer cancelled the appointment of his new national security adviser. He asked if the PM can pledge there will be an “open and transparent” process to replace that person.
“Yes, of course, there’ll be an open and transparent process. And no. I’m not going to publicly, discuss, individual appointments,” Starmer replied.
Stacey reported earlier that Starmer had cancelled the appointment of one of Britain’s top generals as the national security adviser.
The prime minister overturned the decision made in April by his predecessor, Rishi Sunak, to appoint Gwyn Jenkins, then the vice-chief of the armed forces, to the most senior security position in the government, officials said.
Although Jenkins will be allowed to apply again for the job, some in Whitehall believe Starmer’s decision is another sign of his determination to promote allies to the most important roles in the civil service.
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Starmer says the autumn budget will be ‘painful’
Starmer said “things are worse than we ever imagined” after discovering a £22bn “black hole” in the public finances. The prime minister is using this argument to warn that the budget – on 30 October – will be “painful”.
The prime minister said:
There is a budget coming in October, and it’s going to be painful. We have no other choice, given the situation that we’re in.
Those with the broadest shoulders should bear the heavier burden, and that’s why we’re cracking down on non-doms.
Those who made the mess should have to do their bit to clean it up, that’s why we’re strengthening the powers of the water regulator and backing tough fines on the water companies that let sewage flood our rivers, lakes and seas.
But just as when I responded to the riots, I’ll have to turn to the country and make big asks of you as well, to accept short-term pain for long-term good, the difficult trade off for the genuine solution.
And I know that after all that you have been through, that is a really big ask and really difficult to hear. That is not the position we should be in. It’s not the position I want to be in, but we have to end the politics of the easy answer, that solves nothing.
He said “things are worse than we ever imagined”, telling the press conference:
In the first few weeks we discovered a £22bn black hole in the public finances and before anyone says ‘Oh this is just performative or playing politics’ let’s remember the OBR (Office for Budget Responsibility) did not know about it, they wrote a letter setting that out.
They didn’t know because the last government hid it and even last Wednesday, just last Wednesday, we found out that thanks to the last government’s recklessness we borrowed almost £5bn more than the OBR expected in the last three months alone. That’s not performative, that’s fact.
Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, is planning to raise taxes, cut spending and make changes to benefits in October’s budget. Reeves will receive the OBR’s initial assessment of the state of the economy early next month, but she believes there is nothing to suggest the government’s underlying financial position is getting any better. Starmer says it “won’t be business as usual” when parliament returns on Monday.
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Updated at 11.00 BST
Starmer has set out some of his legislative priorities to reverse “14 years of rot”. This includes accelerating planing to build homes, harnessing the potential of artificial intelligence for growth, putting the rail service into public ownership and producing clean energy.
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Labour has done more in seven weeks than Tory government did in seven years, Starmer says
Starmer says that his new Labour government have “done more in seven weeks than the last government did in seven years”.
“These are just the first steps towards the change that people voted for, the change that I’m determined to deliver,” the prime minister said.
He adds that change will not happen “overnight” and issues need to be tackled at the “root”.
“A garden and a building that were once used for lockdown parties,” Starmer later said during his speech in the rose garden, adding his government is “now back in your service”.
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Updated at 10.30 BST
Things will get worse before they get better, Starmer says
Keir Starmer has said that “things will get worse before they get better”. He said that he didn’t want to release some prisoners early (to avoid overcrowding), especially given his history as the CPS’ chief prosecutor, but that it was necessary.
“It goes against the grain of everything I’ve ever done,” the prime minister said in his speech.
“But to be blunt, if we hadn’t taken that difficult decision immediately, we wouldn’t have been able to respond to the riots as we did, and if we don’t take tough action across the board, we won’t be able to fix the foundations of the country as we need.”
“I didn’t want to means test the winter fuel payment but it was a choice that we had to make,” Starmer continued.
The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, revealed plans last month to introduce a means test for the winter fuel payment, where only those on pensions benefits would qualify, as part of a push to plug what she said was a £22bn black hole in the public finances left by the previous Conservative administration.
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Updated at 10.27 BST
Read the full story on www.theguardian.com
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2024/aug/27/keir-starmer-speech-labour-government-plans-parliament-return-uk-politics-latest-updates