Starmer admits he was ‘frustrated’ with his first leaders’ debate performance in LBC general election phone-in – live | Politics
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- June 18, 2024
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Starmer says he was ‘frustrated’ after first leaders’ debate because he thought he could have done better
Q: Will your children move into No 10 with you?
Starmer says he is not getting ahead of himself.
Ferrari says he has met Starmer’s wife, Victoria. He says he prefers her company to Starmer’s; he would rather be sitting next to her at a charity do. Why don’t we see more of her.
Starmer says his wife has been working. And their son has been doing his GCSEs, and she has been supporting him.
He says she is supportive to him too. He goes on:
After the first debate I was slightly frustrated because I didn’t think the 45 seconds to answer a question really worked for me. I know why the programme set it up in that way.
So I was pretty sort of – ‘argh!’ – frustrated. I am not good company when I am in that place. But Vic cheered me up on that one.
Starmer says he thinks the second “debate” (the Sky News leaders special) went better for him.
Key events
Labour announces plan for 350 banking hubs in towns and villages in Britain
Labour is today promoting its plans to set up 350 banking hubs in towns and villages in Britain. In a news release describing the plan, it said:
Banking hubs are bricks and mortar, face-to-face banking services that provide access to cash withdrawals, cash deposits and banking advice and support.
Funded by the major banks, they are run by Cash Access UK and the Post Office. They allow customers from more than a dozen different banks and building societies to access face-to-face banking services on the high street.
Labour announces today that it will give new powers to the regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), and strengthen regulation to support LINK, the UK’s largest cash machine network, to proactively source locations for new banking hubs.
Speaking about the plan on ITV’s Good Morning Britain this morning, Jonathan Reynolds, the shadow business secretary, said:
What we are doing here is making sure we’re not in a situation that we do have, I’m afraid, in lots of towns where there is simply no high street access to cash. If you’re a smaller business that is still important, being able to deposit cash takings that you have got.
I think it’s a fair offer to the banks. I think it’s part of our wider plan to grow the economy in every part of the country to show we can do things differently to the last 14 years.
The Conservative party has sent out this response to the Keir Starmer LBC phone-in, from Laura Trott, the chief secretary to the Treasury. She claimed:
After repeated questioning, Keir Starmer has confirmed higher council tax and other tax rises are on the cards for pensioners and families if Labour win.
It’s worrying that Keir Starmer won’t come clean about how much money a Labour government will raid from families – especially as Labour will be unaccountable after it locks itself into government for a generation by rigging the system through bringing in votes at 16.
The Conservative party is now routinely claiming that, if Labour does not explicity rule out a tax rise, that amounts to confirmation it will happen. These assertions are not true.
Tories expected to target voters with letters signed by Boris Johnson
The Conservatives will turn to Boris Johnson in an attempt to boost their faltering election campaign, according to reports. Ben Quinn has the story.
Philip Cowley, a politics professor, says that if the Tories think Labour will entrench itself in power (see 8.53am) by giving the vote to 16 and 17-year-olds (who are normally more leftwing than older voters), they are wrong.
There are few people less keen on votes at 16 than me.
While it may be true that one of the attractions of it for non-Conservative politicians is that they think they will gain votes, the electoral impact will be extremely marginal.
The numbers involved are just tiny. https://t.co/N6kqBWSPi8
— Philip Cowley (@philipjcowley) June 18, 2024
There are few people less keen on votes at 16 than me.
While it may be true that one of the attractions of it for non-Conservative politicians is that they think they will gain votes, the electoral impact will be extremely marginal.
The numbers involved are just tiny
It’s a tiny cohort, many of whom won’t vote.
I’d add that while *right now*, those extra votes may well be pro-Labour, I am less sure they will be quite so keen on Labour after one (let alone two) terms in office.
If, by 2028,say, Labour finds itself on the wrong end of lots of disillusioned 16 and 17 year olds, you would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.
I’d add that a Facebook group of A level politics teachers I am a member of recently had a discussion about how well Reform were doing in their mock elections…
Starmer’s LBC phone-in – snap verdict
Nick Ferrari was responsible for perhaps the most damaging interview Keir Starmer has ever given as Labour leader, the one soon after the Israel-Hamas war started where Starmer seemed to say Israel was entitled to cut water and power supplies to Gaza. (Starmer says that is not what he meant to say, and that his message was not clear because he and Ferrari were talking over each other at one point.) Phone-ins can be perilous during an election campaign, but there was nothing Ferrari, or any of his callers, said this time that sunk the Labour leader. Overall, Starmer came out pretty well.
On two issues, he was particulary evasive. Starmer is determined not to admit pubicly that anything he said about Jeremy Corbyn when he served in his shadow cabinet was a lie, and he wriggled repeatedly when asked if he would have served in a Corbyn cabinet. (See 9.34am.) It was not very dignified, and it served as a reminder of how other politicians can bat away questions like this more easily. Last week, faced with a similar hypothetical question, David Cameron brushed it off quoting Gino D’Acampo. “If my mother had wheels she’d be a bicycle, I don’t answer questions beginning with the word if,” he said. Starmer might have been better using a line like this. But does the Corbyn issue really matter that much? Voters know that when MPs praise their leaders during election campaigns, they are not always being 100% sincere, and no one following politics at the time ever believed that Starmer was a arch-Corbynista.
Second, Starmer refused to rule out council tax going up, in such a way as to suggest that he was not being candid. (See 9.23am.) This was odd, partly because council tax goes up in cash terms every year anyway for most people, but mainly because Labour seemed to deliberately shift its position on this yesterday, when Jonathan Ashworth said “we are not going to do council tax rebanding”. Was Starmer just not sure what the new line was? It is not clear.
The Telegraph website is currently leading on “Starmer suggests he would have served in Corbyn government”, but neither of his evasions felt like big campaign stories and what was perhaps most striking was just how confident he sounded. He admitted for the first time that he performance in the first debate had not been great (see 10.02am), he was quite withering about the Tories’ latest scaremongering (see 9.55am) and he seemed to be making a negotiating pitch to the BMA junior doctors’ committee, urging them to call off strike action pending talks with a Labour government next month (see 9.19am). In other words, he sounded like he knows he will be the next prime minister. All the evidence suggests he’s right.
Starmer rules out Labour imposing levy on Premier League transfers, after shadow minister floats idea
Just before the LBC phone-in ended, Keir Starmer was asked about comments from Thangam Debbonaire, the shadow culture minister, who said yesterday Labour was considering reviving plans for a levy on Premier League football transfers, to raise funds for less wealth clubs. Aletha Adu has the story here.
Asked if that meant Labour would impose a 10% transfer levy, which would affect clubs like Arsenal (which Starmer supports), Starmer replied:
No, no, let me just kill that one. We’re not looking at that.
He said Debbonaire was right to say Labour would look at the proposals from the Tracey Crouch review of football governance, but this idea would not be considered. “That isn’t part of it,” he said.
Q: Is there anything you admire about Rishi Sunak?
Yes, Starmer says. He says he appreciated the way Sunak called him on the day he became PM so that they could discuss the need for cooperation on matters of national interest, like security. Sunak did not need to make the time for a call that day, he says.
And that’s it. The Q&A is over.
Starmer says he was ‘frustrated’ after first leaders’ debate because he thought he could have done better
Q: Will your children move into No 10 with you?
Starmer says he is not getting ahead of himself.
Ferrari says he has met Starmer’s wife, Victoria. He says he prefers her company to Starmer’s; he would rather be sitting next to her at a charity do. Why don’t we see more of her.
Starmer says his wife has been working. And their son has been doing his GCSEs, and she has been supporting him.
He says she is supportive to him too. He goes on:
After the first debate I was slightly frustrated because I didn’t think the 45 seconds to answer a question really worked for me. I know why the programme set it up in that way.
So I was pretty sort of – ‘argh!’ – frustrated. I am not good company when I am in that place. But Vic cheered me up on that one.
Starmer says he thinks the second “debate” (the Sky News leaders special) went better for him.
Q: Do you have a car?
Starmer says a car was one of the first things he bought. He still has one.
Q: How much is a litre of unleaded?
About £1.50, £1.47, Starmer says. He says he fills it up. And he knows how to pay for it, he says, in a reference to Rishi Sunak’s petrol station gaffe.
Starmer mocks Tories for repeatedly changing their election strategy
Q: The Tories say they will deploy Boris Johnson as a secret weapon.
Starmer replies:
Is this the third or fourth relaunch of this strategy in six weeks? They started saying vote Tory because we’re going to win. Then they said vote Tory because Labour is going to win now … Honestly, if you can’t even have a strategy that holds for six weeks, you really don’t deserve to win.
Q: HSBC is saying that your plans could lead to higher mortgage and higher unemployment.
Starmer says he does not agree.
Starmer confirms he is in favour of a judge-led inquiry into the failings that led to the Nottingham knife attacks.
Starmer refuses to say if Israel is or isn’t committing genocide in Gaza, saying as lawyer he knows it’s highly complex matter
Q: Israel has been put on a blacklist of countries that harm children. Would you stop arms sales to Israel?
Starmer says he would have to look at the legal advice. There would be a review.
Q: Why do you need legal advice?
Starmer says some arms are sold for purely defensive purposes.
Ferrari expresses scepticism about a review. Starmer says this process is taken very seriously in government.
Q: Do you agree what is happening in Gaza is genocide?
Starmer says he won’t sit in a studio and declare whether something is genocide or not?
Q: Why not?
Starmer says, after the fall of Yugoslavia, he represented Croatia in court for three months arguing about whether genocide was taking place. The court had to take a decision.
He was arguing about the meaning of genocide. He is very aware that you need the evidence in front of you to make a decision.
Starmer says he wants the UK to play a part in ensuring two-state solution for Israel and Palestine.
Q: Who would give up land?
Starmer says he is not going to negotiate that on air now.
Israel needs to be safe and secure. And it is not at the moment, he says.
But if Labour wins the election, resolving this will be part of the government’s duty.
Q: Why do you think you have lost the trust of Muslim voters on this?
Because feelings run very, very deep, Starmer says.
But he says he thinks the “vast majority” of people are now in the same place on this.
Q: What would you say to Benjamin Netanyahu if he calls you if you win the election?
What I have just said, Starmer says. But he stresses he is not getting ahead of himself.
Starmer says ‘common sense is big part of my politics’, as he defends U-turn on energy nationalisation pledge
Ferrari goes back to the Corbyn answer. He says issues like this have led to Starmer being described as Captain Flip-Flop.
Q: Was the nationalisation pledge you made in 2020 made in bad faith?
No, says Starmer.
Q: So, if there had been no war in Ukraine, you would still be committed to nationalising energy companies?
Starmer says, when bills went up, he asked his team to explain how much it would cost to reduce bill, and how much it would cost to nationalise energy companies.
Nationalising energy companies would not have cut bills, he says.
He says:
Common sense is a big part of my politics. I wasn’t going to say, because three years earlier I said something about nationalisation, I’m afraid we’re going to pay off the shareholders, not reduce bills on people who can’t afford their bills.
Starmer repeatedly refuses to say whether he would have served in Corbyn cabinet if Labour had won in 2017 or 2019
Q: If Labour had won the election in 2017 or 2019, would you have been happy to serve in a Jeremy Corbyn cabinet?
Starmer says he did not think Labour would win.
Q: But would you have served if they had won.
Starmer says that is a hypothetical question.
Ferrari tries again. Again, Starmer says that is hypothetical.
Ferrari asks again, and Starmer again refuses to answer.
Ferrari says Starmer described the Tory manifesto as Corbyn-like. But you were in the meeting that approved it.
Starmer says he was just responsible for the Brexit section. “It was Jeremy Corbyn’s manifesto”.
He says, after the 2019 defeat, Labour commissioned a review. Voters said they did not find the manifesto credible, even though they liked some of the policies in it.
Q: Why won’t you commit to getting rid of the two-child benefit cap?
Starmer says he is only promising policies that he can afford. He claims he does not have the money to fund this.
Q: Why are you behind Nigel Farage on this? He would get rid of it.
Starmer says Farage has accepted his manifesto is not fully funded.
He says this issue is “a tough one”. He accepts people like Gordon Brown feel strongly about this.
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