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Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer delivers a speech during a reception in 10 Downing Street, London, to mark 40 years of London Fashion Week, September 16, 2024
Waiting for the grander vision to emerge
UNITE’S determination to put Labour on the spot at Labour conference over winter fuel cuts and adherence to Tory “fiscal rules” is appropriately confrontational.
Unions will engage in talks this weekend with Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds in a bid to avoid a public row over apparent backsliding on the New Deal for Workers employment rights package.
Powerful currents in the trade union movement pull against direct criticism of what remains a very new Labour government after 14 years of fierce hostility from Conservative administrations, especially given genuine positive changes on rail renationalisation, workers’ rights and, this year at least, public-sector pay.
The 2025 Budget shores up the PM’s political position with headline-grabbing welfare U-turns, but with no improvements on offer to declining public services or living standards, writes MICHAEL BURKE
We cannot refuse to abolish the unjustifiable two-child benefit cap that pushes children into poverty while finding billions of pounds for defence spending — the membership and the public expect better from Labour, writes JON TRICKETT MP