Keir Starmer swerves migration & benefits targets & dilutes election vows during speech at Mission: Impossible studios
SIR Keir Starmer’s big reset was more of a mission impossible yesterday as he swerved migration and benefits targets and diluted election promises.
His Plan for Change speech — at the studios where Tom Cruise filmed the blockbuster spy thrillers — was ridiculed by Labour critics.
The Prime Minister claimed his new 43-page policy brochure would “land on desks across Whitehall with the heavy thud of a gauntlet being thrown down”.
But even some members of the Cabinet were left baffled by six new milestones unveiled as part of a reset to Sir Keir’s rocky first five months in power.
They came on top of five previous missions the PM set for his government — that he said were built on three foundations, stemming from two priorities to grow the economy and secure borders.
But nowhere in his heavily hyped speech at Pinewood Studios in Iver Heath, Bucks, were any targets for getting down legal migration, stopping the Channel migrant boats or helping the 11million people out of work to find jobs.
Instead, Sir Keir urged voters to judge him on six milestones;
- INCREASING real term disposable income by the next election, which is already forecast to happen;
- CUTTING NHS waiting lists so that 92 per cent of patients get planned treatment within 18 months;
- VOWING a named police officer for every neighbourhood with the recruitment of 13,000 new officers;
- ENSURING three quarters of children start school ready to learn, up from the current two thirds;
- POWERING the UK with 95 per cent low-carbon energy by 2030;
- BUILDING 1.5million homes by the end of this Parliament and fast-tracking planning decisions on 150 infrastructure projects.
While promising sweeping NHS reforms, the new targets only focus on reducing waiting lists.
Meanwhile a promise to secure the fastest growth in the G7 was downgraded to an aim and a key Net Zero goal to have a zero carbon electricity system by 2030 was also scaled back.
While experts said the new target was more realistic, ministers insisted their new goal of 95 per cent clean energy by the end of the decade was not a climbdown.
Yet in March Labour said: “By 2030, the UK will be the first major country in the world to run on 100 per cent clean and cheap power, with lower bills for all.”
Adding to the confusion, the PM denied watering down policy, insisting “the clean energy pledge is today exactly what it was in the election; that has always been central to our mission”.
None of the new milestones centred on soaring migration.
Repeatedly pressed on why small boats or legal migration did not feature, the PM refused to put a target on securing the borders but said: “We are going to drive down migration, both legal and illegal.”
Asked by The Sun he insisted his targets were a big risk as they were hard tasks and denied he was targeting only “low-hanging fruit”.
The PM also vowed to rip up Whitehall red tape that has clobbered development projects and held back economic growth.
The speech marked Sir Keir’s third attempt to define his government’s agenda after just 153 days in office.
‘NO PLAN’
And it came as Labour slumped to third behind the Tories and Reform in one opinion poll.
While in opposition, Sir Keir laid out five missions but ahead of the election these were replaced with six first steps for change, focusing on economic stability and cracking down on antisocial behaviour.
The PM said the new milestones are designed to show progress and give clearer direction.
But Tory leader Kemi Badenoch accused him of having no plan to control migration numbers.
She insisted: “This relaunch can’t hide the reality of a government that doesn’t know what it is doing.”
TAKE 2 TWADDLE
By Harry Cole, Political Editor
LIGHTS, camera… Inaction! Taking to the stage at Pinewood Studios – the home of Bond, Star Wars and Mission: Impossible – Sir Keir Starmer all but admitted he needed to up his act.
No10 spinners were clever enough to avoid the “surely shome mistakes” headlines by swerving the Sean Connery Studio, but no PM wants to be having to explain the point of their government just 20 weeks in office.
But sadly yesterday was a minestrone of milestones, missions, tepid baths, gauntlets, pillars, goals, foundations and first steps.
Big issues were shelved, and parts of the speech sounded suspiciously like they had been written by AI or a graduate management consultant who had swallowed a thesaurus.
Yet buried deep was an important concession.
Sir Keir, always so quick to carp from the opposition side-lines as Captain Hindsight, admitted the Whitehall system itself must share some of the blame for the state Britain is in.
Better late than never, PM… but its going to take more than this word soup to turn things around.