What has Sir Tony Blair said?
Former Labour PM Sir Tony Blair has accused Sir Keir Starmer's government of
having no plan and risking losing the next election without change.
So, what did Blair say?
- Labour lacks a "coherent plan" and is in "the wrong political position from which we can devise one and win a second term"
- The party should enact policies including removing obstacles to business growth, cheaper energy and electrification, welfare reform, action on immigration, a reindustrialisation strategy, and a drive on skills and training in the age of Al
- Labour is governing in its "soft left ... comfort zone", and in the last budget increased "tax to pay for additional welfare spending, when the public already thinks welfare bills are too high"
- Changes such as new workers' rights laws, phasing out oil and gas, and raising the minimum wage faster than inflation have given "headwinds not tailwinds to British business"
- Labour lacks a defining purpose, saying that governments that succeed don't start with a "political question - how do we 'save the country' from Reform UK? They start with an idea, a project, a governing purpose, an analysis of what is wrong and a plan to put it right"
- Neither do they succeed when they start with a "personality contest", and that "trying to force the prime minister out before we know what policy direction we're bringing in, is not a serious way of conducting ourselves"
- Europe needs to "wake up" to the "home truths" it is being told by America, and "needs to build economic competitivity and military capability"
- Rejoining the EU is not the answer to the UK's problems
- Labour needs a "reimagined state in which taxes and spending can be lower, productivity higher and government seen as enabling not directing"
