Presenter Amol Rajan received probably the worst excuse for Keir Starmer’s record of broken promises from Shadow Minister Pat McFadden, in an interview over Labour’s six pledges on BBC Radio 4.
With a general election occurring by January 2025, Starmer has attempted to breath life into a limited set of policies, expanding on them as ‘six steps for Britain’.
Labour: trying to swindle electoral support
Starmer has already gone back on all the transformative policies he pledged to become Labour leader. So on Radio 4, Rajan asked how the public can trust him:
What about the broader principle about Sir Keir himself. He reneged on several of the pledges that he made… on his way to becoming Labour leader. There now gone. So how can we trust that he won’t renege on these?
McFadden had an excuse that doesn’t add up:
This is a changed Labour Party. And we don’t make an apology for it being a changed Labour Party. The Labour Party is going to go into this election saying different things… to what the party said five years ago
So Rajan rubbished McFadden’s position:
You say it’s a changed Labour Party. I’m talking about the pledges that he made when he was pushing… to become the leader of the Labour Party himself. This wasn’t changed because we’re talking about Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party versus Keir Starmer’s. I’m talking about Keir Starmer.
The presenter continued:
It is remarkable how many of those initial pledges are gone. He had a pledge for higher income tax for top 5% of earners – that’s gone. Abolishing tuition fees – that’s gone. A Green New Deal at the heart of everything we do, that flagship £28bn policy – that’s gone. Supporting common ownership of rail, mail, energy and water… that’s gone.
Defending free movement as we leave the EU- that’s gone. And in fact, the website that detailed those leadership pledges… that’s gone too.
Labour shadow minister Pat McFadden is asked how voters can trust Keir Starmer not to dump his new pledges when he's dumped so many pledges previously #R4Today pic.twitter.com/GLRtqBgpZA
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) May 16, 2024
Starmer’s ‘Great British Energy’
In response, McFadden then claimed that Starmer hadn’t actually broken his pledge on renewable energy because of his policy of a “publicly owned energy company” – Great British Energy.
But it doesn’t look like Great British Energy will provide publicly owned, clean energy across the board.
Labour’s new document on its ‘six steps’ states that Great British Energy will “shape” markets to bring in “private investment”:
It is government’s job not just to regulate markets but to shape them and to de-risk them so that we crowd in the private investment that allows new industries to take off. This new approach means we would undertake the biggest ever partnership between government and the private sector to create the clean energy jobs of the future and cut energy bills for good.
Indeed, Starmer has said:
With public investment through Great British Energy we can unlock billions more in private investment
But, as Common Wealth points out, private provision of energy means more expensive bills for the public.
That’s because under privatisation we have to pay shareholders huge profits, instead of simply owning our energy ourselves. If we own it, people and businesses can use energy at cost-price.
The lack of public investment in Great British Energy is also clear from its funding.
Labour has said it will provide a starter injection of £8.3bn for the company, which isn’t much compared to its previous pledge of £28bn per year.
The scam that is private energy provision is quite something especially when it comes to the National Grid, which is responsible for gas and electricity transmission.
Consumers have no choice but to use this private monopoly where shareholders pocketed £1.6bn in dividends in 2023.
Meanwhile, the world’s five largest oil companies paid dividends of £79bn in 2023. That’s eye-watering profit for destroying the planet.
Yet we don’t hear much from Starmer about these scams. Instead, he’s pushing piecemeal policies rather than the real change Britain and the world needs.
And the idea we can even trust him to deliver on his ‘six pledges’ was taken apart on Radio 4.
Featured image via Sky News – YouTube and Evening Standard – YouTube
