Tony Blair is wrong about my government, Starmer says, as he hits back over Labour criticism
Sir Keir Starmer has hit back at Sir Tony Blair after the former prime minister launched a scathing attack on his government.
The Prime Minister said he “disagreed with a lot” of what Sir Tony said about his policies in his 5,700-word essay on the future of Labor and the country, and insisted he was in fact “justified by them”.
In a major intervention on Tuesday evening, Sir Tony called on the party to return to its “radical centre” and warned that the country was in “mess” because the party had failed to put politics first and policy last.
In a damning indictment of a nearly two-year-old Starmer government, he added: “We have no worked out, coherent plan for the country in a rapidly changing world, and we are in the wrong political position to draw up a plan and win a second term.”
But Sir Keir rejected their criticism, saying he had inherited a “very different situation from 2024 to 1997”.
“I agree with him that we need to have discussions about policy and ideas and that’s what creates politics, that should be the focus, so Tony is right about that,” Sir Keir said during a visit to Acton Works train depot in west London on Thursday.
“It will not surprise you to know that I disagree with much of what Tony has said about the government’s actions.
“We can all argue about individual policies, but the real question is: What is the change? What is the difference in a very poor country that we inherited two years ago?”
Sir Keir pointed to his policies on economic growth and investment in public services, as well as falling NHS waiting lists and immigration levels, as examples of his government’s achievements.
He said: “My answer to Tony is: yes, it’s right to talk about politics, it’s right to talk about ideas, that’s where the debate should be.
“But actually no, I don’t agree that the policy choices of this government are not the right policy choices, given what we have inherited, which is a very different situation from 2024 to 1997.
“And while we were dealing with policy choices that we had to reverse, they vindicated us because these changes happened.”
In his 5,700-word essay, Sir Tony criticized Labour’s flagship workers’ rights bill and raising the minimum wage above inflation, while calling on the party to abandon net zero targets, cut benefits and rethink the triple lock on pensions.
But he warned that trying to remove the prime minister without clear policy direction was “not a serious course of action”.
This is likely to be triggered if Andy Burnham wins the Makerfield by-election and returns to parliament, with Sir Keir facing a looming leadership challenge.
Sir Tony’s article faced criticism from Labor Party circles, including Sir Keir’s potential leadership rivals Mr Burnham and Wes Streeting.
The mayor of Greater Manchester criticized the article for not mentioning inequality, saying: Observer“If you don’t understand how this drives politics, if you don’t base your analysis on the fact that people can’t live and things that were taken for granted are no longer affordable, then you don’t understand what’s going on.”
Mr Streeting had a similar view; The former Labor minister argued that the “striking weakness at the core” of the intervention was that inequality was not mentioned.
