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KEIR STARMER WILL launch his Labour leadership bid in Brexit-backing Stevenage as he calls on the party to listen to voters to win back trust.
The shadow Brexit secretary will tomorrow visit the Hertfordshire town which voted 59% for Leave as he makes his pitch to succeed Jeremy Corbyn.
He became the fifth MP to enter the race to lead Labour, following its worst general election defeat since 1935.
Prominent backbenchers Jess Phillips and Lisa Nandy declared yesterday, while shadow foreign secretary Emily Thornberry and shadow Treasury minister Clive Lewis are also running.
In an article for the Sunday Mirror, Starmer said “we cannot bury our heads in the sand” as they work “to restore trust in our party”.
He also reiterated a call to “not lose sight of our values or retreat from the radicalism of the past few years” in words that may be welcomed by the Labour left.
“We must push for a Green New Deal to tackle the climate crisis, demand dignity at the heart of our social security system and make the case for a radically transformed economy that empowers trade unions and communities that have been left behind,” Starmer.
The article did not mention Brexit, a subject on which Starmer has been criticised within the party because of his prominent backing of another referendum.
A campaign video highlights his union and justice fights and features words of support from Stephen Lawrence’s mother Baroness Lawrence, who says he was “instrumental” in getting justice for her murdered son.
Starmer’s work with the National Union of Mineworkers and on the McLibel case against McDonald’s is also highlighted.
The human rights lawyer, who was made Queen’s Counsel in 2002, served as head of the CPS and accepted a knighthood in 2014, and has struggled to shake-off perceptions of privilege.
But he was named after Labour legend Keir Hardie and he has stressed his upbringing by his toolmaker father and nurse mother in London’s Southwark when dismissing allegations he is too middle-class to speak to the party’s historic heartlands.
His CV includes co-founding the renowned Doughty Street Chambers and advising the Policing Board to ensure the Police Service of Northern Ireland complied with human rights laws.
He entered Parliament as the MP for Holborn and St Pancras in 2015.
Critics have also raised concerns that Starmer is seen too much as a Londoner, but a recent survey made him the clear front-runner in the leadership race regardless.
He would beat the current leadership’s favoured candidate Rebecca Long-Bailey 61% to 39% in a run-off, according to a YouGov survey of 1,059 Labour members conducted at the end of December.
But the outsiders will yet be hoping to boost their profiles, with the race not expected to formally get under way until Tuesday and the new leader installed by the end of March.
Wigan MP Ms Nandy began her campaign in her constituency on Saturday with a call for change from Corbyn’s approach.
“We need a different sort of leadership that helps to root us back in every community across the UK, turns us back into a real movement and real force, driven from the ground up so that we can win people’s trust back,” she said.
Birmingham Yardley MP Phillips visited the Bury North constituency that fell from Labour to the Tories on 12 December to meet former supporters of the party.
Meanwhile, senior Labour MP David Lammy ruled himself out of the leadership contest, suggesting his anti-Brexit stance rendered him unsuitable to unite the party’s “vociferous factions”.
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It’s a joke of an industry,
Many of the people I know who worked in it have left because creches want them to have degrees but they’ll pay them barely over min wage with next to no chance of any increases.
The money is made by the creche owners and certainly not the staff, the staff work crazy long hours with feck all pay.
The industry badly needs to be taken under the department of education
@Barry Somers: A lot of industries in Ireland operate that way. I know people working in manufacturing jobs taking home 329 euro for a 40 hour week. No pension, no benefits and no hope.
@Barry Somers: with it being 1800/1900 for two kids in Dublin then you know it’s not going to the workers
@David Corrigan: do they also have degrees to work in that industry though?
Even call centres pay more then child care and you don’t need a degree to get the call centre job.
@Barry Somers: No they would not have degrees to be honest with you Barry. 40 hour week working in an engineering environment.
Yet we are up there with the highest child care costs in Europe.
@Derek Durkin: on account of the insurance costs. The creches have to pay the ever increasing insurance premiums and then the government comes up with another new standard they have to adhere to which costs more again. While the fees are high, the creches aren’t exactly sitting on mounds of money.
@Derek Durkin: Yep, it’s only about 120 euro per child per month in Sweden. But we prefer to cut income taxes which makes services private at high cost to the individual, marvellous capitalism that destroys the family unit and only benefits the rich. https://sweden.se/society/10-things-that-make-sweden-family-friendly/
@Niall O’Neill: hey, the powers that be in this country have been trying to destroy the family unit for hundreds of years.
Remember our leader is of the opinion that you can get your rich parents to pay for it, or if you don’t have them you can leave.
Why does it come as a surprise to childcare workers that it is poorly paid? I have no kids and know nothing about kids, but I know it is and always has been a poorly paid job.
@John Horan: But it shouldn’t be so low that those working full time cannot make ends meet. If you work full time you should be able to afford to live, no matter what your job is.
@Chris Judge: I agree 100%.
@Chris Judge: Whether it should be or not isn’t really the issue. On a personal level why would you go into an industry knowing it is badly paid. As for no matter what job it should be a wage that you can live on is a new concept. Many jobs were only ever supplementary incomes worked part time. To change that whole nature will take a long time
@Craic_a_tower: Who cares what the reasons are – someone has to do it, so why question those who do?
It’s looking after kids, which is a very hard job and I respect them for it. They should be paid a decent salary.
I’d assume the main issue is the insurance costs for running a nursery/creche drive prices up, so very little of the money they make goes to the workers.
@Chris Judge: it seems fair to question people who complain about poor wages in a sector where everyone else knows it is poorly paid. There are people doing it on those wages.
Do you worry about landlords getting a decent return? Did you run to their defence when renting at a loss?
@Chris Judge: then don’t sign up for the job. The market will soon adjust when there is nobody willing to do the job
@Craic_a_tower: I assume people go into childcare because they see it as a rewarding job that they like and think they would be good at. Isn’t this what everyone should be doing? Pay is a seperate issue.
The answer is to go on strike and then see what happen they could bring the country to a standstill
Where is the money going? The creche fees in this country are outrageous.
A sure fire way of not retaining and attracting quality staff,
@David Walsh: and you have to jump through hoops to get the job to be paid peanuts..qualifications, Garda vetting, first aid training etc forget it, sure it not even a living wage and a lot of them end up going on the dole during summer if creches/montessoris and they become seasonally unemployed. It’s a mug’s game.
As a preschool teacher I can say how undervalued the industry is in this country which is why I’m currently emigrating to Australia where it is valued and recognised in wages! I do it for the love of the job but it’s getting ridiculous here. I’m at the top of the scale in this country (plus the pay cut we had to take in the recession due to cut in funding) and it’s a joke!
@Siobh: “I do it for the love of the job”
“So I’m going to Australia because they pay more”
Helicopter parents don’t help litigating when their kid falls over or bumps into something. Insurance companies will use that as justification to increase the premiums.
Childcare is a good career in the uk
Bring in a sectoral employment order
Time for the Department of Education to wake up !! This is Early Years Education…not a babysitting service. Some of my friends are teachers, I have more qualifications and training than they do. As pointed out above we also, cook, clean, advise etc…
It’s the same in a lot of jobs in Ireland, workers are struggling to make ends meet. I work in a multinational and several people in my area head to a second job after work. This is what FF/FG have done to our country. Cost of living WAY too high – people are no longer ‘living’, they’re merely existing.
have your say