Starmer to deliver Labour conference speech with left alarmed by plan for crackdown on benefit fraud – UK politics live

The Daily Telegraph is running an article this morning by Prof Sir John Curtice, the BBC’s lead elections expert and one of the most respected psephologists in the country. The headline says: “The writing is already on the wall for Labour’s floundering government.” In an interview on the Today programme this morning, Curtice distanced himself from that headline, saying “floundering” wasn’t what he wrote. But his assessment in the article is still quite negative.

Curtice said that Labour won the election, not because voters were enthusiastic about the party, but because they were determined to get rid of the Tories. Reform UK, not Labour, gained most from this, he said. He went on:

Nearly one in four 2019 Conservative voters switched to Reform compared with just one in eight who backed Labour.

As a result, Labour won just 35 per cent of the vote – in an election where only three in five voted. Never before has a party won an overall majority with so low a share of the vote. Consequently, the pool of voters willing to give it the benefit of the doubt is unusually small.

Curtice also said that, although Starmer’s popularity rose at the time of the election, that boost has “rapidly disappeared”. He went on:

The trouble is, Sir Keir entered 10 Downing St having conspicuously failed – in contrast to Tony Blair or David Cameron – over the previous four years to impress himself favourably on voters. It was never going to take much of a slip for Sir Keir’s post-election halo of success to disappear.

One key weakness underlay his lack of popularity before entering office – an apparent inability to articulate a clear vision of the kind of country he wants to create. Labour’s slogan in July was “Change” – and at this week’s conference it is “Change Begins”. Neither makes the intended destination clear.

There was a much more negative assessment of Labour’s position in polling published by More in Common yesterday. I posted the highlights on the blog last night just before we closed down.

Good morning. Keir Starmer is giving his speech to the Labour conference this afternoon and, as the Guardian reports, his overall message will be one of qualified, long-term optimism. Another leader might have dressed this message up in poetic rhetoric, but Starmer will be using a straightforward cliche, telling the audience “there’s light at the end of the tunnel”. He will say:

The truth is that if we take tough long-term decisions now, if we stick to the driving purpose behind everything we do: higher economic growth – so living standards rise in every community; our NHS facing the future – waiting lists at your hospital down; safer streets in your community; stronger borders; more opportunities for your children; clean British energy powering your home; making our country more secure … then that light at the end of this tunnel, that Britain that belongs to you, we get there much more quickly.

Our preview story is here.

But the Times has been told the speech will also include plans for a crackdown on benefit fraud. It says Starmer will announce that the government will introduce a fraud, error and debt bill – not something that was mentioned in the king’s speech that happened only two months ago. It says:

The legislation will allow fraud investigators to compel banks to hand over information about people’s finances if there is a suspicion they are claiming benefits they are not entitled to.

It will also give them powers of “search and seizure” of people’s property in cases involving organised criminal gangs that are exploiting the benefits system.

The crackdown is designed to save the taxpayer £1.6 billion over the next five years by tackling fraud and reducing overpayments. Starmer will say that he wants to ensure that “every penny” of taxpayers’ money is spent on Labour’s pledge to “rebuild public services” ….

Banks will be required to tell the benefit system if people have savings of more than £16,000, the cut-off point for claiming benefits, or have been abroad for more than the four weeks allowed for universal credit claimants. Inspectors will then investigate and seek to recover overpayments.

The news that a right-leaning paper has been briefed about a crackdown on benefit cheats will worry the left and, in an interview on the Today programme this morning, John McDonnell, shadow chancellor under Jeremy Corbyn, said this reminded him of George Osborne.

I don’t say this lightly. If you close your eyes, and you listen to the language being used, it’s almost like George Osborne speaking again in 2010.

And when you hear politicians talk about “tough choices” or “painful decisions”, and then you hear some of the rhetoric around fraud and social security, literally that’s a replica of a speech made by George Osborne in 2010.

McDonnell may have been thinking of Osborne comparing benefit cheats to muggers when he was chancellor in 2010, although Osborne also associated with the “strivers versus shirkers” language used to demonise people on benefits by the Tories later during the coalition years.

But, to be fair to Starmer, this does not seem to be the language he is using. The Times story includes a quote from the Starmer speech this afternoon not included in the overnight preview sent to all newspapers. It says Starmer will tell the conference:

We will get the welfare bill down because we will tackle long-term sickness and get people back to work. We will make every penny work for you because we will root out waste and go after tax avoiders. There will be no stone left unturned.

The paper also says the welfare fraud initiative is a response to growing concern that the benefit system is increasingly being targeted by organised crime. Earlier this year the Department for Work and Pensions highlighted the conviction of a gang behind a £54m fraud.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.45am: Conference opens.

10am: Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, opens a debate on “Safe Streets, Stronger Policing”. Lisa Nandy, the culture secretary, is also speaking at 11.35am.

11am: Pat McFadden, the Cabinet Office minister, takes part in an ‘in conversation’ event at a fringe meeting.

2pm: Keir Starmer delivers his keynote speech.

4pm: Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, opens a “Fixing the Foundations” debate.

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