Labour will only win election by appealing to Tory voters, says shadow minister ahead of Starmer speech – UK politics live | Politics

Good morning. Westminister is still waiting for the formal announcement about the date of the general election, but voters will have noticed that the campaign is already well underway and today we are getting a landmark moment; the formal unveiling of the Labour party’s doorstep, retail offer – the six pledges it will prioritise in the short campaign. Pippa Crerar has the story here.

The Labour promises are very similar to the pledge card used by Tony Blair and New Labour in 1997. At the time this was seen as an innovative, and successful, campaign tactic. Labour is not calling this version a pledge card – as Pippa explains in her story, the party thinks voters are more wary of “pledges” from politicians than they were in the Blair era – but in practice it is the same thing.

One obvious complaint is that there is nothing very leftwing about the offer – nothing about reducing child poverty, or inequality – and almost nothing that Rishi Sunak would not be happy to put his name too. (The Tories are not proposing a new, publicly-owned energy company, but the other five Labour promises all broadly equate to things the Tories already say they want to do or are doing.)

Pat McFadden, Labour’s national campaign coordinator, was doing interviews this morning and, on the Today programme, he defended the party’s decision to reach out to the middle ground.

Prompted by a question about the Natalie Elphicke defection, he said:

What it says about the party is that it’s changed, and that there are perhaps people looking at it today in a different light.

And I have an obvious message for listeners, and for anyone thinking of voting at the next election. We will not win the next election just by appealing to the people who always voted labour.

The only way you’re going to win the next election is by appealing to people who haven’t traditionally voted for you and who have voted Conservative in many cases in recent elections.

That is what the difference between losing and winning is, and there’s nothing to be ashamed of in that.

Here is the agenda for the day.

10am: Keir Starmer launches the Labour party’s election pledge card, described by the party as its “first steps for change” offer, at an event in Thurrock.

10am: Sue Gray, who is now Starmer’s chief of staff, gives evidence to the UK Covid inquiry in Belfast in her capacity as permanent secretary at Northern Ireland’s Department of Finance during the pandemic.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

After 11.30am: MPs debate the report from the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman saying up to £10bn should be paid to women who lost out because they did not get proper warning about the state pension age rising.

Noon: John Swinney takes first minister’s questions at Holyrood.

12.15pm: Tom Tugendhat, the security minister, gives a speech on Taiwan at the Policy Exchange thinktank.

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