𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Sir Keir Starmer hit back at Sir Tony Blair after the former PM launched an astonishing attack. The ex-prime minister accused Sir Keir of not having a “coherent plan” for Britain in a highly critical intervention. But the Prime Minister today said he did not “agree with much” of Sir Tony’s comments.

During a visit to a train depot in west London, he said: “We can all argue about individual policies, but the real question is what’s the change, what’s the difference that is happening in a country that we inherited two years ago in a very poor place.”

Sir Keir pointed to his policies on economic growth and investment in public services, as well as falling NHS waiting lists and immigration levels and rebuilding relations with the EU as examples of his Government’s achievements.

He said he agreed with Sir Tony that it was “right to talk about policy, it’s right to talk about ideas”.

But he added: “I don’t agree that the policy choices of this Government weren’t the right policy choices given what we inherited – a very different situation in 2024 to 1997.

“And dealing with what we had to turn around, the policy choices, we’re vindicated by them because those changes have happened.”

In his 5,700 word essay earlier this week, Sir Tony blasted Labour’s flagship workers’ rights overhaul and minimum wage hike, while calling for Ed Miliband’s net zero targets to be abandoned, welfare slashed and the triple lock ditched.

Sir Tony’s intervention has also prompted criticism from Andy Burnham, who is making a bid to return to Westminster in the crunch Makerfield by-election.

The Greater Manchester Mayor lashed out at the essay for not mentioning inequality.