Keir Starmer ‘restless for change’ as he vows to take action on prisons – politics live
By Guardian - Vivian Ho, Amy Sedghi,Geneva Abdul - Sat 6 Jul 2024
On his first full day as PM, Starmer fielded questions on Labour’s plans for prisons, defence, immigration and more. Prisons fix won't happen overnight, says Starmer. Starmer said it is “impossible” to say the government will stop the early release of prisoners.
He told the press conference in Downing Street:
We’ve got too many prisoners, not enough prisons. That’s a monumental failure of the last government on any basic view of government to get to a situation where you haven’t got enough prison places for prisoners, doesn’t matter what your political stripe, that is a failure of government.
It’s a failure of government to instruct the police not to arrest. This has not had enough attention, in my view, but it’s what happened.
We will fix that, but we can’t fix it overnight and therefore it is impossible to simply say we will stop the early release of prisoners and you wouldn’t believe me if I did say it.”
STARMERS FIRST SPEACH AFTER THE ELECTION RESULTS
By Peter Walker - Updated at 14.20 BST
In Keir Starmer’s first press conference as prime minister, “the slightly tense Labour leader of the election trail was replaced by a more obviously affable figure”, writes The Guardian’s Peter Walker.
Perhaps most notable of all was how relaxed it all felt. The argument has been made that while Starmer may not be the most natural campaigning politician, he is comfortable running a big organisation. And here it showed.
The slightly tense Labour leader of the election trail was replaced by a more obviously affable figure who made jokes about his wife working for the NHS – “as I may have mentioned” – and called TV reporters to ask questions by their first name only.
Of course, few things in politics are better for the mood than winning a landslide election victory. But this felt like a leader who believes that even with the magnitude of his Commons majority not matched by the popular vote, he has the mandate and the time to enact his programme.
Keir Starmer: tense election trail Labour leader replaced by affable prime ministerRead moreShareA new dawn for the United Kingdom
The results are in – and it’s a historic Labour landslide. The UK has a new government and a new prime minister in Keir Starmer.
As the dust settles, our tireless political team will turn to looking at what’s next and how we can expect the country to change after years of political chaos.
For many of our readers, this will no doubt be a time for cheer. Over the past 14 years, the Guardian has been at the forefront of holding Conservative governments to account. Our award-winning political journalism has exposed corruption, bullying, misdemeanours and more – from austerity to Windrush, to Brexit, to partygate, Covid PPE and the election betting affair.
Whatever the coming years bring in the UK and around the world, including in Brazil, our reporters will continue to question and interrogate the decisions made by those in power.
If you’ve appreciated our work over the last few weeks (and throughout the last 14 scandal-plagued years), please consider supporting the Guardian’s independent, investigative journalism today.
