UK Politics

Keir Starmer has promised he won’t plunge Britain into another round of austerity in order to fix the mess left behind by the Tories.

The Prime Minister said public services are still suffering from years of cuts and said he’s “not going down that road”. In an exclusive interview on the eve of Labour conference, Mr Starmer said he would give people hope for a “changed Britain” after gloomy warnings about tough choices to come.

The PM and Chancellor Rachel Reeves have been warning that next month's Budget will be painful, sparking fears of cuts to public spending. But asked if he could promise there would be no more austerity, he said: “Yes. Austerity did us a huge amount of damage.

"I was running a public service when the Coalition Government went down the austerity route. It did a huge amount of damage to our public services and we are still feeling the damage even now. So we are not going down the road of austerity.”

Speaking to the Sunday Mirror from No10 Downing Street, the PM said he would not "put off the difficult decisions" in the Budget. We're going to deal with the difficulties in the economy in the Budget and we're going to deal with it straight away," he said.

He refused to say whether he would heed calls from unions to impose a wealth tax. But he said: “I’m acutely aware that working people have already paid a lot in extra taxes under the last Government and that we need to create the conditions for our economy to grow and for investors to want to put their money in our economy.”

The PM said he had given a “raw and honest assessment” of the state of the country but he would use his speech in Liverpool to spell out how people will feel better off by the next election.