Pensioners have nothing to fear from me, says Starmer

Sir Keir Starmer holds a campaign event at Heath Farm, Swerford, just a few minutes' drive from Lord Cameron's home - Jose Sarmento Matos/Bloomberg

Sir Keir Starmer has said pensioners have “nothing to fear” from a Labour government as he spent Monday campaigning in traditional Tory heartlands.

Speaking to The Telegraph, the Labour leader said elderly Britons had “really suffered” in recent years under Conservative rule during the cost of living crisis.

He dismissed the Tory tax record on pensioners, noting more were paying tax under Rishi Sunak than ever before, though he did not rule out taxing the state pension if he entered Downing Street.

There was also an explicit appeal to Telegraph readers who have voted Tory in the past to consider defecting to Labour, with Sir Keir saying he understood their “aspiration” instincts.

The reach for the centre ground came as the Labour leader began the last week of campaigning touring the home counties that have long been Tory blue.

There were stop-offs in Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, with the latter event just a few minutes’ drive from the Chipping Norton home of Lord Cameron, the former Tory leader.

Sir Keir delivers a stump speech in Hitchin and Harpenden, a seat where the Tories won triple Labour's vote total in the 2019 election - Carl Court/Getty Images

Sir Keir used the three-leg tour to project that there were no longer “no-go areas” for his “changed” party, vowing to govern on the principles on which he has campaigned.

Asked if pensioners should fear a Starmer government, the Labour leader said: “Absolutely not, and [they have] a lot to gain. Because if you look at the last 14 years and talk to pensioners about it, many of them have really suffered particularly in the last few years.

“I’ve had no end of conversations with pensioners who’ve impressed on me how the cost of living crisis has affected them. I remember an 84-year-old woman in Dewsbury, one of those conversations that I carry with me, describing to me how during the winter she’s too scared to get out of bed before about mid-morning because she can’t afford to put the heating on.

“Another one saying that she sits in her thermal dressing gown almost all day in the house, again, because she doesn’t want to put the heating on. That’s been the effect of what the Tories have done. And so not only are they safe with us, we’ll actually improve the lot of pensioners by bearing down on those issues.”

Sir Keir, 61, and his team exude the kind of confidence that comes with a double-digit point poll lead and, just days left before an election, the sense that political power is within their grasp.

Between the blanket declarations of “no complacency”, expectation has replaced hope as the prevailing mood on the Labour campaign battle bus with Thursday’s election almost here.

Publicly, the focus is on driving up turnout. On Monday, Labour aides handed out pillows with Mr Sunak’s face on them alongside the words: “Don’t wake up to five more years of the Tories”.

Sir Keir’s stump speeches warned voters “if you want change you have to vote for it”. He insisted “polls don’t predict the future”, a reminder to take such surveys with a pinch of salt.

But other signs give away the scale of Labour’s electoral ambitions. Take the three stop locations on Monday: Hitchin and Harpenden, a seat where the Tories won triple Labour’s vote total in the 2019 election; the green and pleasant village of Little Horwood, church spire visible behind Sir Keir and the odd tractor driving past; and then a farm near Lord Cameron’s old stamping ground.

This is, or should be, Conservative country.

It was in the garden of The Shoulder of Mutton pub in Little Horwood that Sir Keir talked to The Telegraph, predicting some of these seats could be decided by a few hundred votes.

“It is traditional Tory heartlands and that is obviously deliberate,” he said. “There is a sense of change in places like this.”

So what would Sir Keir’s pitch be to Telegraph readers who usually vote Tory? “We’re a changed Labour Party. I’ll address people who voted Tory in the past directly,” he said.

“Because very many of those, I think, will have done so because they have aspiration for themselves, for their family, for their community and for their country, which I understand and agree with.

“That is now where the Labour Party is: country first, party second. And I’m afraid the Tory Party is now party first, country second, as you’ve seen throughout this chaotic campaign that they have been running.

“And so I think we can say to people you can put your trust and confidence in this changed Labour Party. We’ve campaigned as a changed Labour Party and we will govern as a changed Labour Party if we’re given the opportunity to do so.”

The pitch chimes with a line that Sir Keir used throughout Monday – that he is yet to meet any voter who says of the current situation in the country “this is great, brilliant, nothing must change”.

It usually drew a laugh. But it was revealing, too, of the Labour strategy: To tap into a widespread dissatisfaction with the state of things and, for many, the Tories overseeing it.

The blanket campaign slogan – “change”, with no other specifics mentioned – is a deliberate attempt by Labour strategists to keep that appeal as wide as possible.

Converting that into a platform which Conservative voters can get behind is, however, a different matter. And it is here where the issue of pensions comes up again.

Mr Sunak has promised a “triple lock plus” under a re-elected Tory government, meaning the state pension will not just rise by the highest of earnings, prices or 2.5 per cent every year, but it will also never be taxed.

Labour has not vowed to match the pledge, allowing the Prime Minister to accuse his rivals of planning a “retirement tax” that will see the state pension taxed for the first time in history, if the forecasts are correct.

That the situation is only predicted because of Mr Sunak’s threshold freezes, which have been dragging more pensioners into paying income tax, is left unsaid by the Tories.

Pensioners have ‘nothing to fear’

But still, does Sir Keir not ideally want to keep the state pension untaxed? “I think I’m right in saying that record numbers of pensioners are now paying tax under this Government,” he said.

“So this mythical picture the Tories like to try and paint of pensioners not paying tax actually grates with [them] because they are already paying tax and more of them are paying tax now under the Tories than ever before.

“Our position is we’re not going to change the tax position for pensioners. So they’ve got absolutely nothing to fear. The triple lock, obviously, we’ve long been committed to, driving down the cost of living.”

Sir Keir goes on to claim that the Conservative promise is “unfunded” - the Tories argue welfare cuts provide the money; Labour says the supposed savings have already been spent. There is, though, no explicit promise to keep it untaxed.

Soon the campaigning will be done. If the Prime Minister is to be believed, Sir Keir is on the brink of a “super-majority”, a mathematically unspecific but politically significant mega House of Commons majority.

Does Sir Keir think his opponent is right?

“I accept that the change that we need to bring about, which is about the policies but is also about bringing the country together as a country of service, requires a strong mandate,” he replied. “And therefore it is actually better for the country if people do vote for change.”

So the bigger the better? “Well, it’s the broader the better”, came the reply, “in the sense that I want people to be part of the change that we want to bring about”.

If come Friday the “changed” Labour Party stretches into rural Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, it will be plenty broad enough for Sir Keir.

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