The background noise of public life

Keir Starmer defends policy choices in rebuttal of Blair’s criticism

Keir Starmer has dismissed Tony’s Blair’s argument that his government is on the wrong track, saying he is implementing the policies needed for today, not the very different situation faced by the former prime minister in 1997.

“You won’t be surprised to know that I don’t agree with much that Tony says about what the government is doing,” Starmer said during a visit to an apprentice training centre in west London.

It came as Andy Burnham, who was also criticised by Blair, responded by saying the ex-PM’s analysis was undermined by the “gaping omission” of acknowledging the impact of falling living standards.


Meanwhile -

One million lives.

Nearly one million young people aged 16 to 24 in the United Kingdom are not in education, employment or training. One in 8 young people. And rising. Behind the statistics lie individual lives: aspirations thwarted, opportunities lost, futures placed on hold.

Numbers on that scale should command national attention in their own right. Too often they haven’t. The NEET rate has barely crept below 10% in 25 years. What should have been treated as an urgent national crisis has been absorbed into the background noise of public life.

That tolerance is no longer acceptable...

Time and again the system from education through health to welfare fails to enable labour market participation. Instead, all too often it ends up putting young people on a path to a life on benefits. These faultlines are limiting the opportunities for too many young people to learn or earn.