Keir Starmer backs The Echo's manifesto - and plans to 'deliver it from day one'

Alex O'Leary
·4-min read
Sir Keir Starmer holding a copy of The Northern Echo <i>(Image: THE NORTHERN ECHO)</i>
Sir Keir Starmer holding a copy of The Northern Echo (Image: THE NORTHERN ECHO)

Sir Keir Starmer has backed The Northern Echo’s election manifesto saying the next Labour government plans to “deliver it from day one.”

The Labour leader - who supported the campaign at a visit to Whale Hill Primary School in Teesside on Tuesday - said all six points were “key priorities” for the party.

The manifesto, published in The Northern Echo last week, asked the Government to commit to tackling several serious issues plaguing the North East.

Sir Keir Starmer holding a copy of The Northern Echo (Image: THE NORTHERN ECHO)

These include securing the future of Hitachi’s Newton Aycliffe plant, taking fast action on knife crime, reducing child poverty, sorting dental deserts and waiting list backlogs, committing to a statutory public inquiry into the Tees, Esk and Wear Valley NHS Trust (TEWV), and exam mitigations for RAAC-hit school St Leonard’s.

Holding a copy of The Northern Echo’s front page campaign launch, Mr Starmer said key points in the manifesto were “already wrapped into our plans” for the next Government.

He explained: “Not only are we in support of the work that you are doing, we've actually got the plan in place to make sure we can deliver it from day one.

Sir Keir Starmer and shadow health secretary Wes Streeting  (Image: Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire)

“That sits alongside our six first steps, which are the steps that we say we'll be able to get on with in government from day one.

“So six first steps which are to do with stabilising the economy, making sure the NHS waiting lists come down, make sure GB Energy is set up so we can tackle the cost of living crisis.

“That's the choice of the election - carry on with the chaos and division that's led us to you having to produce these commitments, turn the page, a fresh start with Labour, and day one get those first six steps started.”

Mr Starmer spoke about the campaign alongside Anna Turley, Labour and Co-Operative Parliamentary Candidate for Redcar, and shadow health secretary Wes Streeting.

The backing comes just days after Labour’s shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves backed the campaign, saying she hopes the next Government “can make you proud.”

His visit to the region came as the Labour Party vowed to create an extra 100,000 urgent dental appointments for children in a bid to clear spiralling waiting lists.

The Northern Echo previously reported how the service was left "hanging by a thread" with some people even resorting to “pulling out their own rotting teeth” after struggling to secure an appointment.

Labour's Child Health Action Plan proposes the introduction of supervised brushing and hopes to double the number of NHS scanners in a bid to “put a smile back on kids’ faces.”

To recruit more dentists, the party plans to reform the dental contract and bring in signing-on bonuses, with the overall proposals set to cost £109 million a year.

Mr Starmer said: “I'm really pleased that today we're here at this school dealing with one of them, which is the health of our children, which is a real indicator of the state of the nation and making sure that our children are healthy [and] have healthy teeth.

“We've been doing supervised toothbrushing this morning [and] we're talking about energy drinks and making sure they're not available to those that are under 16.”

Recommended reading:

Get more from The Northern Echo with a digital subscription. Get access for 3 months for just £3, or get 30% off an annual subscription with our latest offer. Click here.

After speaking with the Whale Hill pupils on the playground, Mr Starmer was asked why a caramel macchiato - renowned for having a high caffeine content - was not included in a proposed drink ban by the party.

He responded: “Because this is aimed at children and the sort of drinks available, the energy drinks that they are drinking. I think Monster is the number one. Just to give you a sense of that, the caffeine in that is the equivalent of several espressos.”

He argued this was not only having a “very detrimental effect” on kid's teeth but also having “such an effect on children’s behaviour.”

  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next

Latest stories

  • CNN Data Reporter 'Speechless' By New Donald Trump-Joe Biden Poll: 'Holy Cow, Folks!'

    Harry Enten said it could point to "a historic moment" in American politics.

  • Tony Blair’s bizarre statement on trans rights sums up the madness of our times

    Let’s try doing a little thought experiment. Imagine that, 20 years ago, you bumped your head and slipped into a coma – and have only now, in June 2024, regained consciousness. Naturally, you’re eager to check the news and find out what’s going on in the world. So, after a member of your family has lent you his or her iPad – and explained to you what it is and how to use it – you rush to visit The Telegraph website. And, at the top of the homepage, the very first headline you see reads as follow

  • China is almost ready for its war with the West

    While Russian forces continued their thrust towards Kharkiv over the weekend, world leaders descended on the Swiss resort of Bürgenstock in attempts to work out what a peace deal should look like. Vladimir Putin, predictably, had no interest in attending, but the absence of another world leader was more significant. Even as the US gears up to pivot its military attention to the Indo-Pacific to confront an increasingly assertive China, Xi Jinping chose not to attend.

  • Angela Rayner is a threat to European security

    It has become trite to say that the world is now more dangerous than it has been since the end of the Cold War – or perhaps even the end of the Second World War. Trite but true.

  • Cameron, not Farage, destroyed the Conservatives

    David Cameron is back from outer space to tell us Nigel Farage wants to destroy the Conservative Party, that he’s playing “dog-whistle” politics and, we can infer, the Tories ought to run a mile from him. Thus the battle lines of the next leadership contest are drawn. Early advantage goes to elites who will say the party wandered too far to the Right – a view endorsed by a billion deadly dull podcasts made by people who think the Today programme is insufficiently subjective.

  • Farage claims Reform UK has been ‘stitched up’ over candidate vetting

    Nigel Farage said Reform had paid ‘a large sum of money’ to a firm to scrutinise its candidates but has been let down.

  • David Cameron is a disgrace to Britain

    Why would anybody trust the Conservative Party to make the big decisions about the future of Britain, when they can’t even agree on what to do about Nigel Farage?

  • Jon Stewart Busts 'Right-Wing Motherf**kers' Like Trump Over 1 Huge Lie

    "The Daily Show" host tore into conservatives over a major hypocrisy on a key talking point.

  • Hear former defense secretary under Clinton react to Trump’s comments about Zelensky

    Former President Donald Trump commented on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky&nbsp;and the war in Ukraine while speaking at an event hosted by Turning Point Action in Michigan. William Cohen, Cohen Group CEO and former Secretary of Defense under President Bill Clinton, reacts to Trump’s speech.

  • One-Two Punch From the Skies Is a Massive Blow to Putin

    Ukraine’s military has spent the last two years chronically short of planes. Its prewar stocks were already small in number and mostly dated from the Soviet era. When NATO and other countries sent help, they focused on either sending the same older models or keeping existing aircraft in the air through maintenance and spare parts. Russia, meanwhile, has a larger and often more advanced air force.However, new planes are on the way to help Ukraine. For nearly a year, countries like the Netherlands

  • Anthony Fauci Memoir Recalls His Last Conversation With Donald Trump: ‘That F**ker Biden’

    The then-president also reportedly made a bold prediction that didn't come true.

  • Putin sacks four deputy defence ministers and appoints relative

    Vladimir Putin has sacked four deputy defence ministers and appointed one of his relatives to the role as he carries out a sweeping purge of officials in charge during the botched invasion of Ukraine.

  • Britain is already at war, and nobody wants to admit it

    There are fewer than three weeks to go until polling day and, amid all the desperate campaigning and counter-campaigning, there is a dog that hasn’t barked – even though it is perhaps the most vital of all for our long-term survival.

  • What Labour and the Tories are offering pensioners in their manifestos

    The last week has seen a flurry of election manifestos outlining what the various parties will do should they win on 4 July.

  • Nigel Farage's Reform UK manifesto 'doesn't add up', warn economic experts

    Reform UK leader Farage is unveiling his party's manifesto - which he is calling a 'contract with the people'.

  • Drivers slam 'worst parking ever' after cars dumped on roundabout outside mosque

    Angry drivers have slammed 'Britain's worst parking' after cars were dangerously abandoned on a busy city roundabout outside one of the UK's biggest mosques. Thousands of Muslims descended on Central Jamia Mosque Ghamkol Sharif in Small Heath, Birmingham, after celebrating Eid-al-Adha on Monday (17/6). But shocking photos show how dozens of worshippers sparked traffic chaos by dumping their vehicles on one of the busiest roundabouts in the city. Onlookers said there was at least one collision and several near-misses as drivers attempted to reverse off the Poet's Corner roundabout into oncoming traffic. And despite the huge numbers of illegally parked cars, it's believed there were no parking fines issued throughout the morning. Simon Gutteridge, 40, who had been trying to get to work when he got stuck along the A45 Small Heath Highway, said it was a 'miracle nobody was badly hurt or killed'.

  • The British Army trains in Kenya. Many women say soldiers raped them and abandoned children they fathered

    Seventeen-year-old Marian Pannalossy cuts a striking figure wherever she goes in Archer’s Post, a small town 200 miles north of Nairobi. She lives alone and is light-skinned in a place where mixed-race people are a rarity and therefore ostracized.

  • Kellyanne Conway Massively Inflates Trump’s Church Crowd

    It appears crowdflation and alternative facts are once again tools in Trumpworld’s arsenal. Kellyanne Conway tried to draw some distinction between Donald Trump and Joe Biden during an appearance on Maria Bartiromo’s Sunday Morning Futures, noting that Trump was making outreaches to Black voters. “You got Donald Trump in Detroit talking to 8,000 people at a Black church,” she told Bartiromo. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get the Daily Beast's biggest scoops and scandals delivered right to your in

  • Reform’s Richard Tice: the ex-businessman fuelled by Euroscepticism who quit the Tories

    It was a passing comment made by a Parisian taxi driver on a summer’s day in 1991, but the remark has stuck with the passenger more than three decades on.

  • Israeli military knew how Hamas planned to take hostages weeks before October 7: report

    Weeks before the October 7 attack, the IDF had detailed intel on Hamas' plans, Kan News reported, citing an IDF intel document.