Labour offers hope for national renewal at the forthcoming elections - Sir Keir Starmer

And now on top of this, this year, your council tax – rising. A new Tory stealth tax coming soon to your letterbox. £300 per household and they hope you don’t notice. In fact, they tell you they’re cutting your taxes. While at the same time, they’re rifling through your back pocket. Give with one hand, take even more with the other.

On and on and on – it goes. Say the right thing and do the exact opposite. Say - ‘we’re all in this together’, but decimate your public services. Say there’s no downsides for business, but rush through a careless Brexit deal. Say – this is for ‘ordinary people’, but crash the economy to give tax cuts to the richest one per cent. A party that is now so desperate, so broken by its failure to address your problems, that it has completely cut itself adrift from the responsibility of service. Reduced – with no record to defend - to exploiting Britain's problems for the politics of division.

Here’s the good news. They don’t get to choose. You don’t have to take it anymore. You can stop them.

That’s the beauty of democracy, the power of the vote rests in your hands. And on May 2, you can reject the chaos, you can reject division, you can reject decline and vote for national renewal with Labour.

Because make no mistake – Labour has a plan to get Britain’s future back. A plan to drag politics in this country back to service, tilt our economy back towards the interests of working people and get us building again, working again, growing again by unlocking the pride and potential of communities.

That’s what we’ll be campaigning on during these elections.

My dad was a toolmaker, he worked in a factory. He always felt, particularly in the 80s, that he was looked down on. Disrespected. But equally, my sister is a care worker now, so I will never accept that it’s only the work of the past which deserves our pride and respect.

That was the great lesson of the pandemic. It showed exactly who made up the backbone of Britain. The carers, the couriers, the drivers, the teaching assistants, the warehouse workers, the supermarket staff, the nurses and paramedics. The working people of this country, my Labour Party stands with you. That’s my biggest frustration with these 14 wasted years. It’s not just the stagnation, not just the price working people have paid. It’s also the countless missed opportunities to give working people the power to drive our country forward. To bring people together, outside of crisis. Unlock that pride people have for their community and harness it to change our country.

Levelling-up is a good ambition for Britain. Taking back control, if it means control for communities, not politicians in Westminster, that is absolutely essential for growth.

An abridged version of a speech delivered by Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer at the launch of the party’s local election campaign.