Labour unveils its five missions for Government

Setting out five “missions” that would guide a Labour government, Sir Keir promised to end “sticking plaster politics” focused on short-term fixes.

He said Labour’s approach would offer “a clarity that will ruffle feathers across Whitehall and beyond, but one that is necessary”.

With his sights on a “decade of national renewal” – suggesting it would take at least two terms of Labour government – Sir Keir set out his missions, which included securing the highest sustained growth in the G7.

In addition, he pledged to make Britain a “clean energy superpower” with zero-carbon electricity generation by 2030, along with reforms to the NHS and science research, crime and policing, as well as education and childcare.

Setting out why the change is required, he said: “Pick any of the current problems: energy security, productivity, immigration. We could be here all day but it wouldn’t matter – the pattern is always the same.

“Distracted by the short-term obsessions that fixate Westminster, held back by a cynicism, which uses low trust in politics as an excuse to narrow our ambitions, blinkered to the potential of an active government setting the direction, we lurch from crisis to crisis, always reacting, always behind the curve.

“A sticking plaster, never a cure.”

Sir Keir said his pledge on growth would drive up living standards across the country.

“I’m not interested in a model of growth where London races ahead and the rest of our country stagnates,” he said.

“We need growth from the grassroots – a new model. Wealth created everywhere, by everyone, for everyone.”

That would mean “good jobs and stronger productivity in every part of the country”, he said.

Sir Keir also vowed to fix the Brexit deal and “reset our relationship with the EU”.

Sir Keir’s economic pledge would mean the UK outstripping the US, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and Japan in terms of growth, something he conceded “is going to be tough”.

The Labour leader was also dogged by questions about whether he will stick to his policy commitments, having dropped some of the pledges he made while seeking the party leadership.

“So far, as the pledges when I ran for leader are concerned, they are important statements of value and principle,” he told the BBC.

“And they haven’t all been abandoned by any stretch of the imagination. But what I have had to do is adapt some of them to the circumstances we find ourselves in.”

Levelling up and devolution, two policies that Labour had seemingly begun to embrace in recent months, were broadly absent from the speech by the Labour leader.

Asked about this, Ed Miliband, Labour’s shadow net zero minister, told The Yorkshire Post that tackling huge inequalities in our country were “absolutely part of the mission” of his party in Government.

“For mission one, it not only says that there must be good jobs and productivity and growth in every part of the country, but also that we grow wealth in all parts of the country and not tolerate inequality.”