Anas Sarwar in challenge to Downing Street gloom by saying “things can and will get better”

The Scottish Labour leader used his speech at the UK conference to contrast the "tough choice" rhetoric of Keir Starmer with a positive vision of the future.

Anas Sarwar has offered an upbeat vision of a Labour Government in a pointed contrast to the “buzzkill” from Downing Street. The Scottish Labour said “things can and will get better” after Keir Starmer warned life is “going to get worse” before it improves.

Scottish Labour put a decade of electoral misery behind them at the general election when they jumped from two seats to 37. But allies of Sarwar have been concerned about the negative tone adopted by Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves on the state of the public finances.

Scottish Labour figures were alarmed at Starmer’s gloomy speech in the Downing Street Rose Garden over the £22bn funding black hole.

Addressing delegates in Liverpool, Sarwar’s speech majored on “hope” and only briefly referenced the black hole. He instead focused on the positive things he said the Government is doing:

“The new UK Labour government is already acting now to deliver the change Scotland needs. A UK Labour government with Scotland at its heart has got straight to work. Delivering the energy transition with GB Energy.

“A publicly owned energy company headquartered in Scotland. Creating thousands of jobs and making sure Scotland leads the world in clean energy. We have started action to transform the world of work. With Angela Rayner’s game-changing New Deal for Working People.

In what will be interpreted as a dig at Starmer’s warning of looming pain, he said: “Scotland’s best days lie ahead of us. Things can and they will get better.”

A senior Scottish Labour source said Starmer’s Rose Garden speech had been a “buzzkill” moment.

Reeves, who will deliver her first Budget in October, used her conference speech to warn about the tough choices that would need to be made in the short term: “I know you are impatient for change, I am too, but because of that legacy left by the Conservatives, the road ahead is steeper and harder than we expected.”

She added: “I know how hard people work for their money, taxpayers’ money should be spent with the same care with which working people spend their own money.

But she also delivered her most upbeat speech as Chancellor in an attempt to persuade voters better times are ahead:

“Yes, we must deal with the Tory legacy and that means tough decisions, but I won’t let that dim our ambition for Britain. So, it will be a budget with real ambition, a budget to fix the foundations, a budget to deliver the change that we promised, a budget to rebuild Britain.”

Reeves repeated her promise not to “turn a blind eye” to “Covid fraudsters” and those who “used a national emergency to line their own pockets”

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“If you have felt the quiet desperation of jobs, opportunities and investment slipping away, then be assured your ambitions, your hopes, your future will not be held back any longer. Shovels in the ground, cranes in the sky, the sounds and the sights of the future arriving.

“Wealth created and wealth shared in every part of Britain. That is the prize, that is the Britain we’re building, that is the Britain I believe in.”

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