User:ThingsCanOnlyGetWetter/sandbox
Preparing for July 5th! The following may become useful later
Starmer ministry[edit]
Starmer ministry | |
|---|---|
.svg){kind=small} Cabinet of the United Kingdom | |
| 2024-present | |
 Prime Minister Starmer with Deputy Prime Minister Rayner | |
| Date formed | 5 July 2024 |
| People and organisations | |
| Monarch | Charles III |
| Prime Minister | Keir Starmer |
| Prime Minister's history | Premiership of Keir Starmer |
| Deputy Prime Minister | Angela Rayner |
| Member party | |
| Status in legislature | Majority 418 / 659 (63%) |
| Opposition cabinet | |
| Opposition party | |
| Opposition leader |
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| History | |
| Election | 2024 general election |
| Legislature terms | List of MPs elected in the 2024 United Kingdom general election |
| Budget | |
| Predecessor | Sunak ministry |
The Starmer ministry began on 2 May 1997 when Keir Starmer accepted an invitation of King Charles III to form a government, succeeding Rishi Sunak of the Conservative Party. After fourteen years in opposition, Labour ousted the Conservatives at the July 2024 election with a 340-seat majority.
Cabinet[edit]
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Premiership of Keir Starmer[edit]
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| Premiership of Keir Starmer 5 July 2024 – present | |
| Monarch | Charles III |
|---|---|
Keir Starmer | |
| Cabinet | |
| Party | Labour |
| Election | |
| Seat | 10 Downing Street |
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Keir Starmer's term as the prime minister of the United Kingdom began on 5 July 2024 when he accepted an invitation of King Charles III to form a government, succeeding Rishi Sunak of the Conservative Party. As prime minister, Starmer is also serving as First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service, and Minister for the Union. Starmer changed the Labour Party and developed a long-term plan for Britain, with five key missions for government; across the economy, the NHS, education, crime, clean energy and more.
Labour’s policy to increase the numbers of NHS appointments will see NHS staff paid extra to work evenings and weekends in order to tackle the backlog. They will also use spare capacity in private healthcare providers to clear the NHS backlog, free at the point of use, as well as recruiting 8,500 new NHS mental health staff. They will bring down waits for cancer appointments with a ‘Fit For the Future Fund’ doubling the number of state-of-the-art MRI and CT scanners in the NHS to ensure early diagnosis.
Labour’s policy offer includes a Green Prosperity Plan to cut energy bills and creating good jobs in every region. A Labour government will invest in homegrown clean power, cut bills, create jobs, and give us independence from dictators like Putin, paid for in part by a proper windfall tax on oil and gas giants.
Private schools currently benefit from an unfair tax break that means they avoid paying VAT on fees. Through closing this loophole, Labour will raise vital money needed to improve standards in stretched state schools with more teachers. This funding will also help pay for mental health support staff in every school, working to boost the wellbeing of young people, many of whom still suffering the effects of lockdown.
At the heart of Labour’s health policy offer is a commitment to make the NHS a Neighbourhood Health Service as much as a National Health Service. Labour will cut red tape, freeing up GPs so they have more time to see patients. They will ensure patients can see the same GP each appointment if they choose to, and They will trial Neighbourhood Health Centres, bringing together family doctors, district nurses, care workers, physiotherapists, and mental health specialists under one roof.
Labour will clamp down on water companies that harm the environment and pollute our rivers with automatic and severe fines, as well as new powers to the regulator to block bonuses until water bosses have cleaned up the filth. For the most serious cases, Labour will allow the regulator to pursue criminal charges against water bosses.
Labour’s policy to secure Britain’s borders will see the introduction of more staff to process claims and return people to safe countries, clearing the asylum backlog, and a new cross-border police unit smashing criminal people-smuggling gangs by using counter-terror style tactics.
Labour will create a requirement for a rape unit in every police force, specialists in every 999 control room, and fast track courts and legal advice for rape victims. This will mean that early opportunities for prevention and protection are not missed, and will be followed up with requiring police forces to target dangerous repeat offenders with the tactics and tools normally reserved for counter-terror and serious organised crime investigations, getting serious perpetrators off the UK's streets. They will also put specialists in the court system to support rape victims, meaning that victims are given better support at every stage.
Labour’s plan will fix the UK's railways for the benefit of passengers and the taxpayer. It can usher in a decade of growth, innovation and service improvement, with the railways playing their part in Britain’s national renewal. Labour will create a unified and simplified governance structure that places passengers at the heart of the goal, objectives and incentives for the railway, and to bring train operators under public ownership and control. Public ownership for the UK's railways is about the practical need to deliver better services where they have failed.
Labour will strengthen the minimum wage that employers must pay to ensure it reflects the cost of living. Labour has a plan to improve school attendances that includes the introduction of breakfast clubs for all primary school children in England. This would be the first step on the road to a modern childcare system so every child has the best start at school, and parents have more choices about work.
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Labour's manifesto[edit]
This election is about change.
A chance to stop the endless Conservative chaos that has directly harmed the finances of every family in Britain.
A moment where we can turn the page on a set of ideas that, over 14 years, have consistently left us more vulnerable in an increasingly volatile world.
And an opportunity to begin the work of national renewal. A rebuilding of our country, so that it once again serves the interests of working people.
Every great nation is held together by shared beliefs. To outsiders they may not seem exceptional or distinctive, but they are essential for a sense of collective national purpose. Britain is no different, but at this moment two of our most important beliefs are in grave danger.
First, that politics should be driven by a sense of service to the country, not considerations of party or self-interest.
Second, that if you work hard then – whoever you are, wherever you started in life – Britain is a country that will respect your contribution and give you a fair chance to get on.
When I consider these beliefs, it is hard not to think back to my childhood. Then, as now, Britain’s place in the world was uncertain. Then, as now, our economy was gripped by stuttering growth and a cost-of-living crisis that hurt working people.
Yet back then, there was at least a degree of security in being able to take those two fundamental beliefs for granted. For families like mine, this was a comfort. The knowledge that Britain would offer your children a better future gave us hope. A hope that may not sound high-minded or particularly idealistic, but which families like mine could build a life around.
To restore this hope, we must first end the Conservative chaos. The visible decline in our communities – families weighed down by soaring mortgages; people waiting on trolleys in A&E; sewage in our rivers – is not an accident. Rather, it is a direct result of a governing party that, time and again, puts its own interests and obsessions above the issues that affect families.
The result is a vicious cycle – decline feeding off chaos, chaos feeding off decline – that will continue if they return for five more years. Only a Labour government can break this cycle and stop the chaos.
We must turn the page decisively on the Conservative ideas that have caused the chaos.
The world has become increasingly volatile, with a major war in Europe for the first time in a generation and ever greater threats to the living standards of working people. This ‘age of insecurity’ requires the government to step up, not stand aside.
This means a return to the foundations of good government: national security, secure borders, and economic stability. But it also requires an enduring partnership with business to deliver the economic growth we need. It needs more focus on long- term strategy, not the short-term distractions that can animate Westminster. And it demands a final and total rejection of the toxic idea that economic growth is gifted from the few to the many.
Because whether it is crashing the pound to give tax cuts to the richest 1%; degrading public services because of a mess made by the banks; or the failure to invest in clean British energy that left us exposed when Putin invaded Ukraine – so much of what Britain has been through in the past 14 years is explained by a Conservative failure to face the future. Only Labour can turn the page.
We must rebuild our country. It will not be easy. Not only because there is no quick fix to the mess the Conservatives have made. But also, because their failures have sapped our collective confidence that Britain can still achieve great things. I reject this with every fibre of my being. Despite all the chaos inflicted on Britain, the country I see is one where working people never let each other down. They came together in the pandemic – missed weddings, funerals and last goodbyes – to save the lives of people they will never meet. They dug deep in the years of austerity, to keep delivering the public services people needed. And throughout the cost-of-living crisis, they found a way to support those less fortunate than themselves.
We are still a great nation. We can still achieve great things. What we lack is a government that can match the ambition working people have for their family and community, with a credible long-term plan.
This manifesto is that plan. Fully costed, fully funded – built on a rock of fiscal responsibility.
At its heart are five national missions – with clear first steps to begin the journey of rebuilding – that provide a clear destination for everyone invested in Britain’s future. A new Britain, where wealth is created in every community. Where the golden opportunity of clean British power is harnessed for lower bills. Where your town centre has been revitalised and everyone feels safe to walk the streets. Where you can go to work and know you will be treated with dignity and respect. Where our children are equipped with the skills to thrive in the future. Where our NHS is once again at the cutting edge of healthcare. And where we show that politics can be about serving the country.
I know some people will roll their eyes at this last sentence. Yet serving our country is the only reason I came into politics. The defining purpose of my Labour leadership has been to drag my party away from the dead end of gesture politics and return it once more to the service of working people. I have changed my party. Now I want the chance to bring that change to the country.
But to succeed we need everyone, every community, to play their part. I know, after everything you have been through in the past 14 years, that this is a hard request to make. But I also expect, deep down, that you know this is what our country needs now – an end to the chaos, a turning of the page, and a patient but determined rebuilding of our country.
So, I invite you to join us in this common endeavour of national renewal. It is time to change Britain.
Keir Starmer
Leader of the Labour Party
| Party | Party leader(s) | Leader since | Leader's seat | 2019 election | Seats at
dissolution |
Contested seats | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| % of
votes |
Seats | |||||||
| Conservative Party | Rishi Sunak | October 2022 | Richmond (Yorks) | 43.6% | 365 | 346 | 635 seats in the United Kingdom | |
| Labour Party | Keir Starmer | April 2020 | Holborn and St Pancras | 32.1% | 202 | 205 | 631 seats in Great Britain | |
| Scottish National Party | John Swinney | May 2024 | None[n 1] | 45.0% | 48 | 43 | 59 seats in Scotland | |
| Liberal Democrats | Ed Davey | August 2020 | Kingston and Surbiton | 7.4% | 12 | 15 | 611 seats in Great Britain | |
- ^ John Swinney sits in the Scottish Parliament and represents Perthshire North. Stephen Flynn (Aberdeen South) leads the SNP group at Westminster.
- ^ The SNP only contests the Scottish Westminster constituencies so it is mathematically impossible for it to win a majority.
- ^ Farage does not currently serve as an MP; Lee Anderson (Ashfield) serves as the party's sole MP.
- ^ Ed Davey was the Liberal Democrats' acting leader from 13 December 2019, following the electoral defeat and resignation of Jo Swinson, to 27 August 2020, when he was elected permanent leader.
- ^ Neither Denyer nor Ramsay currently serve as MPs; Caroline Lucas (Brighton Pavilion) serves as the party's sole MP.
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