Labour’s Wes Streeting today said the “cavalry is coming” as his party surges in the polls.
The shadow health secretary said the Labour Party was “ready to get the country back in order” adding that the UK is “broken”.
He slammed chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng’s mini budget which has led to some banks withdrawing mortgage deals due to market volatility.
Streeting warned it was just the “tip of the iceberg” and accused the Tory government of a “reckless gamble”.
It comes as Labour surged to its largest poll lead over the Conservatives in more than two decades, as voters turned against the government’s tax-cutting budget.
A YouGov poll for The Times today put Labour 17 points clear of the Tories – a level of support not seen since Tony Blair won his landslide victory in 2001.
Streeting told Sky News: “All of us are frankly still recovering from our jaws hitting the floors last week with that budget from Kwasi Kwarteng.
“And the real world consequences we’re seeing overnight, the withdrawal of mortgage products, tell us about the extent to which our own chancellor in this country has frightened the markets.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg, if interest rates go up in the way that some people are predicting that’s going to be huge additional costs to people with mortgages.
“And what was the chancellor’s answer yesterday? ‘Don’t worry folks, in November I’m going to come up with some new fiscal rules – ie I’ve ignored all the ones I’ve already got and I’m rewriting the rules and making them up as I go along’.
“This isn’t serious leadership – it’s a reckless gamble,” Streeting added.
“The calvary is coming with Labour. We’ve got serious people, with a serious plan that would make an enormous difference to families right across the country and to businesses, who are the backbone of our economy and will be the bedrock of economic growth.”
In another interview with BBC Breakfast, Streeting said he was worried about his own mortgage renewal next year because of rising interest rates.
“My mortgage is up for renewal next year. I’m worried about interest rates, and I don’t even think I’m one of the people who are most vulnerable to interest rate rises,” he added.
Starmer will make his pitch to be prime minister at the Labour Party’s annual conference on Tuesday.
He is expected to echo Tony Blair by declaring that the party is now “back as the political wing of the British people”.
The phrase echoes a section of Labour’s 1997 general election manifesto, which said: “We are a broad-based movement for progress and justice. New Labour is the political arm of none other than the British people as a whole.”
He will use his keynote address to insist Labour is now “the party of the centre-ground” in British politics.
