4 key takeaways from Keir Starmer’s first major interview as PM
Sir Keir Starmer has said he is prepared to be unpopular by making "difficult decisions" such as scrapping the winter fuel payment for most pensioners.
In his first major sit-down interview as prime minister, Starmer – who YouGov polling this week found is viewed favourably by just a third of Britons - told the BBC's Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme: "We're going to have to be unpopular.
"I'll do the tough things, and do them early, to make sure we can bring about the change we need."
It comes after Starmer previously warned the upcoming autumn budget is “going to be painful”.
Here are four key takeaways from Sunday's interview with Kuenssberg.
No backtracking over winter fuel payment
The government’s controversial decision to scrap £300 winter fuel payments for about 10 million pensioners will be debated in the House of Commons on Tuesday.
Starmer has faced opposition from his own Labour MPs over the cut, which chancellor Rachel Reeves says is needed to stabilise public finances and save £1.5bn a year.
Organisations such as Age UK have said two million people in need of the benefit will be excluded. And Kuenssberg shared correspondence from a viewer, Ray, who said he already regrets voting for Labour because of the policy.
But there was no backtracking from Starmer: “This is really tough. No prime minister wants to take a decision like this but the winter fuel payments are now to be targeted - they were untargeted before and everybody thought that wasn’t a particularly good system. Obviously those most in need will continue to get the payment: all of those on pension credit [1.4 million people] will get the payment."
He added: "We will only deliver change if we do the difficult things now.”
PM refusing to give cladding target date
In the wake of the damning Grenfell Tower report this week, Starmer and Kuenssberg clashed after she asked him exactly when people who are living in unsafe blocks will be able to sleep easy without the fear of a cladding fire.
The PM would only say: "We are speeding up the process, I want to get this done as quickly as possible. Each block will be on a different timetable, I am not able to give an end date."
Kuenssberg told him: "You are the prime minister now. Some people will want to hear you say: 'In a year, everyone will be safe.' What’s your ambition on this? For years victims of Grenfell, their families and people who are in unsafe blocks have heard politicians promise they were going to speed it up."
But Starmer remained insistent on not providing a target date: "I'm not going to give a false promise, there have been too many of those in the last 14 years where people have given numbers and dates which are not meaningful.
"I know the work is going on to identify what blocks need work on, how we accelerate it. The money has been allocated. A lot of this now is identifying and pushing those who are really responsible to do this to do the work they are required to do.”
'Riots showed broken society’
Starmer said last month's far-right riots "were symbolic of a broken society".
"They were far-right in the main but underneath that was a societal black hole, a breaking of our society, which we need to mend.”
Starmer said he was "worried" about the rise of the far-right in countries such as France and Germany.
But the PM said the answer to it in the UK "is delivery in government… to bring about the change we promised. To improve living standards so people are better off, make sure we have properly functioning services - particularly the NHS - and to deal with issues like immigration and crime and sewage.”
However, he also said he would not allow the violence to dictate government policy "one bit", and added he did not think Britain was a “racist country” but one of “decent people, tolerant people”.
PM prepared to work with Trump
Starmer gave only a cautious endorsement of US presidential candidate Kamala Harris, who has narrowed the polling gap with Donald Trump since Joe Biden stood down.
The PM was keen to indicate his willingness to work with Trump should he be elected. Starmer was one of only a few world leaders who spoke to him following his assassination attempt in July.
Asked about Harris's selection as the Democratic candidate, Starmer replied: “They are our sister party and of course it's really good to see the election developing as it is in the US.
“I will be very clear: as the prime minister of the United Kingdom, I will deal with whoever the American people elect in as their president.”
He also said it was “wrong” to claim the US was angry at Britain for its decision to suspend some arms sales to Israel.
"They are very clear that they have got a different legal system and they understand the decision that we have taken.”
Anything else?
Starmer said his decision to remove a portrait of former Tory PM Margaret Thatcher from his private Downing Street study was not about her “at all”.
Starmer's biographer Tom Baldwin recently revealed Starmer had it removed as he found it “unsettling”, leading to a backlash from some Tory-aligned commentators and politicians.
But he told Kuenssberg: “I don’t like images and pictures of people staring down at me. I’ve found it all my life.... this is my study, it is my private place where I got to work. I didn’t want a picture of anyone.”
Starmer also revealed his family’s new pet, a Siberian kitten, is called Prince.
He said there had been a summer of “negotiations” with his children over getting a dog, before they settled on the kitten.
