Keir Starmer will attempt to reset his premiership with a series of pledges to show he is “delivering change”, including 13,000 extra neighbourhood police and a named “bobby on every beat”.
In a speech Labour hopes will set out the “next phase” of government, the prime minister will detail half a dozen “milestone” targets covering living standards, NHS backlogs, secure energy, housebuilding and children’s readiness for school.
As part of a promise to crack down on crime and antisocial behaviour, he will say that every neighbourhood in England and Wales will have a named, contactable police officer.
Each police force will also have an antisocial behaviour lead tasked with coming up with ways to tackle concerns raised by local residents and businesses.
Starmer will pledge 13,000 more neighbourhood police, PCSOs and special constables by 2029, with an additional £100m of funding.
“These officers must demonstrably spend time on visible patrol and not be taken off the beat to plug shortages elsewhere,” he will say.
The boost would bring the total police workforce to a level above its 2010 peak.
After ministers were accused of blindsiding businesses with a big increase in employer national insurance contributions in the budget, the heads of three high street retailers – Asda, Co-op and McDonald’s – endorsed the “neighbourhood policing guarantee”.
The promise will prompt comparisons with the Blair-era “tough on crime” slogan. Many of the plans were first outlined by Labour last year.
The attempted reboot – labelled Starmer’s “plan for change” – follows a rocky first five months in power for the government.
A major tax and spend budget was welcomed by campaigners for greater spending on public services but sapped business confidence and led to protests by farmers. Starmer has also faced a row over ministers enjoying freebies, and the resignations of both his chief of staff, Sue Gray and his transport secretary, Louise Haigh, who quit after it emerged she had been convicted of fraud over a missing work phone.
The Conservative party leader, Kemi Badenoch, has branded Thursday’s speech an “emergency reset”.
But Starmer will say claim that the new “milestones” are the next phase of the “missions” he said would shape a Labour government. But it is also a tacit admission that those missions are being dumped as they were either too woolly or not achievable.
The missions were: achieving the highest growth out of G7 countries, making Britain a “clean energy superpower”, halving serious violent crime, breaking down “barriers to opportunity” and building an NHS “fit for the future”.
No 10 insiders have argued that numerical targets are more memorable for voters. “We’ll be putting them [the missions] into layman’s terms,” said one source last week.
The Guardian has reported that the planned reset is being driven by Morgan McSweeney, who replaced Gray as chief of staff. “Morgan knows our best chance of holding off a populist surge, and winning Keir a second term, is delivering noticeable change to voters,” an ally said.
In his speech on Thursday, Starmer will say: “My government was elected to deliver change, and today marks the next step. People are tired of being promised the world, but short-term sticking plaster politics is letting them down.
