Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer revealed he used to literally do ‘hard labour’ on Tuesday, June 18, when he pitched up in a Woolhampton cricket club on the campaign trail in West Berkshire.
He was keen to demonstrate he understood the countryside, and when asked if Labour ‘got’ rural issues, he explained he used to work on a farm, shifting rocks out of fields to stop the plough blades breaking.
But he neatly sidestepped how far up his agenda a total ban on legal trail hunting would be, should his party get the vote on July 4.
Around 80 supporters got the sunny afternoon off work to cheer on Olivia Bailey, the Labour candidate for the newly formed constituency, which straddles a chunk of Reading, and the vast rural and agricultural landscape of West Berkshire.
Apart from a couple of opening whoopsies – saying he was pleased to be in Reading (Woolhampton actually) and fluffing his constituency candidate’s name.
Sir Keir is Ms Bailey’s old boss. She used to be one of his aides.
So his opening gaffe of heralding Olivia Blake instead of Olivia Bailey in his introduction was a squeaky little moment, but was dealt with, corrected and apologised for in a chuckle and a big hug for Olivia.
“She used to work for me, you know,” he said.
“She is a brilliant candidate here and will be an even more brilliant MP when we get that over the line on July 4.”
Ahem and moving swiftly on.
The mood was understandably buoyant in the Labour campaign team – perhaps working in the knowledge of latest poll figures from Electoral Calculus predicting a Labour win over the Conservatives of 39.1% to 35.6%.
In his election campaign stump speech to the party faithful on the cricket lawn, Sir Keir rattled through the manifesto headlines.
The NHS, getting those appointments ‘so we can get waiting lists down’, better schools ‘to give every person the best chance wherever they are’.
Getting the police to crack down on anti-social behaviour. Great British Energy.
Afterwards, he was questioned around a perceived dichotomy of Labour’s intended policies on driving for net zero and energy security by massively boosting renewable energy.
How does the backdrop of the proliferation of planning applications for huge solar farms on agricultural land sit with ‘getting the countryside?’
“Let me start by saying I grew up in the country, in a village on the Surrey/Kent border. So I am a country boy. My first job was on a farm. I was the official head picker upper of stones – which is a really hard job to do by the way,” he said.
“I don’t agree the urban rural split is that stark. If you take housing, for example, in rural areas young people need housing they can afford. We don’t want to ride rough shod over communities, but we do want to make sure villages and towns can thrive.
“At the moment, there are too many villages where there are high streets with not much left on them. There might be a pub. We want banking hubs in there, and to keep business rates at the right level, but also make sure there is housing that is affordable, so young people don’t feel they have to move away.”
But at what point does he decide that energy security is more important than food security?
“We have to have food security,” he said. “We have an ambition to have more locally home-grown food.
“The Government does have some levers to pull on some of the big food procurement projects to say that a much bigger percentage of that has to come from the UK. We can drive up the demand there, and we will be working with farmers to get the balance right.”
Ms Bailey chipped in on the ‘Labour gets the countryside’ tip saying she was keen to protect the chalk streams in the area, and get sewage out of the rivers.
“And yes, there has been a lot of housebuilding around here, but without the infrastructure in place, so that is something we will focus on,” she said.
Sir Keir – and perhaps interestingly Sir Keir’s people marshalling the interviews – would not permit a push question on how this might be achieved, but the Labour leader did keep returning to the countryside as a key part of Labour’s thinking.
“We have been to villages across the country, and one of the things that is raised with us all the time is that there is no banking anymore,” he added.
“This particularly concerns older people who are more familiar with cash. Banking hubs are so important to keep communities together.”
Maybe he doesn’t get to talk about it enough, but the countryside question kept delivering unprompted commentary from Sir Keir – looking remarkably fresh from a campaigning day which started in London, went to Basingstoke (for that pint in a pub moment) and ended up in a Woolhampton cricket pavilion.
“Another thing about the countryside – we have to fix these potholes,” he said. “The amount of people have said to me it costs hundred of pounds to get their car fixed. We have a plan to fix that, we can get to that on day one.”
No time to probe on that, as he makes his way back to the battle bus with his entourage.
And no time to find out if he knows the price of a pint of milk.
Next time.
Editor’s note – Reading Today was not invited to join Sir Keir Starmer’s visit to the Reading West and Mid Berkshire seat. This report is provided by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
