Starmer's 'project hope' as he and Sunak gear up for election campaign

SIR KEIR STARMER sought to portray Labour as the party of hope today as he vowed to take on the Tories in a general election fought over the economy.

- Nicholas Cecil

The Labour leader and Rishi Sunak both hit the road for regional visits as the parties gear up for what will effectively be a 10-month campaign ahead of an autumn election.

Speaking in Bristol, Sir Keir trumpeted what he called "Project Hope", littering his speech with 18 mentions of "hope" as he laid out his vision to drag Britain out of the cost-of-living crisis and restore its crumbling public services. He stressed Labour was ready for the "responsibility of serious government" and that it would seek to "bring the country together" in a "spirit of national unity" after 14 years of Conservative rule.

In echoes of Sir Tony Blair's "things can only get better", he appealed to voters to "hold onto the flickering hope in your heart that things can be better" and promised a "politics that treads a little lighter" after the divisions over Brexit and culture wars. He added: "To truly defeat this miserabilist Tory project, we

must crush their politics of divide and decline with a new Project Hope." Mr Sunak was giving a rival New Year stump speech, in the East Midlands, arguing that voters should not risk a Labour government.