No Quick Fix If Labour Wins Election - Starmer

Keir Starmer has warned there will be no "quick fix" to the deep problems he will inherit if Labour wins the next election, unveiling his party's six election pledges amid a fanfare of endorsements from senior public figures.

- Jessica Elgot, Aletha Adu

The Labour leader said "most reasonable, tolerant people" in the country wanted what his party wanted for Britain, before he received an extraordinary endorsement from Boots' chief executive, Sebastian James, an Old Etonian who was a member of the Bullingdon Club alongside David Cameron.

James, who is pictured in the infamous Bullingdon Club photograph alongside Cameron and Boris Johnson, appeared in a video message endorsing Rachel Reeves' plans for economic stability.

The Labour leader told the launch event in Essex, attended by the entire shadow cabinet:

"There is no quick fix to the mess that the Tories have made of this country."

But he said the public could expect to see his six pledges materialise within two terms of a Labour government, noting: "We won't be forgiven if we're not prepared on day one, if we are privileged enough to come in to serve."

The Labour leader rejected suggestions the pledges were unambitious, saying that restoring stability must be the party's first step before it embarks on any more ambitious plans. "This is a very different moment to 1997, after the damage that's been done in the last 14 years," he said.

Starmer said he had recently spoken to a couple in Wolverhampton who had decided they could not afford to have a second child.

"I'm not prepared to let an incoming Labour government ever do that kind of damage to working people," he told the audience. "That's why I can hardly believe I'm saying this: stability is change, and that's why it has to be our first step."