UK leader Starmer will outline his ‘Plan for Change.’ Just don’t call it a relaunch

LONDON — British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is trying to change the narrative on his five-month-old government after plummeting approval ratings, business anxiety over tax hikes and protesting farmers clogging London streets.

Conservative opposition leader Kemi Badenoch calls it an “emergency reset” by a floundering administration.

But Starmer’s office says the “Plan for Change” speech the prime minister will deliver on Thursday is not a relaunch or about-face, but “the next phase” in his government plan, intended to persuade voters that the government is making their lives better.

Starmer’s center-left Labour Party was elected in Jul — ending 14 years of Conservative government — on a promise to get Britain’s sluggish economy growing and restore frayed public services such as the state-funded National Health Service. But it has been criticized, including by Labour supporters, for failing to show people how their lives will improve any time soon.

The speech will set out “milestones” for measuring progress on economic growth, clean energy, reforming childcare and education, bolstering the NHS and cutting crime. It includes a pledge of 13,000 more neighborhood police officers within five years.

Starmer’s office said he will say that “hard-working Brits … reasonably want a stable economy, their country to be safe, their borders secure, more cash in their pocket, safer streets in their town, opportunities for their children, secure British energy in their home, and an NHS that is there when they need it.”

The government hopes to reverse a slew of negative headlines over its economic decisions — taken, it says, because the previous Conservative government left a 22 billion pound ($28 billion) “black hole” in the public finances.

Spending cuts have included removing from millions of retirees a payment that helps cover winter heating costs – a move that sat awkwardly with revelations that Starmer had accepted clothes and other freebies at a time when millions of people are struggling with the cost of living

The government’s first budget in late October included billions in new money for the health system, but also hiked a tax paid by employers, to the alarm of many businesses, and imposed inheritance tax on farmers for the first time in decades.

Thousands of farmers thronged the streets around Parliament in November to protest a levy they say will ruin many family farms. The government says three-quarters of farms won’t have…