Keir Starmer brands Rishi Sunak as "out of touch" with ordinary people

Keir Starmer has joined the chorus of those who think prime minister Rishi Sunak is “out of touch”.

Speaking at the New Statesman’s Politics Live event, the Labour leader said Sunak “doesn’t get it” when it comes to the concerns of ordinary working people, hampering his leadership abilities.

“I don’t criticise him for his wealth”, he said.

But added: “I think he is out of touch, he doesn’t get it.”

“Sometimes you do need to know how it feels to sit at the kitchen table and not know how you are going to pay your bills,” he added and outlined his own working-class background set him apart from Sunak in this way.

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

In a wide-ranging interview, the leader of the opposition also said the cost of living crisis was the main issue in politics today.

While he acknowledge that it was partly due to Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine and the recovery from the coronavirus crisis, he said: “the UK always gets hit the hardest.”

For this, he blamed the Conservatives being in power for 13 years, as well as former prime minister Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget and the government’s failure to deal with the energy crisis.

As for Brexit, while he acknowledged it is “harder to trade with our EU partners now,” he reaffirmed his commitment to “make Brexit work”.

“The task of rebuilding our country is now urgent,” he said.

We couldn’t agree more.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.