Starmer's veiled swipe at Corbyn during business speech
Sir Keir Starmer begins his address to senior executives with a veiled swipe at his predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, asking the audience if they “would go” to a similar event if invited in 2019. Addressing a conference in central London, Sir Keir insists Labour “is the party of business”. Report by Blairm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00 You cast your mind back to 2019.
00:03 Let's imagine that you were invited to an event like this,
00:08 a Labour business conference,
00:11 before any of the changes to our party had taken place.
00:15 The question is, would you go?
00:18 Would you, as a wealth creator, feel that your ambition,
00:24 the vital role you play in our economy,
00:26 commanded the respect it deserves?
00:29 Now, don't worry, they're called rhetorical questions
00:32 for a reason.
00:34 And this isn't an audience participation event,
00:36 so I'm looking around the room, put your glitter away.
00:40 But doesn't that thought just show the scale
00:45 of the journey that we've been on?
00:48 The depth of the changes we've made
00:50 to transform the Labour Party's relationship with business?
00:55 It's something that I take immense pride in.
00:58 This has always been one of the key tasks in my project,
01:02 to return Labour to the service of working people.
01:06 Because we know that in the real world,
01:10 working people want success as well as support.
01:14 They want a government capable of matching their aspirations,
01:18 understand completely that private enterprise
01:21 is how we pay our way in the world.
01:25 So all the hard work that's taken us to this point,
01:28 it's vindication, a recognition of that guiding belief,
01:33 not just that Labour could be the party of business,
01:38 that Labour should be the party of business,
01:42 that now also, four years on, Labour is the party of business.