Keir Starmer dismisses leadership questions - 'I'll be judged on promises in 2029'

Keir Starmer has insisted he’ll be judged on his promises in 2029 as he brushed off leadership questions ahead of next week’s crunch elections. It comes as Downing Street braces for a potentially disastrous set of results in England’s local elections and the devolved administrations of Scotland and Wales. Experts have predicted Labour could lose as many as 1,850 councillors in England - over half the number the party is defending - while losing grip on power in Wales. In an interview with the BBC ’s Today programme - being aired on Saturday - Mr Starmer was asked if we would have the “courage to stand aside” if the results are as bad as the party fears. But the PM replied: “I was elected in July 2024 on a manifesto of change. “It was a five-year term that I won with a landslide victory, and I'll be judged at the end of that period, at the next election, by whether I've delivered on what I promised.” Quizzed on critics who believe it will get better if the party changes leader, Mr Starmer referred to the Iran war crisis and the economic fallout. He said: “The argument I've been making here on this programme about the urgency of the situation we are in, the impact of global events on our economy, that is the argument I'll make this week before the elections on Thursday. “It's the argument I'll make next week and it's the argument that will sit at the heart of what we're doing with the King's Speech and what we intend to do with the next stage of Parliament. “We have to grip this. This is, you know, there's always discussion about who's up and who's down in politics, but we have to see the world as it is and we have to show the leadership that's needed in a world...You know saying the world is more volatile, more dangerous than any time in our lifetimes, is said so many times. “But it's not an abstract political concept. It impacts real lives. And that's why, as I say, I'll make that argument this week, I'll make it next week and the week after, because we promised change, I've got a mandate and I intend to deliver on it.” Referring to the saga over the Peter Mandelson scandal that has rocked the government, the Prime Minister again repeated his insistence that the appointment of the Labour grandee as the UK’s ambassador to Washington was a “mistake, an error, and it was my mistake”. He added: “I have rightly apologised to the victims of Epstein who are not talked about enough in all these debates. So I have taken responsibility. I'm very happy to do so again here and now.” But Mr Starmer also hit out at the Tory-led motion in Parliament this week calling on him to be referred to the Privileges Committee over whether he misled the Commons over the scandal. The Prime Minister said Labour’s political rivals “do not like what the government is doing”. He went on: “Yes, we've brought forward the biggest upgrade in workers' rights, renters' rights. We're fighting child poverty in a way that hasn't been done for a generation. They don't like that. They want to reverse that. They want to undermine and bring the government down. And that's what the politics of this week was about. But it doesn't take away from the fact that I apologise for my error of judgment.”