Advertisement
Become a member of the Big Issue community
JOIN
Press Release

Starmer promises to “be as bold as Attlee” in Big Issue exclusive challenging leaders on poverty crisis

Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, Ed Davey and John Swinney face a grilling on how they would eradicate poverty in this week’s Big Issue, out today

Inside the Big Issue

Today’s Big Issue (24 June) sees four UK party leaders – Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, John Swinney and Ed Davey – challenged on how they’ll end UK poverty if elected on July 4, with Big Issue vendors pitching in with their own questions.

Starmer says he has bold ambitions if, as the polls suggest, Labour emerges victorious. “I’ll be as bold as Attlee,” he tells the Big Issue. “I ran a public service during austerity, I saw the impact of the Tories’ decisions. There will be no return to austerity with a Labour government. We’ll have a decade of national renewal instead, with ambitious investment and reform.”

With 3.8 million Brits currently living in destitution, unable to feed, clothe and keep themselves warm 1, each party leader was questioned by the Big Issue on what they’d do if they encountered a parent, clearly in desperate need, stealing baby formula to feed their child.

“I’d offer to pay it,” Starmer says; “The desperation of families around the country should make the Tories feel nothing but shame.”

The Prime Minister disagrees. “Shoplifting is not a victimless crime, and we’ll always support shopkeepers to prevent theft,” says Rishi Sunak. “At the same time, we will continue to help parents with the cost of living.”

“I’d try and try to persuade [the parent] not to, obviously,” Liberal Democrats leader Ed Davey tells the Big Issue. “Try and find them other help, that would be the best way of doing it.”

Advertisement
Advertisement

“I’d discreetly offer to pay for the formula as no parent should ever have to face this situation,” says SNP leader and Scottish First Minister John Swinney. “Sadly this is not hypothetical – I meet with my constituents, and people across Scotland, every week who face this kind of hardship.”

How will the parties truly look to end poverty? Sunak says: “Work is the best way out of poverty, as Big Issue shows, and our welfare reforms have helped around four million more people move into work since 2010.”

Starmer, contrastingly, promises an “ambitious, wide-ranging child poverty strategy” and that a Labour government will “give all children in primary school free breakfast, protect renters from arbitrary eviction, slash fuel poverty and ensure work is decent and secure for all.”

All four party leaders were asked questions by Big Issue vendors. George Anderson (London) asks Sunak about why the Tory government has removed the increase in universal credit, while Josh Clarke (Bristol) questions Starmer on whether a Labour government would turn to abandoned buildings to house homeless people. You can read their answers in full in this week’s Big Issue.

Another question sees Rishi Sunak pressed on whether he’d rather have coffee with Keir Starmer or Nigel Farage, which he swerves in favour of a different companion. “I don’t know either of them very well. Keir Starmer hasn’t kept the same position longer than it takes him to drink a coffee and I don’t know Nigel Farage at all. I’d rather have a coffee with [Big Issue founder] John Bird!”

Starmer also dodges the question. He says instead he’d “get a takeaway and leave [Sunak and Farage] at the coffee shop to argue over which of them should be leader of the Tory party.”

To read the Big Issue’s leader interviews in full, buy this week’s Big Issue. You can find your local vendor to buy a copy, or subscribe online, at bigissue.com.

[1] 3.8 million people experienced destitution in 2022, including around one million children: https://www.jrf.org.uk/deep-poverty-and-destitution/destitution-in-the-uk-2023

Advertisement

Become a Big Issue member

3.8 million people in the UK live in extreme poverty. Turn your anger into action - become a Big Issue member and give us the power to take poverty to zero.

Recommended for you

View all
Big Issue Community Roadshow coming to Newcastle
Press Release

Big Issue Community Roadshow coming to Newcastle

Research finds that over half of UK adults (54%) think the government is not doing enough for people in poverty  
Press Release

Research finds that over half of UK adults (54%) think the government is not doing enough for people in poverty  

65,000 people facing systemic inequities supported by over £1.8mil of Growth Impact Fund investments
Big Issue Invest

65,000 people facing systemic inequities supported by over £1.8mil of Growth Impact Fund investments

“My mum found out I was gay through an act of emotional sabotage”: The Chase’s Paul Sinha on being cruelly outed and suffering racial abuse as a teen
Paul Sinha with husband Oliver Levy
Press Release

“My mum found out I was gay through an act of emotional sabotage”: The Chase’s Paul Sinha on being cruelly outed and suffering racial abuse as a teen

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know
4.

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know