UK PM to Outline 'Plan for Change'     12/05 06:10

   

   LONDON (AP) -- 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 to pay inheritance tax under the new rules.

   Starmer also lost a member of his Cabinet last week, when Transport 
Secretary Louise Haigh resigned over an old fraud conviction involving a cell 
phone she'd reported stolen.

   The bad news has sent Starmer's poll ratings plunging deep into negative 
territory -- though the opposition Conservatives are no more popular.

   Starmer has had more success abroad, where he is trying to reset Britain's 
relations with its European neighbors following years of acrimony over Brexit. 
But efforts to move closer to the bloc risk angering incoming President Donald 
Trump, who is hostile to the EU and has threatened to impose tariffs on 
European goods,

   Members of Starmer's government have been strongly critical of Trump in the 
past, but the Labour government has worked to build ties with the 
president-elect. Before the U.S. election, Starmer flew to New York for dinner 
with the then-Republican presidential candidate.

   "When President Trump graciously hosted me for dinner in Trump Tower, I told 
him that we will invest more deeply than ever in this transatlantic bond with 
our American friends in the years to come," Starmer said in a foreign-policy 
speech on Monday.

   Starmer rejected the idea "that we must choose between our allies, that 
somehow we're with either America or Europe."

   "The national interest demands that we work with both," he said.