RUSHES: Sir Keir Starmer interview

Sir Keir Starmer interview; Part 1 of 2ENGLAND: London:EXTSir Keir Starmer MP (Labour Party Leader) interview SOT- We're here to support the high street and to make the case that as we come out of the pandemic our high streets must survive and thrive, and for that we in the Labour Party are saying we need empty shop orders where if anything is empty it can be taken over by the council, put new business in there and make it absolutely thrive / we need a review of business rates which has been promised for a very very long time and hasn't happened and we need to support our high streets through this, they were struggling into the pandemic and they'll struggle out of the pandemic if we don't support themQ: Surely country needs change in the way we shop- Well what we need to do is to support and encourage businesses that are on the high street and a lot of them are struggling after the pandemic / we need to make sure there's money in the local economy, that's why I think the government's position of freezing public sector pay, of cutting the pay for frontline NHS staff is so misguided, it's wrong in principle but also it takes money out of the local economy / so we need support in for those businesses because high streets are places of pride, they're where people want to go to come together, we need to maintain that and we can maintain that by supporting them on the one hand, and putting money into the local economy on the other Q: Reaction to events in Bristol last night, is police bill too extreme- The events in Bristol last night were shocking and complete unacceptable and incapable of justicification, I think anybody looking at those scenes would say that that cannot be justified in any circumstances / I spoke to the Mayor of Bristol this morning, Marvin Rees, and he told me just how angry people in Bristol are that this has happened in their city - they've been through a hell of a lot in the last year and this is just completely unacceptabl...