Exclusive: Labour leader urges left to ‘care more about growth’ and rules out spending ‘vast sums of money’

• Labour will rebuild broken Britain with big reforms, not big spending. That’s a promise | Keir Starmer

Labour will only succeed in winning power and rebuilding Britain if it prioritises economic growth, wealth creation and radical reform of public services over reckless spending promises, says Keir Starmer.

With four days to go before a crucial set of parliamentary byelections, the Labour leader delivers the most robust defence to date of his strategy for returning his party to power after 13 years, in an exclusive article for the Observer. Starmer takes on, directly, those who say his agenda is dull and uninspiring, insisting that the hard grind of rebuilding economic credibility must come first, as opposed to Labour retreating to its normal “comfort zone” of promising “vast sums of money”.