Keir Starmer will begin setting out Labour’s response to the worsening cost of living crisis tomorrow, HuffPost UK can reveal.
The Labour leader will carry out a number of engagements in Edinburgh, where he is expected to trail some elements of the party’s proposals ahead of a full announcement next week.
Starmer has come in for criticism for being on holiday over the past fortnight as the full scale of the crisis has emerged.
Earlier this week, experts forecast that energy bills are set to top £4,200 a year from January.
Former Labour leader Gordon Brown has made a number of interventions setting out how he thinks struggling households should be helped to make ends meet.
Writing in The Guardian, he said: “Time and tide wait for no one. Neither do crises. They don’t take holidays, and don’t politely hang fire – certainly not to suit the convenience of a departing PM and the whims of two potential successors.”
A Labour source rejected suggestions that Brown - who stopped being prime minister in 2010 and hasn’t been an MP since 2015 - had been co-ordinating his interventions with Starmer’s office.
They also insisted that the leader’s appearance tomorrow had been “long planned” and was not a panicked response to the criticism he has received this week.
The source said. “A week may be a long time in politics but we were waiting for the forecasts this week to finalise our plans and have it out well in advance of the price cap announcement on August 26.”
Starmer and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves will announce Labour’s full policy proposal on the cost of living next week.
However, HuffPost UK understands that reports Starmer will also make a speech on Labour’s response to the crisis are wide of the mark.