PRIME Minister Sir Keir Starmer bid to relaunch his floundering government today with a new focus on living standards.

Speaking in a tent at Pinewood film studios, Buckinghamshire, the Prime Minister delivered his latest attempt to explain his purpose by unveiling six “milestones” to gauge delivery on key issues.

Amid declining poll ratings, plunging personal popularity and increasingly restive Labour MPs, the latest initiative is an acknowledgement that the government has fumbled its first months in office.

Sir Keir promised higher living standards, putting more money in working people’s pockets by the end of the parliament with the cost-of-living crisis overcome.

He also reiterated a pledge to build 1.5 million new homes, a target most local authorities and independent experts are sceptical can be met with existing policies.

Other milestones include putting more than 13,000 police on the streets to cut crime and a target of a maximum 18-week wait between referral and treatment in the NHS.

A brand new commitment was to ensure that a record proportion of five-year olds will start school “ready to learn.”

The final milestone reiterates the goal of clean power by 2030, although this seems to have been diluted somewhat to a 95 per cent target.

The six milestones come hot on the heels of Labour’s six commitments, launched just before the election campaign, its five missions agreed two years ago and of course the 10 pledges on which Starmer won the Labour leadership but has since been unceremoniously dumped.

The Prime Minister’s address was delivered in the managerial monotone which appears to be his only register and is the despair of those of his closer associates who recognise the importance of emotional connection in politics.

He claimed that his rather minimalist offering was going to see off the threat of populism, embodied by Nigel Farage’s burgeoning Reform UK party.

“Everyone can see there’s a growing impatience with traditional politics,” he said.

“Everyone can see how people are tired with those who fail to get the job done.

“Populism isn’t the answer to Britain’s challenges. But nobody can deny that this kind of politics feeds off real concerns.”

He became most animated in addressing the blockages to infrastructure and housing developments.

“We haven’t built a reservoir for over 30 years, and even the projects we do approve are fought tooth and nail until you end up with the absurd spectacle of a £100 million bat tunnel holding up the country’s single biggest infrastructure project,” he said, referring to HS2.

He pledged to take on “the Nimbies, the regulators, the blockers, the bureaucrats, the alliance of naysayers,” warning “the government will not accept this nonsense any more.”

Sir Keir also struck a Trumpian tone, accusing many in the Civil Service of being “comfortable in the tepid bath of managed decline” and having lost sight of the country’s interests, although he did not allow that there was not a “swamp” to be drained in Whitehall.

In the Commons, Scottish National Party spokesman Brendan O’Hara put his finger on the relaunch problem, saying: “There is an unmistakeable whiff of panic about it.

“One would have thought that a decade-and-a-half of opposition would have been ample time to prepare a plan for change, rather than the relaunch of a government whose five-year plan seems to have unravelled after just five months.”

However, GMB general secretary Gary Smith said: “Today’s commitment to higher living standards across the board is very welcome. 

“Working people need to feel more money in their pockets and government needs to deliver the changes this country so desperately needs.”

Unison assistant general secretary Jon Richards said: “Repairing the damage wreaked by years of Tory mismanagement is a tough job that will take a while.

“The government has identified the challenges the country faces, now it's time get to grips with them.”

And National Education Union general secretary Daniel Kebede commented: “It is laudable to want to enable all young children to have good early childhoods, but the barriers to this at the moment are many, including poverty and the impact of Covid.

“Talking about children as ‘ready for school’ or not, is hurtful to children and their families and we’d rather see detail about support and capacity building.”