Once again the No 10 communications operation is breaking down. Starmer told broadcast journalists yesterday night that someone who works and also gets income from shares or property “wouldn’t come within my definition” of a “working person.” Today his spokesman clarified that “a person who holds a small amount of savings in stocks and shares still counts as a working person.” Guido cast his mind back to before 5^th July, when Labour made a specific pledge in its manifesto: “Labour will not increase taxes on working people”…

These are the definitions of “working people” the public was given prior to the election:

• Reeves: “Working people are people who go out to work and work for their incomes. Sort of by definition, really, working people are those people who go out and work and earn their money through hard work. Some people, who go out to work haven’t been able to build up savings. Many other people who go out to work, have had to run down their savings. But there are people who do have savings, who have been able to save up and those are working people as well.“
• Starmer:  “Yes, I’m a working person, I come within my own definition of a working person, which is earning my living, paying my taxes and knowing what it means to save money.”
• Reeves: “Working people are people who get their income from going out to work everyday, and also pensioners that have worked all their lives and are now in retirement, drawing down on their pensions.“

Compare that to now, days before the budget.

• Starmer: “I have in my mind the sort of people that go out, earn their living, have maybe a bit of savings, but not huge savings. And there when things get a bit tough, they can’t simply get a cheque book out and sort of write their way out of the problems that they’re facing. It’s those people that are working hard, saving where they can. Of course, I think most people try to do that where they can, although it’s difficult. But [it’s] the sort of people that have the anxiety I suppose in the bottom of their stomach that should something happen to them or their family, they know they can’t simply write a cheque to get themselves out of any future difficulty. They’re the people I have most in mind when I make the decisions I make.”
• Bryant: “[Working people] has become a shorthand in political circles for the people who were particularly disadvantaged in the cost of living crisis…that suddenly meant that people had to find an extra £300 a month for their mortgages so those are the people that we didn’t want to hit, so we wanted to say in the general election we don’t want to take more tax from you and that’s what we said.”
• Kinnock: “Obviously the definitions have to be seen in the round and that’s what’s going to be put on the table.”

Spot the difference? They did promise change…