In an interview in the Times, Keir Starmer has said he believes that elections are won from the “centre ground”, because that is where most people in the country are.

He told the newspaper “I think you win from the centre ground, the centre ground is where most people are. As a nation, broadly speaking we’re a pretty reasonable, tolerant bunch but we are in the centre ground of politics. People don’t like the extremes of the right or the left. They are reasonably tolerant. They want themselves, their families and the country to improve and make progress.”

Stressing his message that he has changed the Labour party, he said you did not have to be a lifelong Labour supporter to be part of his mission. He said “One of the invitations we’ve thrown out is to say we want a decade of national renewal. The national bit is really important to people. This isn’t a tribal Labour. You don’t have to be a lifelong Labour supporter and voter to want to have a decade of national renewal. Very many Tories would want it. I want it to be wide enough to accommodate people who wouldn’t identify as Labour. They’d vote Labour this time.”

Starmer told the Times that he wanted “politics that treads a little lighter on all our lives”, saying many politicians had become “too self-entitled”. He said “There would be a mindset shift if we are privileged enough to come and serve.”

He said he believed Labour needed to pass a test in the eyes of voters on whether it could trusted primarily on the economy and on security.