Starmer says he cannot ‘turn the taps on’ to fix council funding crisis

Keir Starmer: ‘There’s no magic money tree.’ Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/PA

Keir Starmer has told voters he cannot “turn the taps on” to fix the crisis in local authority funding as he was quizzed on how Labour would plug councils’ £4bn gap at the launch of its local election campaign.

“I can’t pretend that we could turn the taps on, pretend the damage hasn’t been done to the economy – it has,” he said. “There’s no magic money tree that we can waggle the day after the election. No, they’ve broken the economy, they’ve done huge damage.”