Labour’s new general secretary says Keir Starmer’s party faces ‘1945 moment’

David Evans, who replaces Jennie Formby running the party, has said that with the country emerging from lockdown it faces the prospect of an ‘imminent recession’.

The former branch and constituency secretary, as well as Labour councillor, claimed that the party could come out of the pandemic facing the same potential as after World War II when Clement Attlee was elected on a landslide victory.

At the time Labour’s 1945 manifesto pledged to create the welfare state to end wartime austerity, with Attlee also introducing the National Health Service Act which led to the formation of the NHS.

Evans said that under Starmer’s leadership Labour could ‘capture the imagination and support of the country’.

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He wrote: ‘As we slowly emerge from lockdown, facing the prospect of an imminent recession, we approach a moment of unprecedented national importance. Only together, with the entire strength of our movement, can we rise to the challenge.

‘I said at my interview for this job that it could be our 1945 moment. A set of bold Labour policies that square up to the devastation the Tories have wreaked, and great support for our local campaigns from a first-class professional team really could capture the imagination and support of the country.’

It comes as new polling shows that Starmer is the preferred candidate for prime minister, as the leader of the opposition’s perception with the public continues to rise.