UK prime minister contrasts his leadership with the past but warns of painful choices ahead

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U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer sought Tuesday to draw a contrast between his new government and the past, saying the solution to the country’s problems is in working together and not in continuing to stoke tensions in society.

Starmer said the riots that convulsed the nation earlier this summer betrayed “the cracks in our society” after 14 years of Conservative-led government. But the prime minister, who took office in July after a landslide election victory, also found hope in the way many people united to oppose the violence.

“The riots didn’t just betray the sickness, they also revealed the cure, found not in the cynical conflict of populism but in the coming together of a country,'' Starmer said. “The people who got together the morning after all around the country — with their brooms, their shovels, their trowels — and cleared up their community. They reminded us who we really are.''

Starmer spoke in the rose garden of his official Downing Street residence in an effort to underscore the differences between his administration and those of his Conservative predecessors.

The garden was the scene of two events that angered voters during the COVID-19 pandemic. First, a senior adviser to former Prime Minister Boris Johnson held a news conference in the garden as he tried to justify a lockdown-breaking trip to the country. Later, Johnson and other officials held a wine-and-cheese party in the garden at a time when most people were stuck in their homes.

As he sought to further distance himself from his Conservative Party predecessors, Starmer warned that the upcoming October budget would be “painful.” He argued that “things are worse than we ever imagined” because of a 22 billion pound ($29.1 billion) “black hole” in the public finances.

Those with the "broadest shoulders'' would have to bear the greatest burden, he said.

"We have no other choice, given the situation that we’re in,'' he said.