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'25 bold ideas for Keir Starmer which can inject real hope for brighter Britain'

After the Prime Minister's appeal for ideas to bring growth, Real Britain columnist Ros Wynne-Jones offers 25 ways Labour can reform the country and make things feel better again

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Free school meals is the most powerful mechanism for tackling inequality hungry kids cant learn(Image: Getty Images)

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has written to the UKs main regulators asking for inspiration on how to grow the economy. New ideas are desperately needed.

As the PM faces down the consequences of 14 years of austerity from overflowing prisons and sewage dumped in rivers to the now annual NHS winter crisis this is a make-or-break five months leading to the May 1 local elections.

Its not just that things need to get better, they need to feel better too. So here are 25 bold ideas that can inject real hope for a brighter Britain.

1 Pop-up dental clinics sorting the nations teeth. See Lancashire lad Stan Brocks Remote Area Medical in the US for inspiration, but make it state-funded. Pioneer use of remote consultations to get things moving.

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3 Knee-ting-gale Hospitals a reinvented Nightingale Hospital model to get the backlog of hip and knee replacement ops tackled urgently, with supported recovery beds.

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5 Create a Citizens Assembly on Immigration. The debate is now too poisoned to continue. Stop playing catch-up with toxic Tory rhetoric and craft your own story around compassionate-but-fair Labour values. Open a safer process so people can apply for asylum from abroad instead of getting into dinghies.

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7 Make peace with Britains pensioners urgently before the country freezes. Apologise for how reforms to the winter fuel allowance were handled, and for the betrayal of WASPI women, and set out a New Deal for Older People so they can grow old safely and with dignity.

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9 Free school meals. This will make a tangible difference to millions of families and is the most powerful mechanism for tackling inequality. Timidity is not working be bold with 4.3 million children living in poverty in our wealthy country. Hungry kids cant learn.

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11 Create a standalone Communities Minister who sits in the cabinet. Last summers riots are evidence enough that years of demonising rhetoric and austerity has left parts of our country bitterly divided. A great job for a backbencher like Kim Leadbeater, who understands the terrible consequences of division.

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13 Lords Reform use the House of Citizens model created by 858.org.uk to fill one third of the seats with ordinary citizens, as with jury service. This would be a genuine revolution. If incumbency is a political problem, fight it with radical change.

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15 Give asylum seekers the right to work while they wait for their asylum claim, ending the need for hotels or welfare. This will bring savings for the taxpayer while restoring dignity to peoples lives.

16special educational needs (SEN) crisis

17 A public health response to the drug and addiction crisis facing the country. Get treatment programmes working. Get Britain well again. End the cycle of poverty, poor mental health and addiction.

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19 Bring in a Rights of Nature Act giving legal recognition to nature. Future generations will judge this government on the actions it took on the climate emergency. One day soon, this will be the only measurement of whether your government mattered.

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21 Tackle the tech giants. Elon Musks tentacles are ever more tangled up in our political future. We fail to regulate now at our peril.

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23 Wealth taxes. This is a Labour government. Let those with the greatest shoulders bear the greatest burden. Be the tide that floats all boats. Whats the point of that mountainous majority otherwise?

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25 Commission artists to write a story of our national identity Dear England playwright James Graham would be the perfect choice to lead the project. For too long, patriotic ideas have been dominated by the Tory right and the Far Right. Theres another story to tell. Lets start telling it.

[Ros Wynne-Jones]

Ros Wynne-Jones

Ros Wynne-Jones writes the Real Britain column every Friday in the Daily Mirror campaigning against government cuts and standing up for ordinary people.

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