Prime Minister Keir Starmer welcomed the Pride of Britain winners to a Downing Street reception today, after hearing their emotional stories of bravery, kindness and courage
The Prime Minister declared “Britain’s not broken” as he welcomed the winners of this year’s Pride of Britain Awards to Downing Street. Keir Starmer praised “the very best of our country” as he told our worthy winners that their incredible courage, bravery and community action will inspire millions.
The PM was in the audience at the Daily Mirror ’s Pride of Britain Awards, with P&O Cruises, on Monday night, along with his wife Victoria. “The stories, I find them so uplifting,” he told Asha Ali Rage, winner of the Special Recognition award for launching Dream Chasers FC in Small Heath, to help keep teenagers off the streets.
“I always arrive thinking of this problem, that problem, like the world is on my shoulders. But the moment I hear the first story, I think, ‘give your head a wobble’. You’re doing amazing things here,” the Prime Minister went on. “Loads of people sitting in their living rooms may well say, ‘if they can do that, maybe I can do that’.
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“People say, ‘oh Britain’s broken, people don’t care about each other’. But it’s the complete opposite: if given the chance, almost everybody will try to do something for somebody else. Just look around you.”
Upstairs at Number 10 – past a snoozing Larry the cat, who was curled up next to the security guards – the proud winners and their families chatted with Mr Starmer and showed off their brand new shiny trophies. Luke Mortimer, our 12-year-old Child of Courage, put himself forward as the next deputy prime minister, prompting a chuckle from the PM.
“Our first job will be to fix all the potholes,” said Luke. “Then I’m going to get the infrastructure working. And put lots more money into our military, just in case.” And the youngster was thrilled when the PM gave the winners a personal tour of the Cabinet room – and allowed him to sit in the Deputy’s seat.
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“Luke wants to be the Deputy PM, and quite right too,” Mr Starmer told the Mirror. “He is an incredible individual. He was the first of the stories to be told [at the awards], and that’s the moment at which, whoever you are, whatever challenges you think you’ve got in life, you sit up, you listen, you probably shed a tear or two, and just think, ‘that is an incredible individual’.”
Pc Cameron King, who along with Inspector Moloy Campbell and Pc Yasmin Mechem-Whitfield were honoured for their bravery in fighting off a sword-wielding attacker who had just murdered 14-year-old Daniel Anjorin, told the Prime Minister that his team had dealt with three more incidents involving swords since the tragic events in Hainault, east London, last April.
Cameron told the PM that he’d taken three weeks off work after the killer was caught. “I wanted to get back to normality,” he said. “The longer you leave it the harder it is.” Mr Starmer thanked Cameron and his colleagues for their service and selfless bravery.
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Javeno McLean’s parents Audrey and Clyde, and his wife Laura, were there to watch the P&O Inspiration award-winner shake hands with Mr Starmer. “I feel elated,” said Audrey. Later, Clyde hugged the PM after the fellow Arsenal fan made appreciative comments about his red and white striped tie.
“I’m trying my best to take it all in,” said Javeno. “The only time I’ve made a New Year ’s resolution was to slow down, reflect and absorb, and that’s what I’m trying to do today. Just soak it all in.”
And Ellis Leggatt, 26, a member of the Ups & Downs Choir, had a sweet reunion with Mr Starmer after pulling him for a cheeky selfie at the awards ceremony. “He’s got no filter,” his mum Lorna Leggatt grinned. “Not many people would ask the Prime Minister for a selfie, but he just went for it!”
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Speaking to the Mirror, Mr Starmer said it was “fantastic” to show the winners and their families around Downing Street. “To be able to say to them, ‘this is the centre of government, you’re not guests here – you’re entitled to be here’, because they’re the very best of our country, so that was amazing to have them in the Cabinet room downstairs, it was a fantastic moment,” he said.
“I find each of them inspiring and humbling in equal measures, and I think that telling their stories is so important. They will reach the country through the programme, and through what the Mirror is doing, and I think that’s fantastic.
“There will be millions of people – and this is what I’ve said to pretty well all of them – who will now hear about that and be inspired by it. These are millions of [people] that they’ll never meet, but whose lives will be changed by hearing the brilliant things that they’ve done.
“I find it literally humbling.”
Leanne Pero MBE, founder of The Leanne Pero Foundation
The winner of the Special Recognition award and breast cancer survivor asked the PM to look into better cancer screening for women under 40
“Keir Starmer was really receptive, he was saying, ‘you’re here and you should talk about these important things and it’s our job to take it seriously’,” she said.
“He’s asked me to be in touch with his team. In my work, what I’m seeing is young girls under 40 being misdiagnosed and are now living with terminal cancer. It’s not OK. We should not be getting young women, who are just about to start the prime of their lives, being diagnosed with cancers that are treatable if they’re caught early.
“And that shows that there’s a problem. There’s a problem with them not being believed. There’s a problem with screening for these cancers. And there’s a problem with referring these women on. It’s also [about] educating these women on knowing what their normal is and feeling like they are being represented in literature and advertisements around signs and symptoms of cancer, because there’s this huge feeling that they’re excluded from the narrative.
“[We hear] ‘Oh, I’m too young to get cancer’ or ‘Black women like me don’t usually get cancer’. And that’s what a lot of people have felt for many, many years. That’s what our charity is here to do, to really change that stigma and to really educate people in our community.
“That, actually, cancer can happen to anyone at any age and it doesn’t exclude.”
Pictures by Humphrey Nemar.
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