KEIR Starmer has defended his leadership of the Labour Party as polls suggest he is struggling to overhaul support for the Conservatives during the coronavirus pandemic.

The Labour leader acknowledged his party had a “mountain to climb” after the crushing defeat under Jeremy Corbyn in the last general election but insisted it had made “a step in the right direction”.

Early warning signals are ringing among some Labour supporters, with the party not overturning the Tories’ lead despite the UK having one of the highest death tolls from Covid-19 in the world.

Instead, opinion polls have put the two parties on similar levels in recent months after Labour sank to 32% in the 2019 election compared to the Conservatives’ 43%.

After a difficult week for Sir Keir, which saw polls give Boris Johnson and his party a “vaccine bounce,” he insisted Labour’s “priorities are in the right place”.

He cited the party’s campaigning against a Universal Credit cut and dangerous cladding and noted he “started in a very poor place a year or so ago”.

In a pub in Thurrock in Essex after a visit to Basildon town centre, Sir Keir said: “We’re now getting to a position where on the polls we’re about even, so that’s a step in the right direction.

“But we’ve got a long way to go between now and 2024 and we’re going to be working hard at this with real determination, every day, every week, every month, every year, into that election in 2024.”

Asked about concerns over his leadership, Sir Keir said: “The vast majority of our party and our movement are behind what we’re doing.”

The latest polls put Labour as having 38% of the vote in Great Britain compared to the Tories’ 41%.

But with the next general election likely to be years away, Sir Keir faces a more immediate test during the Holyrood poll in Scotland and England’s local elections in May.

Last week, he was forced to apologise after falsely denying having previously supported the UK remaining a member of the European Medicines Agency after Brexit.

After accusing the Prime Minister of talking “complete nonsense” during Prime Minister’s Questions, Sir Keir said he had “misheard” Mr Johnson’s charge in retracting his remarks.

At the weekend, Scottish peer Lord Falcone, the Shadow Attorney General, also had to apologise for previously having described the Covid-19 pandemic as “a gift that keeps on giving” for lawyers.

Meanwhile, the Opposition said that in government it would “clean up cronyism” and deliver the “biggest wave of insourcing of public services for a generation”.

Rachel Reeves, the Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, accused the Conservatives of being “rife with conflicts of interest” as she urged firms awarded contracts during the pandemic with Tory links to disclose their profits.

Labour research suggested the value of contracts awarded to companies with connections to the Tories amounts to almost £2 billion.

During a speech, Ms Reeves revealed she had written to the top 10 firms with Tory connections that had secured contracts during the Covid crisis in a bid to unveil their profit levels.

“We deserve to know how and if friends and donors of the Tory Party have cashed in on a national emergency. This is no way to run our country and we need answers,” declared the Leeds MP.

Allegra Stratton, the PM’s Press Secretary, hit back, saying the finance watchdog, the National Audit Office, had made clear there was “no evidence of ministerial involvement in procurement decisions or contract management,” adding: “We have robust rules and processes in place to make sure there is no conflict of interest.”