RAIL workers’ union general secretary Mick Lynch told Labour’s leaders yesterday that many voters cannot “spot the difference” between Labour and the Tories.

The RMT leader called on Sir Keir Starmer and his team “to show some clear water between themselves and The Daily Mail and the Telegraph – and themselves and the Conservatives.”

His comments came in an interview for Sky’s Sophie Ridge on Sunday programme, as Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner said that she is “not for nationalising something that is going to cost us a load of money that we haven’t got when we’ve got kids starving and in poverty.”

Mr Lynch said: “It’s a shame that Labour and others can’t show that they’re distinct from the kind of consensus that’s got us into this trouble where working people are struggling, the cost-of-living crisis seems to be ignored by the political class to certain extent.”

He called on Sir Keir “to show that he’s on the side of working people and progressive politics and I don’t think we’re seeing that.

“He should be saying something about workers’ rights,” Mr Lynch said.

“He should say stuff about funding the NHS, national care service, looking after people who are struggling in the housing market, council houses for the masses, controlling rents, addressing all sorts of stuff about what’s going to happen in the imbalance in our society.

“He’s not saying any of that, he won’t dare mention the word socialism, I want to hear that word mentioned frequently and I want to see a redistribution of wealth in our society, because there are a lot of very wealthy people and there are too many very poor people.

“And now people in the middle of being squeezed as well, with rents and mortgages skyrocketing, he doesn’t seem to be on the side of the people of this country.”

Labour is also under pressure from its biggest donor union Unite, whose general secretary Sharon Graham said recently that the union wants renationalisation of steel and energy companies to be near the top of the party’s priority list.

Sir Keir said yesterday that “a Labour government always will invest in our public services” but reneged on a pledge to end the Tory two-child benefit cap, saying Labour would keep it.