MPs stayed on-message, fringe events were packed and businesses wanted to get involved at a conference that passed by with barely a hitch

In the hotel bar on the last night of Labour conference in Liverpool on Tuesday, one senior aide of Keir Starmer was taking soundings from journalists about how they felt the annual gathering had gone.

The adviser nodded along when they said that it had been a competent and professional affair but it was only when one reporter replied that it had also been “a bit boring” that he broke out into a big grin. “That’s the right answer,” he said.

Labour leader says his speech was an attempt to give the public hope after ‘13 years of decline’

Good morning. Keir Starmer has been doing an interview round this morning, and he used a striking phrase when he described what he was trying to do with his conference speech yesterday. He said he was trying to reach “the inner soul of the British public”.

He told Radio 5 Live:

What I was trying to do yesterday was not so much lay out layers and layers of detailed policy, we have done quite a lot of policy in the last year or so.

What I was trying to do was to reach, if you like, the inner soul of the British public who have had 13 years of decline, 13 years of hope almost beaten out of them, and to say we can go forward, what is ruined can be rebuilt, wounds do heal and if we set our face to it we can have a decade of national renewal.

Leader defends lack of new announcements but says ‘another bit of policy wasn’t what was needed’

Keir Starmer has said he is “bomb-proofing” all of his policy pledges to ensure a Labour government does not break promises, as he defended the lack of new announcements in his speech to the party conference.

On a broadcast round the day after his speech in Liverpool appealed to disgruntled Conservative voters to switch support, the Labour leader said his main feeling was defiance when a protester invaded the stage at the start of the address and sprinkled him with glitter.

In keynote conference speech, party leader sets out vision of Labour undoing damage of 13 years of Conservative rule

• UK politics live – latest updates

Keir Starmer has made a direct appeal for “despairing” Conservative voters to back Labour at the next election, telling them he would repair a Britain broken by 13 years of Tory governments.

In what could be the Labour leader’s final conference speech before the next election, he set out the case for national renewal and why his party should be given the chance to reverse the decline.