PM tells Labour conference he will not con people with false hope but says difficult trade-offs will help bring ‘national renewal’

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Britain can become a country of pride, wealth and stability if the public accepts a series of difficult “trade-offs”, rejects nimbyism and sees through the Conservatives’ populist “lies”, Keir Starmer has said.

In his first Labour conference speech as prime minister, he urged the public to keep faith amid difficult and sometimes unpopular choices made by the government, telling them he understood their impatience for real change.

Labour needs voters to believe politics can make their lives better not that politicians are all the same, hence why the donations row was so damaging

When Keir Starmer wanted to inject a moment of levity into his first speech as prime minister at the Labour conference, he told a story about visiting a holiday cottage in the Lake District where the owner joked about wanting to push him down the stairs.

As lighter moments go, it had a dark edge. It is British humour, of course, but there is a reason it made an impression on Starmer – it’s a microcosm of what he and his closest advisers see as their greatest threat: the cynicism and disdain with which ordinary people view politicians. The view that they are all the same, all on the take. The widespread lack of trust that politics can make lives better.

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

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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.

What can be learned from the Labour leader’s keynote address?

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In what could be his final conference speech before the next election, Keir Starmer has set out his case for why voters should back Labour to run the country. Here are the key points he made: