Key takeaways from Keir Starmer’s conference speech

Sir Keir Starmer used his first Labour Party conference speech as prime minister to outline his ideas for “national renewal”.

The PM’s 54 minute speech – which was briefly interrupted once by a heckler – hailed the party’s election victory and laid out ideas for government.

Here’s some key takeaways from his speech.

Sir Keir emphasised there are “no easy answers” to problems, but used his speech to try to frame the path forward as a “shared struggle”.

“This will be tough in the short-term, but in the long-term it’s the right thing to do for our country,” he argued.

The prime minister said there’s “light at the end of the tunnel”, but said there was still a tunnel to get through first.

And he told the audience that politicians needed to level with the country: “If we want justice to be served, some communities must live close to new prisons…if we want cheaper electricity, we need new pylons overground otherwise the burden on taxpayers is too much.”

Strikingly, Sir Keir nodded to ex-Chancellor George Osborne’s phrase from the austerity era, telling the audience: “To coin a phrase, ‘we’re all in it together’.”

Sir Keir announced a new policy to give homeless veterans better access to housing waiting lists, pledging to repay those who “put their lives on the line to protect us all”.

The number of veterans sleeping rough was a “hidden injustice”, Sir Keir said.

The policy will mean veterans, young care leavers and domestic abuse victims will be able to apply for social housing in any local authority in the UK for life.

Current rules forcing housing applicants to prove a local connection to the area unfairly harm these groups and will be scrapped, Labour says.

“Homes will be there for heroes,” Sir Keir said.

One of the loudest cheers erupted when Sir Keir outlined Labour’s work since gaining power.

He told the conference audience that the work of change had already begun including planning reforms, “doctors back in theatre”, new renewable energy projects and “giving railways back into public ownership”.

The changes Labour are bringing in “must mean nothing less than national renewal”.

Sir Keir tackled the biggest controversy of his premiership telling members he “gets” why cutting winter fuel payments for most pensioners worries people.

But Labour needs to fill a “black hole in our public finances” left by the Tories to stabilise the economy, he said.

“If this path were popular or easy we would have walked it already,” Sir Keir said.

Sir Keir revealed the joy he felt playing the flute in school, as he talked about Labour’s aim of creating opportunities for future generations through sport and art.

Playing the flute “gave me great joy as a kid” and opened “so many opportunities,” including his first trip abroad with the Croydon Youth Philharmonic Orchestra.

His time as a flautist left a lasting impression, he said.

“Even now I turn to Beethoven or Brahms in those moments when, how to put it, the reviews aren’t so good.

“I’ve got some Shostakovich lined up for tomorrow,” he jokes.