Good morning. There were few surprises in Keir Starmer’s wide-ranging conference speech, his first in power.
It was an attempt to inject positivity into the pessimistic and downcast narrative that has defined Labour since the party came to power in July, as he spoke of “a Britain that belongs to you”. But it was not a total break with the story that the prime minister has told so far about the country. “Tough” decisions still have to be made, Starmer said, for long-term economic gains. There is “light at the end of the tunnel” for the country, but there will be a “shared struggle” before we reach better times. There was, he said, no sense in giving people “false hope”.
