Keir Starmer speech - live: Labour leader shakes off glitter ambush and unveils ‘mission for government’

Shadow attorney general Emily Thornberry has said Labour would give more rights to women in cohabiting couples, as well as strengthening protection against stalkers and sexual harassment at work, Adam Forrest reports.

“No woman should be forced to get married or stay in an unhappy relationship just to avoid ending up on the street,” she said.

She said women who report sexual harassment at work would get the same sort of protection as whistleblowers. And she vowed to strengthen protections for women from stalkers.

“It is time we treated stalking with the seriousness it deserves – strengthening the use of stalking protection orders, developing the right for women to know the identity of their online stalkers, and working to end the sick practice of stalkers abusing our court system to bring vexatious claims against their victims.”

Jeremy Hunt has admitted that the Tory government has to get a “lot slicker” at big infrastructure projects after HS2’s northern leg was scrapped, Adam Forrest reports.

The chancellor held a meeting with “big global infrastructure investors” this morning.

The Tories seem determined to smash political convention and interrupt the Labour conference in as many ways as possible.

Labour will introduce legal advocates for rape victims if it wins the next general election, the shadow justice secretary has said.

Shabana Mahmood says the representatives would be brought in in every police force area across the country.

“I am proud to announce that a Labour government will introduce legal advocates for the victims of rape in every police force area,” she said in a speech at her party’s conference.

“We will do this by redirecting a portion of the funding police and crime commissioners receive for victims’ services.

“Today, rape victims are systematically failed.”

Labour will whip its MPs to vote in favour of the prime minister’s plan to stop children who turn 14 this year and those younger from ever legally buying cigarettes or tobacco in England.

Shadow health secretary Wes Streeting told a Labour conference fringe event on cancer care: “I know he’s given Liz (Truss) a free vote because the Conservative Party sadly dances to the tune of Nigel Farage these days, quite literally.

“But the good news I can offer Rishi Sunak is that when it comes to that free vote, Labour will be whipping, we’ll be whipping in favour and we will deliver the votes he needs.

“So this generation of children grow up smoke-free and are in fact even less likely to smoke than they are to vote Conservative.”

Britain is “trapped in a never-ending time loop of Tory incompetence,” Emily Thornberry has said as she unveiled new protections for women who are bullied and sexually harassed in the workplace, Archie Mitchell reports.

The shadow attorney general launched a stinging attack on the Conservative Party, which she said is responsible for a “multiverse of crapness”.

And, announcing the new measures, she said: “It is time we offered the same protections to people reporting sexual harassment, bullying and discrimination in the workplace as we do to other whistleblowers. No woman should be forced to stay quiet for fear of being sacked.”

Sir Keir Starmer will announce plans for a new generation of new towns and Georgian-style housing in urban areas, as he vows to “get Britain building” during his big conference speech.

The Labour leader will promise new towns developed by state-backed companies with compulsory purchase powers – recalling the Atlee government’s building of Stevenage, Crawley, Basildon and Milton Keynes.

Full report:

Will Young “won’t stay” in the UK if the Conservatives win the next election, as he opened up about his fears as a gay man living in Tory Britain.

Speaking from the Labour Party conference in Liverpool on Monday (9 October), the singer said that the UK had become a hostile environment for LGBT+ people.

Isobel Lewis reports:

Labour grandee Peter Mandelson has said he wants GB News to survive because it is “stirring” Tory divisions and helping “undo” Rishi Sunak’s premiership.

The architect of New Labour backed the under-fire channel to “keep going”, as it reels from the controversy over host Laurence Fox’s misogynist rant about a female journalist.

Adam Forrest reports:

Migrants evacuated from the Bibby Stockholm have been sent letters by the Home Office telling them they will be moved back onto the controversial barge imminently.

Some 39 migrants were moved off the barge in August after the bacteria that causes Legionnaires’ disease was discovered in its water supply.

Holly Bancroft reports:

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves wowed the Labour conference hall with a succession of weary sighs – and the more humdrum she was and the less carried away she got, the louder they clapped, writes Tom Peck.

Read Tom’s sketch in full below: