Keir Starmer’s ‘big speech’ didn’t say much of anything

I spent an hour listening to Keir Starmer’s Labour conference speech. I appreciate the need to not give the right-wing press ammunition and also to hold back some policies until nearer the election. But surely he could have been more radical than the relatively anodyne generalisations that he gave us.

For example, he complained about Tory NHS waiting lists. Fine. But where is the real plan to fix it? Likewise, where did he address the abandonment of student tuition fees?

The only mention of real democracy driving real change from the platform was from the protester. Boris Johnson “won a landslide” with 43 per cent of the vote. Starmer too may win a handsome majority with much less than 50 per cent. Did he say anything about that?

No rail nationalisation. No water nationalisation. No national care service. No abandonment of the House of Lords. No return to the EU… even though only a few diehards can’t now see that we need to. No wonder the long suffering “working people” and those not able to work (a group ignored by Starmer) are exasperated.

Oh, for a government that enacts policies of public ownership of rail and water, that is planning a national care service, is committed to PR and shows by its actions that it will have nothing to do with ennobled appointees. A government that gives poor children £25 per week over and above current UK benefits and is prepared to pay for it by a more progressive tax system. And one that doesn’t ask its students to pay for a university education. Real radicalism like that was sorely lacking in Keir Starmer’s speech. Will we ever get such a government?

Keith McLeay

Stirlingshire

A long standing “gentleman’s” agreement was broken by Rishi Sunak holding a political event during the Labour conference. Thus demonstrating that he is certainly not a gentleman and a man whose word is not to be trusted.

Alan Pack

Kent

Keir Starmer gave a good speech to the Labour conference on Tuesday. However, to achieve full national renewal a few more things need to be taken on board:

Constitutional changes, to stop a repeat of the flagrant rule breaking we saw in the Johnson era.

Rejoining the EU single market and customs union, generally regarded as a precondition for business revival.

Rationalisation of our school system to sort out the chaotic mixture of academies, free and grammar schools.

Andrew McLuskey

Address supplied

What a speech from Keir Starmer. Inspirational, moving, and truthful.

The protester did him a favour; it set him on fire to give what I think was one of the best speeches made at a political conference for a long time. Gone was the dour lawyer image. He was instead transformed into a man that was at ease with himself and someone at last you could believe in. No easy fixes, just hard truths about the state of our country and the hard decisions to put it on the right track for recovery.

Never mind about charisma – the country needs honest politics, and hopefully we have got just that in Keir Starmer.

Paul Atkins

Burntwood, Staffordshire