Keir Starmer used his party conference speech to sharpen his message and go heavy on patriotism in a pitch to ‘hero voters’
As an exercise in party management, this has been the most successful conference for Labour since Tony Blair’s last in 2006.
There was buyer’s remorse the moment Gordon Brown took over in 2007; the conferences of the Ed Miliband years left deeper scars than evident in public; and that was nothing compared to the civil war of the Corbyn era.
Last year, Keir Starmer’s first proper conference was consumed by clashes with his left flank and Corbyn groupies.
This year, his own party – with a very different membership turning up in Liverpool – decided to give Keir Starmer pretty much a clear run.
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That’s meant the question all week has been whether today’s speech connects with the public, makes an argument for a better Britain that voters can believe and is memorable enough to impact on a noisy political scene.
To do this, Keir Starmer has changed speechwriters. Gone were the authors of last year’s windy treatise that overstayed its welcome.
In its place is Alan Lockey, who worked for Tony Blair’s policy chief Matthew Taylor at the Royal Society of Arts. The change was noticeable: the speech more muscular, more tightly constructed and with sharper phrasing than anything previously seen from this leader.
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Starmer lashed out at energy initiatives in the UK being owned by foreign companies before making the announcement.
The three themes listeners were bludgeoned with all the way through the hour were patriotism, solidarity and integrity.
Praise for the “remarkable sovereign”; invoking how the “Late Queen would turn our collar up and face the storm”; talk of “British power to the British people”; arguing the Tories are responsible for “redistribution from the poor to the rich” – a highly targeted speech.
This is because there is a clear political strategy behind this approach.
Under the guidance of pollster and strategist Deborah Mattinson, Labour is prioritising winning back a slice of the electorate they call “hero voters” – one-time Labour supporters who backed Brexit and then voted Tory in 2019 but who they think are up for grabs at the next election.
An overt drive by Starmer to stress his patriotism, sense of solidarity and integrity is only one part of Team Starmer’s drive to win back “hero voters”. The other was to hammer the differences between himself and Labour’s Corbyn era.
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The former regime may have played a comparatively tiny role in this year’s conference compared to 2021, yet still Starmer decided the public needs to be reminded.
Again, the repudiation of antisemitism. Again, another standing ovation. A different membership in Liverpool this year, and Starmer attempting to use that to his advantage. The Tories the enemy of the speech, but the Corbyn era an almost equal opponent.
One big announcement at the heart of the speech – the creation of a British state-owned energy company to rival France’s EDF, known as Great British Energy – got a standing ovation.
As he acknowledged, its birth will be tricky, its role in the market yet to be fleshed out – it is more political signal than fully fleshed out change. Whether this idea will stay uppermost in voters’ minds is yet to be seen.
But the other striking thing about the speech was the way he wanted to signal confidence.
By addressing Brexit head-on – which for a long time has unnerved party strategists – attacking the government for failing to “grasp the nettle” and promising to deliver “control” in a way the Tories have failed. This would not have been possible 18 months ago.
A good party conference speech provides verbal weapons for their troops to deploy on doorsteps in the months ahead. Starmer provided his team with options – pretty much for the first time. Let’s see if his flock use them.
A famine has been declared in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhoods.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – a globally recognised system for classifying the severity of food insecurity and malnutrition – has confirmed just four famines since it was established in 2004.
These were in Somalia in 2011, and in Sudan in 2017, 2020, and 2024.
The confirmation of famine in Gaza City is the IPC’s first outside of Africa.
“After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death,” the report said, adding that more than a million other people face a severe level of food insecurity.
Israel Gaza map
Over the next month conditions are also expected to worsen, with the famine projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, the report said.
Nearly a third of the population (641,000 people) are expected to face catastrophic conditions while acute malnutrition is projected to continue getting worse rapidly.
Over the next year, the report said at least 132,000 children will suffer from acute malnutrition – double the organisation’s estimates from May 2024.
Israel says no famine in Gaza
Volker Turk, the UN Human Rights chief, said the famine is the direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government.
“It is a war crime to use starvation as method of warfare, and the resulting deaths may also amount to the war crime of wilful killing,” he said.
COGAT, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid, has rejected the findings.
Israel’s foreign ministry said there is no famine in Gaza: “Over 100,000 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since the start of the war, and in recent weeks a massive influx of aid has flooded the Strip with staple foods and caused a sharp decline in food prices, which have plummeted in the markets.”
Another UN chief made a desperate plea to Israel’s prime minister to declare a ceasefire in the wake of the famine announcement.
Tom Fletcher, UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, said famine could have been prevented in the strip if there hadn’t been a “systematic obstruction” of aid deliveries.
“My ask, my plea, my demand to Prime Minister Netanyahu and anyone who can reach him. Enough. Ceasefire. Open the crossings, north and south, all of them,” he said.
The IPC had previously warned famine was imminent in parts of Gaza, but had stopped short of a formal declaration.
Palestinians struggle to get aid at a community kitchen in Gaza City. Pic: AP
The latest report on Gaza from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says there were almost 13,000 new admissions of children for acute malnutrition recorded in July.
The latest numbers from the Gaza health ministry are 251 dead as a result of famine and malnutrition, including 108 children.
But Israel has previously accused Hamas of inflating these figures, saying that most of the children who died had pre-existing health conditions.
The Ukrainian suspected of coordinating attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines had served in Ukraine’s Secret Service and in the Ukrainian Army’s special forces, Sky News understand.
Serhii K., 49, was arrested in northern Italy on Thursday following the issuance of a European arrest warrant by German prosecutors.
It is not known whether he was still serving at the time of the pipeline attack in 2022 and Ukraine’s government has always denied any involvement in the explosions.
According to sources close to the case, the suspect has been found in a three-star bungalow hotel named La Pescaccia in San Clemente, in the province of Rimini.
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Man arrested over Nord Stream attacks
When military officers from Italy’s Carabinieri investigative and operational units raided his bedroom, he didn’t try to resist the arrest.
The hotel’s employees have been questioned, but no further evidence or any weapons were found, the sources added.
Serhii arrived on Italy’s Adriatic coast earlier this week, and the purpose of his trip was a holiday. He was found with his two children and his wife.
At least one of the four people within his family had a travel ticket issued in Poland. He crossed the Italian border with his car with a Ukrainian license plate last Tuesday.
He was travelling with his passport, and he used his real identity to check into the hotel, triggering an emergency alert on a police server, we have been told.
A satellite image shows gas from the Nord Stream pipeline bubbling up in the Baltic Sea. File pic: Roscosmos via Reuters
After the arrest, he was taken to the Rimini police station before being moved to a prison in Bologna, the regional capital, on Friday.
Deputy Bologna Prosecutor Licia Scagliarini has granted the German judicial authorities’ requests for Serhii’s surrender, but Sky News understands the man told the appeal court that he doesn’t consent to being handed over to Germany.
He also denied the charges and said he was in Ukraine during the Nord Stream sabotage. He added that he is currently in Italy for family reasons.
While leaving the court, he was seen making a typical Ukrainian nationalist ‘trident’ gesture to the reporters.
The next hearing is scheduled for 3 September, when the Bologna appeal court is set to decide whether Serhii will be extradited to Germany or not. He will remain in jail until then.
In Germany, he will face charges of collusion to cause an explosion, anti-constitutional sabotage and the destruction of structures.
German prosecutors believe he was part of a group of people who planted devices on the pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm in September 2022.
Serhii and his accomplices are believed to have set off from Rostock on Germany’s north-eastern coast in a sailing yacht to carry out the attack.
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The explosions severely damaged three pipelines transporting gas from Russia to Europe. It represented a significant escalation in the Ukraine conflict and worsening of the continent’s energy supply crisis.
According to a US intelligence report leaked in 2023, a pro-Ukraine group was behind the attack. Yet, no group has ever claimed responsibility.
Spare pipes for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. File pic: Reuters/Fabian Bimmer
Sky News understands Genoa’s Prosecutor’s Office in northern Italy has requested their colleagues in Bologna to share the information related to Serhii.
Anti-terrorism prosecutors are investigating another alleged sabotage linked to the Russian shadow fleet oil tanker Seajewel, which sank off the port of Savona last February.
On Thursday, they asked an investigative police unit to figure out whether there is a link between that episode and the Nord Stream attacks.
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