Frances Ryan: The tactic was clear – sweeping optimism with a large dose of classic Starmer caution

As the first Labour prime minister to address conference in 15 years, Keir Starmer should have walked on stage in Liverpool as a conquering hero. Instead, he arrived amid a series of missteps and scandals. Forget a honeymoon period, Starmer has barely managed a long weekend in Skeggy.

His tactic today was clear: sweeping optimism with a large dose of classic Starmer caution. There is “light at the end of the tunnel” he said – and there would be “no return to Tory austerity”. With the first budget looming, however, he stuck to the line that it would take “tough” decisions to get there. Asking the public to join a “shared struggle” is a hard sell to the millions already struggling to pay the rent.

The big question has long been: now Labour has power, what is it going to do with it? There were some positive answers – housing for care leavers and domestic abuse survivors, arts for working-class pupils – but plenty to irk the left. Starmer’s claim that “concerns” about immigration are “legitimate” was painful to hear. That the PM chose to go after (minuscule) benefit fraud and “worklessness” while benefit rates don’t even cover claimants’ basic needs gave a grim insight into his priorities.

Not that he’ll mind. He could deal with criticism, he bullishly told the crowd. His cocky dismissal of a pro-Gaza heckler only reinforced that.

Starmer had two jobs today. First, to take back control of the agenda after a bruising week. Second, to move on from doom and gloom and start to build a positive vision for the future. Some inroads were made, but insiders will admit there is much work still to do. The true test is, when tomorrow’s front pages splash on Starmer’s speech, will voters’ first thought be: “What did he say?” or “Who paid for his suit?”

Tom Baldwin: This was a defiant speech by a PM determined to prove his critics wrong

“You know me by now,” Keir Starmer said early on, reassuring the party that recent squalls afflicting the government wouldn’t blow him off course. “It’s just water off a duck’s back.”

He showed similar defiance as he closed the speech, comparing those who warn now that he won’t achieve his decade of national renewal to the critics who thought he could not change the party or win an election. Just as they had been wrong about him before, he suggested, they were wrong now.

In between, there were plenty of biographical lines for people who are still getting to know this new prime minister. These were not the usual ones about being the son of a toolmaker and being a working-class boy made good – but gentler stories about visits to the Lake District, where he delighted in not being recognised by a woman who wanted to push politicians down the stairs, his love of classical music and his brother, whose difficulties with learning meant he would never get the life chances that the Labour leader has enjoyed.

Starmer is not the kind of leader who thinks that every problem can be solved with some soaring rhetoric or oratorical flourish. He takes a more grounded approach and, in one of his preferred football metaphors, does his “talking on the pitch”.

But this Labour conference speech today still mattered because, barely 11 weeks since winning a landslide election victory, the prime minister needed to show he can adapt to the increasingly hazardous playing conditions he has found in government – and that he can cut through the kind of populism that makes out all politicians are the same.

His approach today was to reassert the primacy of his five national missions, fill them out further with some recognisably British values of decency and genuine anger towards the racist thugs who this summer challenged them. He also began to explain the trade-offs and difficult choices that face him now.

But above all, he was seeking to remind a few people that they are still driving towards a goal – because for him, at least, politics is not a game or a spectator sport. It’s more important than that.

Alan Finlayson: Starmer’s diagnosis? That Britain has simply had too many bad politicians

Good r hetoric makes an argument. Orators give people reasons (evidenced, vivid and emotionally engaging ones) to see situations in a certain way, to infer the necessary course of action, and be inspired to commit to it.

Character – what rhetoricians call ethos – is Starmer’s immediate problem: the public lacks understanding of what he and his government truly stand for, of how that character connects to our present situation and to a plausible political programme. In his 1997 conference speech, Tony Blair’s ethos of youthful novelty – he said, “I am a modern man leading a modern country” – was part of the diagnosis (a country and government stuck in the past), and of the prescription. It was an invitation to other modern young people to embrace new technology and abandon old-fashioned prejudices.

In Liverpool today, Starmer sought to demonstrate ethos with lots of stories of his personal experiences, of people he has met and learned from, and sought to connect that to “service” – the key concept with which the speech was peppered. At the core of that argument was a set of classic rhetorical antitheses: “rhetoric” v “reality”; “easy answers” v “tough decisions”; and, interestingly, uncontrolled Tory markets v mission-led Labour government. The diagnosis, then, is simply that Britain has had too many bad politicians. There was no broader argument about the causes of our national woes. And from the diagnosis, the prescription naturally followed: a reassertion of the old idea that good politics is good government by good people in SW1. That was at odds with the very few moments where the speech suggested that politics is a partnership with the public.

Some people think that Starmer’s ministry lacks a plan. The speech made clear that in Starmer’s ideology a changed Labour party is the programme and “government by service” is the plan.

Set-piece speeches such as this lay out a scene, show us a leader’s character and – crucially – invite the rest of us to assume a role. But Starmer didn’t appeal to anything like Blair’s young generation coming to maturity. Instead, he gave us the part of a nation of innately fair-minded consumers, ready to be the judges of the quality of service-delivery, eager to know “What will we have to show for it?”. Such emphasis on what “they” will do to or for “us” strikes me as risky in contemporary political culture. But any fair viewer ought to conclude that Starmer was being honest. That is, I am sure, his character.

Nesrine Malik: The buck now stops with Starmer, not the Tories – and the PM must recognise it

Keir Starmer gave the same speech he always does: the Tories wrecked the country, it will take time for Labour to fix things, and there was the customary repudiation of Labour’s Corbynite past, whose vanquishing is evidence that this party means business. But there were a couple of variations. There was a small – blink and you’d miss it – acknowledgment that giving refugees asylum is something that will and has to happen. There is, he said: no “magical process that allows you to return people here unlawfully without accepting that process will also grant some people asylum”. And there was a longer spelling out of his position on far-right racism and on immigration. Some of that was muddled, as Starmer tried to tread a thin line between maintaining his credentials as tough on immigration and sanctioning prejudice. But it was a welcome head-on engagement.

But most distinct was Starmer’s failure to pass off his lines of defence and denial with confidence. Delivered against the backdrop of plummeting approval ratings, unseemly donation revelations and anger at the cutting of the winter fuel allowance, the speech seemed to cast material and legitimate challenges to this young Labour government as so many “shouts and bellows”. In power, that sort of dismissal of any objection as “the politics of noisy performance, the weak and cowardly fantasy of populism” no longer flies.

Without the Tory buffer, the buck now stops with Starmer. Labour policies and performance are not notional. They are in effect and will have tangible impacts on people’s lives, and build a perception of the character and reliability of the people now in charge. He laughed off a protester as someone stuck in the past. “This guy’s obviously got a pass from the 2019 conference,” he said to hilarity from much of the crowd. “While he’s been protesting, we’ve been changing the party, that’s why we’ve got a Labour government.” But Starmer himself seems to be stuck in opposition.

Tom Belger: Starmer and his allies are making sure: no more stumbles or surprises at conference

It’s clear from today’s speech that Labour is now tweaking its key narrative – that Britain is broken. Starmer emphasised tough decisions will help reach “light at the end of this tunnel”. It looks like a small concession to the view that the left should make “hope possible rather than despair convincing”, as Raymond Williams put it – though Labour’s doom-mongering feels likely to run for a good while yet.

Starmer’s battle to regain and reshape the narrative marks a stark contrast to his battles over the actual conference agenda, though. Away from the media glare, Starmer allies have been quietly keeping the doors sealed shut on Labour’s wardrobe of discontents. Contentious motions by disgruntled local parties – on the two-child cap, Palestine and trans rights – were snuffed out before they reached the conference floor. While unions are forcing a winter fuel vote, Starmerites cunningly pushed it to the Wednesday “graveyard slot” when many journalists and delegates will have left.

Much of the conference “debate” this year is simply endorsing current party policy. Similarly, Starmer’s speech only had a sprinkling of new policy. That may disappoint some activists and journalists, but a hatful of rabbits might have only cemented a sense of Labour being buffeted by events.

And while some activists I’ve met in Liverpool are frustrated, I’ve seen many smiles and members stirred by rousing speeches about change Labour can now deliver – and they seem likely to go home happier and more hopeful than when they arrived.

Chi Onwurah: No glitter this year, but the prime minister showed grit

After 14 years of Tory division, “a Britain that belongs to you” is a powerful message. It was wonderful to have a speech by a prime minister that reflected the experiences of the majority of Britons, which brought people together, and which did not target one demographic, but instead sought to lift all people up. Britain belongs to all of us.

We heard echoes of the general election victory speech: rebuilding our country, restoring our confidence, and rediscovering our national story. That story includes our scientific genius, which, as the newly elected chair of the science select committee, I was particularly pleased he mentioned. People want a national narrative we can be proud of, and too many doubt that politicians can deliver it. Keir Starmer made it clear that the work of change has begun – the laundry list of successes, from planning reform to GB Energy, is a reminder that after 14 years of Tory rot, we are shifting the dial. But he also emphasised that being at the service of working people means making choices, not being all things to all people. People deserve hope, not false hope.

The prime minister rightly slammed the Tory playbook of pandering. He was very strong on some of the big ethical issues, from immigration to Gaza. Honesty can sound radical when you’re used to the alternative: yes, if young people are to get on the housing ladder, we need to build houses near you.

He lifted the conference hall by rounding off his speech with our missions as a party. Now we need to turn those ambitions into achievements.

Ella Michalski: Those trapped by poverty were looking for hope – but there was precious little in the PM’s address

Keir Starmer needed to deliver hope for the country, but his speech turned out to be an anticlimactic experience for low-income families. The idea that a new political dawn was breaking was interrupted almost as fiercely as by the heckler in the crowd. Starmer described child poverty as “rampant” under Tory rule, but said not one word about how his government will change it. He failed to offer a single solution on how best to support low-income families, or prevent the 4.3 million UK children already in poverty slipping further into hardship. The term “working people” was mentioned in abundance, yet any support for carers or caregivers was completely absent.

Families who are already struggling got it worst of all, with no recognition whatsoever. Starmer stated “we’re all in it together”, but his promise to crack down on benefit fraud had an accusatory nature. There is so much Starmer could have said on benefits and the need to reform them, but he chose only fraud as a target for action. This risks further stigmatising people on low incomes, and leading to the invasion of privacy of many others, most of whom will be entirely innocent.

The government must tread carefully here, and avoid damaging the trust of the nation, or impose “big brother” laws that might cause more harm than good. What we need instead is a supportive, structured approach that tackles the root cause of poverty and works alongside those who have first-hand experience of the system. They know what changes it requires to operate in a more humane and respectful way.

The previous decade of politics has left many exasperated and fatigued. This much is true. But Starmer needs to join the dots. This country has a duty to look after those who are most vulnerable, and none are more vulnerable than those who are arguably invisible, both in Starmer’s speech, but also in the eyes of society.

• Ella Michalski is a parent taking part in Changing Realities, a collaboration between parents and carers living on a low-income, researchers at University of York and Child Poverty Action Group