After 17 months as Labour leader, Keir Starmer has finally delivered his first party conference speech to a packed hall in Brighton, setting out a vision for winning the next election, his values and how they were influenced by his upbringing. Here are some key quotes and themes from his 7,200-word speech and what they signify. Labour under Jeremy Corbyn To the voters who thought we were unpatriotic or irresponsible or that we looked down on them, I say these simple but powerful words: We will never under my leadership go into an election with a manifesto that is not a serious plan for government. Although Starmer omitted to directly refer to his predecessor at any point, he tried not to leave doubt in anyone’s mind there had been a clean break from Corbynism. The Labour leader acknowledged some voters dismissed the party’s 2019 manifesto as a fantasy wishlist of policies that would be impossible to deliver, so sought to reassure them that there would be a credible plan come the next election. The importance of winning power: In a few short years from now I want to be here with you talking about the difference we are making, the problems we are fixing as a Labour government. That is what this party is for. That’s the object of the exercise. Facing down critics who were not shy of heckling and waving red cards at him in the hall, Starmer defended spending the first few days of conference focusing on internal party rule changes. These were vital to the overall mission of Labour winning its first general election in 16 years, Starmer explained, adding the chance to change lives by implementing decisions was more important than ideological purity. Boris Johnson The one thing about Boris Johnson that offends everything I stand for is his assumption that the rules don’t apply to him … I don’t think Boris Johnson is a bad man. I think he is a trivial man. I think he’s a showman with nothing left to show. I think he’s a trickster who has performed his one trick. Starmer tried to paint the prime minister as a rule-breaker and conman, and contrast that with his experience as the former head of the Crown Prosecution Service. His insistence that Johnson was not a “bad man” was a noticeably different description than the characterisation of “scum” made by the leader’s deputy, Angela Rayner. Brexit A botched Brexit followed by Covid has left a big hole [in the economy]. The government is learning that it is not enough to Get Brexit Done. You need a plan to make Brexit work. I do see a way forward after Brexit. Brexit remains a bit of an elephant in the room at Labour conference, so Starmer tried to straddle the tightrope of accepting the UK had left the EU while pinning blame for the negative consequences on the deal negotiated by Johnson. The fuel crisis If you go outside and walk along the seafront, it won’t be long before you come to a petrol station which has no fuel. Level up? You can’t even fill up! Aware that many senior Labour figures were unhappy he has not been more vocal on the subject while the government is on the ropes, Starmer addressed the issue at the start of his speech. The levelling up gag went down well, and his criticism of government slowness to respond played into a wider attack on the competence of ministers. A “green new deal” and the climate crisis Action is needed. Not in the future, but now. If we delay action by a decade the costs of climate transition will double. This urgency is why Labour will bring forward a ‘green new deal’. One of the fastest-growing new groups within Labour is one that backs a “green new deal”. Starmer will hope the commitment will go down well with the millions of green voters that he is also hoping to win over come the next election. Covid and health We have now lost 133,000 people to Covid. Every one of them somebody’s mum, dad, brother, sister, friend. I know it was difficult, but the situation is worse than it needed to be. This wasn’t just a government failure over 18 months, it was a failure of the government’s duty of care over 11 years. There are cracks in British society and Covid seeped into them. Just when the nation needed four nurses on its bed, sadly, they couldn’t always be there … Understandably, most of what we’ve heard from Starmer over the past year-and-a-half is related to Covid, so his criticisms of the government’s handling of the crisis are well known. Instead of attacking specific decisions, he tried to paint the pandemic as having exacerbated much more deep-seated inequalities created by the austerity drive embarked on in 2010. Education Education is so important I am tempted to say it three times … Labour will launch the most ambitious school improvement plan in a generation. It was one of several harks back to Blair, but behind it Starmer sought to show Labour would make transforming children’s education a big priority in government. This has proven fertile ground for Labour to bash the government, given former education secretary Gavin Williamson’s performance and the chaotic directions given to schools during lockdowns. Work The towns that were the crucibles of the original Industrial Revolution need to be revived in the next … A secure well-paid workforce of skilled people in high-class work protected by good trade unions is not separate from good business, it’s the definition of good business. The mention of “towns” showed Starmer is live to the challenge of winning back seats that fell to the Conservatives for the first time – and sees them as the drivers of a future of work strategy, to help reinvigorate communities that feel left behind. Crime and justice Every day as a lawyer, if you are a young radical as I was, you think of yourself as working for justice … The fight against crime will always be a Labour issue. Labour has tried to park tanks on the Tories’ lawns by accusing the Conservatives of “defunding the police” with austerity cuts. Starmer signalled tackling crime was one of the main ways he would achieve the promise of “security” for people. He sought to make a virtue of his time as head of the Crown Prosecution Service – referencing cases he had been involved in, including the conviction of Stephen Lawrence’s killers. His family My mum worked incredibly hard. She was a nurse in the NHS and a very proud nurse too. I got from my mum an ethic of service … My dad was a tool maker in a factory. He gave me a deep respect for the dignity of work. One of the biggest themes of the speech was what Starmer learned and took from his parents. It was used to lay out his backstory and personalise him so people stopped viewing him so much as just a former lawyer. Culture (from Fatboy Slim to WH Auden) There are some lines from Auden that capture the beauty of skilled work: ‘You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation, you have only to watch his eyes. How beautiful it is, that eye-on-the-object look’… When I was at school, I had music lessons with Fatboy Slim! I can’t promise that for everyone. The Auden analogy about an “eye-on-the-object look” was used to open and close the speech, with Starmer burnishing his cultural credentials to try to prove he has some fight and fire in him, amid criticism he is not passionate enough about wanting to be prime minister. The union Labour is the party of the union … We are more progressive together. We are more secure together. We are a bigger presence in the world together. We are greater as Britain than we would be apart. Many question whether a Labour majority in parliament is possible without making significant inroads in Scotland. After a trouncing in the Holyrood elections this year, Starmer stressed his belief in unionism, using it as an argument to bolster one of his main four themes: security.