All that glitters is not gold for Keir Starmer

Today on Good Morning Britain, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer responded to the glitter protest at the start of his speech yesterday, at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool.

When asked if he was fearful during the moment that a protester threw glitter on him while on stage yesterday, Starmer responded, “I was thinking to myself, I’m not going to let this idiot ruin four years of work.

“I’ve worked really hard, we’ve worked as a team to change the Labour Party, to expose the government as not fit to govern. This conference was our chance to put the positive case for Labour [forward], so I was absolutely determined in my own mind, ‘I’m not going to let this idiot ruin four hard years of work by me and my team’. So that’s why I took my jacket off and rolled my sleeves up and got on with it. Notwithstanding the bits of glitter that were still stuck to my shirt.”

Starmer also went on to share, “That determination not to be knocked off course, I did glance across at my beautiful wife Vick, looking very beautiful in the front row, so I looked at her, but I really did think ‘We’ve done so much to get to this point’, I needed to have that opportunity to give that speech.

“And I think it was written on my face, determined not to be knocked off course. And to give people that hope. You know lots of people have said to me, ‘The Labour Party has done the reassurance, we know that you’re going to provide stability, but are you able to weld together that reassurance with the hope we desperately need for a better future?’ and that was completely my mindset when I walked out on that stage and nothing was going to stop me delivering that speech.”

When asked how he plans on delivering his promise to build 1.5 million new homes under his leadership Starmer shared, “The security of having our own home meant the world to me when I was growing up. We didn’t have a huge amount of money but we did own our own home, so I know what it feels like to have that security and to have the springboard that allowed me to do what I’ve done in my life, so I get it.

“The number 1.5 million is the right number. We’ve got a strategic plan on how to deliver. One of the things that I’ve been doing in the last year or so is bomb-proofing absolutely everything that we put out to the electorate. I’m not prepared for this Labour party to put before the electorate plans which I do not think can be delivered.”

Answering where these new homes will be built, Starmer said, “Some of them will be in our cities where there’s more scope for building. We have committed to a new generation of new towns, they will be bidding for that, so that communities can come forward with their proposals of what they want.

“We will be pragmatic about it. Politicians have many times claimed that they’re going to build lots of houses and never delivered. I’m not prepared for us not to deliver.”

Good Morning Britain weekdays from 6am on ITV1 & ITVX