Our Westminster Correspondent Alexander Brown analyses the Prime Minister's conference speech
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00:00Hello from Labour Conference. My name is Alexander Brown. I'm here at Liverpool in the Conference Centre
00:05where things are quiet, so quiet I have taken this booth and taken this plinth to talk you through what has happened in Keir Starmer's speech,
00:11something I've been busily writing about and discussing with MPs for hours.
00:16In the speech, there was only one policy to speak of, and that was, of course, the announcement that GB Energy will be based in Aberdeen.
00:21The news is great news for Aberdeen, obviously. Were there any more details? Absolutely not.
00:27Instead, what we heard was a speech incredibly heavy on vibes again and messaging, one that promised to offer hope,
00:32one that didn't promise the promise to not ever lie to you and give you false hope for things.
00:37And it said it was going to be short term pain for long term goals to really deliver what this country needed.
00:41It was going to take time. There were no easy fixes, Keir Starmer said.
00:45He talked about his passions for music. He talked about playing the flute, something that all the greats do, such as myself,
00:50and how he always still turned to classical music to take the edge off when he was feeling down,
00:55which got a laugh from the crowd who were incredibly excited about him.
00:58He got so many standing ovations. He got standing ovations for when he talked about the horrors of the riots and how he would stand up to those far right thuggery.
01:06He got standing ovations when he was dealing with a protester who shouted, what about the children of Gaza?
01:11And he said to them, that guy's past must have been from 2019, which was obviously a very prepared line for a protester,
01:18but got standing ovation again in the room. Speaking to MPs after,
01:22I was curious as to whether there was actually enough policy or enough hope in there, because that's been the real issue for so many MPs here.
01:28They've been worrying, and activists actually, they've been worrying that there's not enough policy, there's not enough positivity.
01:33It's all doom and gloom. And broadly, they were quite positive.
01:36They said that there was a long term plan and they said there was a vision.
01:39One MP who's on the far left of the party said to me, I'm actually quite short.
01:44I'm not a static. It's not a 10 out of 10. It would be a 6 out of 10.
01:48And I can see the party moving in the right direction. So it's very interesting.
01:51There's this difference between the party desperately saying it's going to be realistic,
01:55but at the same time, because the budget on October 30th, it can't announce anything.
02:00It's been a really weird conference in that sense. Everything that's happened, you keep expecting policy.
02:05That's normally what Labour do. But this is the first conference back in power for 14 years or so.
02:10So it's a conference where the party has no policy it can announce because it doesn't want to do the budget.
02:15At the same time, people have arrived for a celebration and that has been the case here.
02:18But I think there's still questions for some MPs as to what does that policy actually look like?
02:23There is a promise to offer hope, but how do we get there?
02:26I hope to find out when we return to Westminster after recess.
02:29So for all that and more, stay tuned to thescotsman.com.