Taking a page from the Democratic presidential ticket in the United States, Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Tuesday promised to bring joy back to everyday life in Britain, which he said was sorely lacking after a cost-of-living crisis and the strain of coping with the country’s run-down public services.
Mr. Starmer, who has been criticized for an unrelenting message of doom-and-gloom since his Labour Party swept into power in July, tried to channel his inner Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, sprinkling dollops of hope into his keynote speech to the party’s annual conference in Liverpool.
“I know that the cost-of-living crisis drew a veil over the joy and wonder in our lives, and that people want respite and relief,” Mr. Starmer declared to a warm crowd. “Because we do need joy, we do need that in our lives.”
It was a critical moment for Mr. Starmer, whose new government quickly ran into turbulence over unflattering disclosures about freebies given to Mr. Starmer and his wife, Victoria, as well as rumors of feuding inside 10 Downing Street.
The prime minister’s popularity has slumped and party members are restive, though political analysts say it made sense for him to emphasize the problems he inherited from the previous Conservative government.
Mr. Starmer did not signal any major shifts in policy. The government is still expected to roll out an eat-your-broccoli budget next month that will likely mix some tax increases with budget cuts to fill a hole in Britain’s public finances. But the prime minister said the belt tightening would result in a brighter future.
“If we take tough long-term decisions now, if we stick to the driving purpose behind everything we do,” he said, “then that light at the end of the tunnel, that Britain that belongs to you — we get there much more quickly.”
Mr. Starmer, 62, is not known for his personal touch. But he struck an unusually intimate tone, reminiscing about playing the flute in a youth orchestra and visiting the Lake District, where his family had vacationed when he was child. These memories, he said, were sources of “joy and wonder” to him.
A public prosecutor-turned-politician, Mr. Starmer still seemed most comfortable when he was arguing a case against his opponents. He blamed the Conservatives for leaving the country with overcrowded prisons, insecure borders, crumbling school roofs, broken public finances and rampant child poverty.
“Do not let them attempt to shift the blame, because the state of the country is on them,” he said to thunderous applause.
At the same time, Mr. Starmer acknowledged the political attacks and criticism of his bumpy start, insisting it was “water off a duck’s back.”
Conceding there was unhappiness over his government’s decision to restrict a subsidy for winter heating to only the poorest retirees, he insisted it was necessary to show that Britain could “fund its policies properly” and argued that “every pensioner will be better off” because of other Labour policies. On Wednesday, the conference is expected to hold a nonbinding vote on the topic, which could produce an embarrassing defeat for the government.
Reflecting on the first major test of his government — anti-immigrant riots that exploded across the country in August — Mr. Starmer said he would “never let a minority of violent, racist thugs terrorize our communities.” The authorities arrested and charged hundreds of people who took part in the unrest, which began after a deadly stabbing in a children’s dance studio by a young British assailant whose parents had immigrated from Rwanda.
However, the prime minister also said concerns about Britain’s high rate of immigration were valid and promised to do better than the Conservatives did in controlling the borders. “I have never thought we should be relaxed about some sectors importing labor when there are millions of young people, ambitious and highly talented, who are desperate to work,” he said.
In an awkward moment, Mr. Starmer repeated his call for a cease-fire in Gaza and the return of Israeli hostages — initially mispronouncing the word as “sausages,” before swiftly correcting himself.
The mood at the conference — the first in 15 years in which the party was in power — was decidedly mixed. Some senior Labour figures expressed optimism that the recent run of bad publicity would soon be forgotten.
Others voiced resentment at recent media coverage, which has been dominated by reports that Mr. Starmer’s chief of staff, Sue Gray, earns more than the prime minister, (although less than dozens of other civil servants), and that Mr. Starmer had accepted gifts worth more than 100,000 pounds, or $133,000, over the past five years.
In a speech at one of many conference parties, the health secretary, Wes Streeting, joked that newspapers would soon report that Ms. Gray had “shot J.F.K.,” among other transgressions.
“I want to welcome the BBC’s conviction that no one should be paid more than the prime minister, that no one should give or receive hospitality, and that we should judge performance on social media mentions,” said Mr. Streeting in a jibe at some of the broadcaster’s highly paid staff, who earn comfortably more than Mr. Starmer. “Be careful what you wish for.”
Among Labour activists, there was a mood of celebration at finally being back in power, mixed with some frustration over how the government’s teething problems were dominating the headlines.
Speaking after a speech Monday by the chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, in which she promised no return to austerity, Bobby Johnstone, 25, a party member from Cheltenham said his reaction was that “hope is back, my belief that the country I grew up in 10 years ago is back.”
Jane Giddens, 64, from northeast Somerset, said she was frustrated about the media focus on the gifts, including clothes, donated to Mr. Starmer and his wife, which she blamed on “mischief making by the right-wing press.”
Still, referring to the cutbacks in fuel subsidies, Ms. Giddens said, “They were too busy trying to look tough rather than explain the socialist values of the whole thing.”
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