Starmer's speech was met with a mixed response and there were occasional jeers from some members of the audience. Sixteen minutes in Starmer completely lost his train of thought as one furious woman shouted and pointed repeatedly. He was again rattled 35 minutes in when someone shouted out "Where's Peter Mandelson?" in response to Starmer's commitment to 'clear values'. Predictably, this vacuous and vague speech did not leave the audience or the country with any clear idea of what this non-entity actually stands for.
Standing ovations were frequent, but they were by no means universal and large sections of the crowd remained seated and stony faced. Others waved red cards to signal their disapproval. The TV cameras more often than not trained their attention on Starmer's front benchers who stood and applauded as vociferously as possible. Occasionally the cameras picked up significant opposition to Starmer, as seen below with the red cards being waved right in front of him.
The full speech can be found below, but it comes with a warning: long exposure to the monotonous tones of Sir Squeaky can result in fatigue and loss of concentration, but is great for insomniacs...
