SIR KEIR STARMER got a rapturous welcome as he took to the stage in Liverpool to give his leader’s speech to the Labour Party conference, and little wonder.

It is only five years since the party suffered its worst defeat for nearly a century, and yet he has turned the party around, refashioned it and repositioned it so successfully that, only three months ago, won a landslide victory. It is a remarkable transformation in electoral fortunes, and he deserved the applause.

But he gave a speech that could have been addressed to a mid-term conference. It was a defiant, not for turning sort of a speech, urging his faithful to remain with him on a road that is going to be long and tough as they tackle the dreadful inheritance left by the previous government.

“We can’t pretend there’s a magical process,” he said, realistically referring to the immigration crisis, but it could have been applied to any of the difficulties facing the government.

Those hoping for big, new ideas will have been disappointed – that’s why a health minister’s suggestion that pub hours might be curtailed has grabbed so many headlines. There was nothing, a part from an awkward moment when he spoke of Israeli “sausages” instead of “hostages”, to knock winter fuel payments or wardrobegate out of the headlines.

But there were moments. His denunciation of the racist rioters was widely applauded, and to hear a Prime Minister talking about the importance of culture in the classroom – he revealed he had learned to play the flute – was almost revelatory when schools are supposed to be churning out pupils with good exam passes.

For all his talk of reliability and stability, we still don’t know how Labour is going to square the circles, build the prisons, cut migration, save the NHS, even fill the £22bn black hole. So the danger is we’re now going to drift on for a month, awaiting answers, until the Budget.