Sir Keir Starmer said Labour was “rebuilding our country”, as he arrived at his party’s conference intent on shifting attention away from rows over donations and internal No 10 infighting.
The Prime Minister said “change has started” as he arrived at the Liverpool conference centre.
But the feel-good factor of Labour’s landslide win in July’s general election has already begun to wear off, as Sir Keir battles a backlash over donations of clothing to him and his wife and damaging briefing revealing splits within his No 10 operation.
There is also lingering anger over the decision to strip winter fuel payments from about 10 million pensioners, with union calls at conference to reverse the move.
With the conference taking place against a backdrop of rising tensions in the Middle East, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters gathered on Liverpool’s waterfront to coincide with the start of the Labour event.
Sir Keir arrived with Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner and was met by a small group of cheering activists ahead of the formal start of the conference on Sunday.
He said the conference would show “how we’re fixing the foundations and rebuilding our country”.
Sir Keir said the gathering was “our biggest conference ever and the first one in 15 years with Labour in government”, adding “change has started”.
But in a sign of the unease within the Labour movement, the party’s largest union backer, Unite, is pushing for changes, including reversing the cuts to the winter fuel allowance.
The union is also calling on Chancellor Rachel Reeves to introduce a wealth tax on the top 1%, an “excess profits” tax, change capital gains tax rates to match income tax, and make investment income liable to national insurance.
Earlier, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy had defended the Prime Minister after the disclosures about donations of clothing to senior Labour figures.
Ms Nandy said it was important to demonstrate the Government’s priorities are “the country’s priorities”, after it emerged on the eve of Labour’s annual gathering that clothing donations would no longer be accepted by the Prime Minister, Ms Rayner or Ms Reeves.
Sir Keir and his wife, Lady Victoria Starmer, had faced scrutiny over the acceptance of gifts, including clothing, from prominent Labour donor and peer Lord Alli.
The Financial Times newspaper meanwhile reported that donations “in kind” listed in the publicly available registers of interest for both Ms Reeves and Ms Rayner had also been for clothing.
The row has drawn criticism from Labour’s political opponents, who have contrasted the lavish gifts with the Government’s decision to limit the winter fuel payment for all but the poorest pensioners.
Asked about the reasoning behind the decision, Culture Secretary Ms Nandy told BBC Breakfast: “For exactly the reason that you just said, that people are really struggling in this country, and we don’t want people to believe that we are living very different lives from them.
“Most people who go into politics, of all political parties, are ordinary people who want to make people’s lives better.
“It is important to us that people know that that is what we are as a Government and that we have their priorities absolutely up front and centre of ours.
“The country’s priorities are our priorities.”
Ms Nandy said the most important thing the Government had done since coming to office was being “open and transparent about what we are doing”, and maintained Sir Keir had followed the rules on donations.
She earlier told Sky News the Government did not “want the news and the commentary to be dominated by conversations about clothes, when we have a really positive agenda for this country”.
Sir Keir has accepted about £39,000 from Lord Alli since December 2019.
The FT’s reporting claimed that a donation “in kind” that Ms Rayner received from Lord Alli was for clothing, and a donor named Juliet Rosenfeld provided funding for the Chancellor’s wardrobe in four instalments.
The Prime Minister is also struggling to get a grip on internal rows within his No 10 operation, after reports of tensions between chief of staff Sue Gray and senior officials.
The leaked disclosure that Ms Gray is paid £170,000, some £3,000 more than the Prime Minister, has added to the rumours of behind-the-scenes difficulties in No 10.
Ahead of the conference, Sir Keir said he was “completely in control” and “every day the message from me to the team is exactly the same, which is we have to deliver”.
By David Lynch, PA Political Correspondent
