Sir Keir has announced that Labour would set up a new state-owned energy company as he told the party’s conference in Liverpool that he is ready for government.

The Labour leader said the Tories “haven’t just failed to fix the roof, they’ve ripped out the foundations, smashed through the windows and now they’ve blown the doors off for good measure”.

In an attempt to paint himself as the next Labour prime minister, he said like Attlee, Wilson and Blair he would “provide the leadership the country so desperately needs”.

“Because as in 1945, 1964 and 1997, this is a Labour moment,” he told a packed conference hall.

LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND - SEPTEMBER 27: Labour Party leader Keir Starmer holds his key note speech on the third day of the annual Labour Party conference on September 27, 2022 in Liverpool, England The Labour Party hold their annual conference in Liverpool this year. Issues on the agenda are the cost of living crisis, including a call for a reinforced windfall tax, proportional representation and action on the climate crisis. (Photo by Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)

Labour would set up Great British Energy within its first year in office to “take advantage of the opportunities” in clean power in order to cut bills and generate a return for the nation.

He said: “The future wealth of this country is in our air, in our seas, in our skies. Britain should harness that wealth and share it with all.

“British power to the British people.”

The electricity generation company would be funded from the £8 billion National Wealth Fund already announced by Labour and would have operational independence, allowing it to invest in green energy schemes.

It came following a YouGov poll which gave Labour a 17-point lead over the Tories, the largest poll lead for the party which the pollster had ever recorded.

Speaking to areas of Yorkshire and the North which deserted the party in Red Wall seats due to its position on Brexit, he said that they had been “let down”.

“If you voted to take control of your life and for the next generation to have control of theirs, then I say to you: that is what I will deliver.”

Speaking personally, Sir Keir said that his “working class impatience” had driven him in his career and as Labour leader.

He used his speech to share an anecdote from a trip to Grimsby a few months ago, where he heard a phrase that stuck with him, when a woman told him, very simply, that she does not want to merely survive, but “live”.

“As I got back on the train, that phrase went round and round in my head,” he said.

He said it was his ambition to face that same woman again after five years with Labour in charge and know that she was “not just surviving” but “thriving”.

Sir Keir went on to promise to make sure that “we buy, make and sell more in Britain”, to “control immigration using a points-based system” and “use the power of government to help working people succeed”.

In a single term as prime minister, he said he would defeat the cost-of-living crisis, lift the “clouds of anxiety”, restore public service levels including in the NHS, and build more affordable housing.

This would be done, by aiming for a target of 70 per cent of home ownership, and preventing buy-to-let landlords or second homeowners buying property first.

His speech was met with near-universal acclaim, from the left-wing Momentum faction of his party, with union backers UNISON saying “an election cannot come soon enough”.

Meanwhile Tuss-backing think tanks such as the IEA and Taxpayers Alliance, welcomed the move towards aspiration, but argued that his policies would not help with growth.

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