Keir Starmer’s tepid speech was more of Labour putting the blame game on the Tories, says Jacob Rees-Mogg

It has not been a good day for the Reverend Starmer.

As he entered the conference hall in Liverpool, Lady Starmer was once again defiantly or even arrogantly wearing a freebie dress, apparently loaned for the occasion.

While he made the oddest faux pas in his speech, confusing hostages with all things – sausages.

It’s very difficult to understand that mistake, though. We all make errors in speaking from time to time, so perhaps I shouldn’t be too harsh.

Yet in the substance, there was another U-turn after months of doom and gloom, blaming the Tories for just about anything from destroying the NHS to crashing the economy.

Sir Keir now wants you to believe that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

There’s another handbrake turn with the stench of burning rubber as the Reverend Starmer realises his big mistake.

It’s a bigger flip-flop than on his friendship with Jeremy Corbyn, bigger than his flip-flop on a second referendum and bigger than his flip-flop on the Winter Fuel Allowance, which he didn’t say he was going to get rid of in the election campaign, has realised that the doom and gloom blame the Tories narrative is both untrue and was beginning to damage the economy.

The UK Consumer Confidence Index collapsed this month to the lowest level since the beginning of the year, just as things were beginning to tick up a bit. The chairman of one of the most valuable companies in the United Kingdom told the Financial Times earlier this week that Labour strategy so far seemed to be to prioritise growth and at the same time undermine all the levers of growth.

The strategy has spooked the markets and he knows better than anyone that he needs the markets on his side. Labour came into office with a cynical act of fiscal sorcery – a mysterious £22billion black hole in the country’s finances, supposedly caused by the Conservatives.

But the Treasury – oh, what a surprise, refused to publish the details of the black hole in response to freedom of information requests.

We now know that £9billion of this hole was caused by Labour’s decision to grant inflation-busting pay rises to its public sector mates, which is now, of course, encouraging higher pay demands from others in the public sector led yesterday by the nurses.

And it’s also emerged that the Bank of England’s decision to slow its quantitative tightening policy has granted the Treasury a £10billion budget boost. So these two figures basically turn the black hole into a dwarf star.

But now the flip-flop begins. Sir Keir’s rather tepid speech today continued the blame game on the Tories, but it spoke of a light being at the end of the tunnel, at the hope of economic growth, of a functioning NHS and of controlled borders.

So which is it, Prime Minister? Is Britain doomed for the foreseeable future because of the Tories, or is everything going to be tickety-boo?