UK leader Starmer aims to shed his gloomy image with a key speech

Liverpool,England: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will try to shake off his image as a gloom monger on Tuesday, telling voters exhausted with pol...

Liverpool, England: British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will try to shake off his image as a gloom-monger on Tuesday, telling voters exhausted with politics that better times are on the way - if they swallow his recipe of short-term pain for long-term gain.

Starmer will cap Labour’s first annual conference since winning a landslide election victory with a speech assuring members and supporters that there is "light at the end of the tunnel.”

Some members of the center-left party say Starmer has made that dark tunnel longer by delivering downbeat messages about the economy since becoming the first Labour prime minister for 14 years in July. That and a distracting row about freebies have overshadowed what should be a celebratory gathering for thousands of party members in the northwest England port city of Liverpool.

"I know this country is exhausted by and with politics,” Starmer plans to say, according to advance extracts released by the party. "I know that the cost-of-living crisis drew a veil over the joy and wonder in our lives and that people want respite and relief.”

He’ll say the government will deliver positive change, but won’t offer "false hope.”