Hi, I'm Anouche. I'm Rachel, and I'm Freddie. And this is The New Statesman's Politics

Podcast. In this episode, we're going to be discussing Keir Starmer's speech to Labour

Party Conference, probably his last before a general election.

Hello, I'm Anouche Shekelyan, Britain Editor of The New Statesman, and host of this podcast,

and we're coming to you once again from our strange cushioned booth in Liverpool Conference

Centre, and we're all fresh from a pack-tall where we were watching Keir Starmer's speech.

Joining me, I have Rachel Wymouth, Deputy Political Editor, and Freddie Hayward,

Political Correspondent. The speech started off quite dramatically. There was the usual slick video

of, you know, Starmer pulling pints and meeting babies, and, you know, all sorts of things,

and he came on stage to a standing ovation, but not long after a protester pelted onto the stage

and covered him in glitter, and he was actually sort of had his arm around him. It was quite

physical for a while. Yeah, it was quite physical. I thought it felt a bit scary, actually.

Yeah, I think because he was on the stage, wasn't he? Yeah. Somehow he'd got that close to Keir Starmer,

and then security rushed on, and I think effectively tackled him to the floor. I've not yet seen

who it was. I think he had some green sparkles in his hand. Have we found out a news?

Yeah, so he was, he threw glitter over Starmer, and he had a t-shirt that said,

People Demand Democracy, and apparently he was yelling, we couldn't really hear him in the hall,

but he was saying he wanted citizen-led democracy under People's House, and this is sort of this

campaign for a House of Citizens rather than a House of Commons and sort of radical changes to

how democracy works. In terms of if this was going to happen, and I'm sure his team will be

furious that this has happened, this is probably the least bad protest, because it's nothing

politically sensitive for Labour. We all know what's going on in Israel at the moment. It could have

...