LABOUR leader Keir Starmer shared fond memories of the Lake District as he made his speech to conference today.

Talking about the way the cost-of-living crisis is affecting families across the country, Mr Starmer recounted a recent trip to the Lake District with his wife and children, one which he says he is 'privileged to be able to afford' unlike many across the UK.

The leader also talked about happy childhood memories he had of the area, which he visited ‘every year’ with his family as a child.

The Labour leader said: “This year I went on holiday to the Lake District with my family. We were sitting in a pub near Windermere, I was eating fish and chips, Vic had the plant burger... you see, we don’t focus group everything.

“Anyway, we were sitting there. It was calm, it was beautiful, the Lake District never lets you down. I went there every year as a child with my family and although she struggled so much to walk my mum loved the Lakes. So it was really special to share it with my kids and if you can believe it, it was sunny, this summer.

“But the reason I remember it, the privilege of it, is because on my first day back from holiday I was in a café in Worthing in Sussex talking to people.

"What one woman said really stuck in my mind - she was a single mum with two kids and she said to me: 'It’s survival mode. I can’t think, oh lets do something nice. There’s no long term planning, no thinking about the future'.

"And I could see the hurt in her eyes as she told me - that’s what this cost of living crisis does. It intrudes on the little things that we love, whittles away at our joy, days out, meals out, holidays the first things people cut back on.”

During the speech the leader claimed a Labour government would signal a decade of renewal for Britain.