I CAME away from the Labour Party conference full of hope.

It’s a different experience being at conference to watching on TV where all you see is big speeches and a few soundbites on the news.

When you’re there, you meet all sorts of interesting people.

It was noticeable how many businesses attended, keen to work with the new government. They included Pladis, the owner of Carr’s/McVitie’s, which gave me particular pleasure as the proud daughter of a cracker packer.

The third sector was well represented too.

It was good to talk to Guide Dogs UK and the RNIB to learn about the accessibility barriers facing blind and partially-sighted people. Having worked for Scope, I have a strong interest in this area and was dismayed to hear that guide dog owners are often refused taxis or minivans, despite it being a criminal offence. This has to change.

Then there are the fringe events. 

There are hundreds of fringes and other meetings every day. As well as meeting with representatives from Nature Friendly Farming, I spoke at fringes discussing the transition to cleaner, greener public transport and the role of mobile in driving growth.

So that’s a side of conference the public doesn’t see.

There’s no doubt though that the key moment was Keir Starmer’s speech. 

It was serious in tone, heartfelt and refreshingly honest – in contrast to the 14 years of Tory chaos and broken promises that preceded it.

It’s only two years since Liz Truss’s mini-budget. 

She had no electoral mandate for her bizarre theories that unfunded tax cuts for the rich would somehow boost the economy.

She was wrong. It ended badly for her and disastrously for hard-working families who are still grappling with higher mortgage payments as a direct result of her madcap experiment.

The contrast between the recklessness of Truss and the seriousness of Starmer couldn’t be more marked.

Truss was the low point in 14 years of Tory incompetence. But don’t forget Cameron’s austerity programme, which did so much damage to public services, or Johnson’s lies and false boosterism with policies such as “levelling up” that promised much but delivered little.

What impressed me about Keir’s speech was the emphasis on politics as public service. Under the Tories politics became a theatrical performance with off-the-cuff policy announcements, designed to pander this faction or that, rather than a serious attempt to grapple with the issues that matter to people.

Labour’s mission for national renewal will sometimes mean taking unpopular decisions, but we won’t shirk them.

Change has begun.