Britain can become a country of pride, wealth and stability if the public accepts a series of difficult “trade-offs”, rejects nimbyism and sees through the Conservatives’ populist “lies”, Keir Starmer has said. In his first Labour conference speech as prime minister, he urged the public to keep faith amid tough and sometimes unpopular choices made by the government, telling them he understood their impatience for real change. Those difficult decisions include building new prisons so that justice could be served, overground pylons to provide cheaper electricity, and accepting that a serious system to tackle irregular migration would also include accepting some asylum seekers. Starmer attempted to draw a line under a week of bruising rows over donations, telling delegates he would not be distracted by noisy criticism of his government which he regarded as “mere glitter on a shirt cuff”, a reference to a protest during last year’s speech. The prime minister left the gathering in Liverpool early to travel to New York on Tuesday for the UN general assembly, with senior aides pressing for meetings with the US presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.