Keir Starmer says 'self-interest is yesterday's politics' in first press conference as PM

ITV News Political Correspondent Shehab Khan on Sir Keir Starmer's first full day in charge

Sir Keir Starmer appeared to take a dig at the previous Conservative government as he told reporters: "Self-interest is yesterday's politics."

In his first press conference as prime minister, the Labour leader said he and his now-Cabinet had been spending the past six months preparing to lead the country so they were ready to "hit the ground running".

In an olive branch to people who did not vote for him, and regional mayors who he said he'd be prepared to work with whatever their party, Starmer said his government would "turn his back on tribal politics".

Sir Keir Starmer says he wants a 'politics and a country that works for you' in his first press conference as prime minister

"The thing that's changed already is the mindset of government, it's the mindset of service, of country first, party second. It's not a slogan, that's the test for all our decisions."

Looking back at the legacy of the previous 14 years of Tory rule, Starmer said Labour would not continue with Rishi Sunak's Rwanda deportation scheme, describing the plan as "dead and buried before it started".

“I’m not prepared to continue with gimmicks that don’t act as a deterrent,” he added.

Sir Keir Starmer tells ITV News Political Editor that his government will have to 'take tough decisions and take them early' as he accepted the NHS and prison system were 'broken'.

Asked by ITV News Political Editor Robert Peston what Labour plans to do if the government departments it has inherited are in worse shape than they imagined, Starmer said his government would have to "take tough decisions and take them early".

It comes after newly appointed health secretary Wes Streeting described the NHS as "broken" as he vowed to start working on improving the health service immediately.

"Everybody who uses it and works in it knows that it is broken," Starmer said, "and we're not going to operate under the pretence or language that doesn't express the problem as it is, because otherwise we won't be able to fix the problem as quickly as we need to".

The Labour leader said the prison system was another example of "broken" institutions and said his government would have to approach it with "raw honesty".

During the election campaign, Sunak raised questions over whether Labour was "not being straight" with the public over the full extent of its tax plans, but Starmer told today's conference he had no new tax announcements to make that hadn't already been set out.

While Labour has enjoyed its biggest election win since Tony Blair's 1997 landslide, winning 412 of the Commons' 650 seats, Starmer's party haven't performed nearly as well regarding the popular vote.

With 80% of the electorate – including those who didn't vote at all – not choosing Labour, Starmer made a point of appealing to them directly.

"People who didn't vote for us need to know that we will serve them, that we will not turn our back on people just because we don't think they voted for us, we will govern for the whole country.

"We will govern for the whole country... it's about taking the country forward, and doing that in conjunction with our first ministers, in conjunction with our mayors and other elected representatives across the areas."

As he vowed to reject "tribal politics" and "simply picking issues we want to fight just for the party politics of it", Starmer said: "That's what's gone wrong, in my view, over the past few years."

The final result in the General Election was announced at around 6pm on Saturday, 44 hours after the polls closed on Thursday.

The last seat to be declared was Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire, which was won by the Liberal Democrats, taking them to a total of 72 seats.

Angus MacDonald became the sixth Scottish Liberal Democrat MP, with a majority of 2,160 over Drew Hendry of the SNP, who had conceded that he would not win the seat.

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