Portrait of the week: Starmer’s sausages slip-up, Israel’s strikes on Lebanon and Amazon staff summoned back to office

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Sir Keir Starmer, the Prime Minister, in his speech to the Labour party conference in Liverpool, said that ‘if we take tough long-term decisions now’ Britain would much more quickly reach the ‘light at the end of this tunnel’. He was cheered when he promised to return the railways to public ownership and restore workplace rights to unions and workers. But he insisted that ‘if we want cheaper electricity, we need new pylons over ground otherwise the burden on taxpayers is too much’. He recovered from a fluff when, talking of Gaza, he called ‘for the return of the sausages – the hostages’.

Sir Keir hoped to counteract recent difficulties. He had earlier asserted that he was ‘completely in control’ during a row among government advisers about Sue Gray, the chief of staff at Downing Street, and her salary of £170,000 (more than the Prime Minister’s), a sum leaked to the BBC.