Michael Gove unleashes blistering attack on Starmer as he highlights biggest flaw with Labour

He said: "Starmerism, if there is such a thing and I don't believe there is, doesn't have cohesion.

"The Labour Government's programme is composed of elements which were a reaction to our failures rather than the first principle assessment of what the country truly needs.

"The emphasis on economic stability which led to the Winter Fuel Payment cut, the emphasis on balancing the booked which led Rachel Reeves last week and previously Lucy Powell to speculate that if fiscal discipline won't restored there would be a run on the pound and that would be terrible.

"Of course, that's shaped by the experience of past Labour Governments in the 60s, and 70s, but more than anything, it's shaped by a reaction against what happened with Liz's, mini-budget.

"They are fashioning their central economic narrative in opposition of what we got wrong rather than necessarily what we got right.

"You can also see it in the way in which they adopted in the course of the last two years a very forward position on planning and housing."

Gove accused Labour of having attacked the Conservative's housing reform plans only to later adopt them as their own once they were abandoned by the then Tory Government.

"When Rob Jenerick brought forward the planning white paper, which was actually genuinely radical, it was denied at the time by Labour as a charter for developers and Labour to the Nimbiest position," Gove said.

"After Rob's published publication, the Cheshire and Amersham by-election, backbench agonies and anxieties, we retreated on that agenda.

"Labour occupied the space we had retreated from."

Elsewhere at the conference, Gove rejected suggestions the public had voted in favour of Labour and instead branded July's national vote as an "ejection election".

The overwhelming feeling at the General Election was ‘this is an ejection election’,” Gove told delegates and activists.

He urged them not to focus on other parties’ performances, pointing to Conservative losses to Reform UK in Great Yarmouth, the Green Party in Waveney Valley, the Liberal Democrats in his former Surrey Heath seat, and Labour in Aldershot.

Gove added: “We shouldn’t be trying to second-guess what other parties will do.”