now boris johnson has sought to convince
the conservative party membership
that he's not running out of energy or
ideas despite his government's focus on
the pandemic and the need to agree
a trade deal with the european union the
prime minister was addressing the annual
party conference which is taking place
online this year
when he promised to defeat kovid and
build a better country
a new jerusalem as he called it in the
years ahead
he talked of improved housing and social
care and an expansion of green energy
our political editor laura kinsburg has
more
fancy a prime minister's speech with
your coffee break
boris johnson for years the irreverent
darling of the sweaty party conference
circuits
this year online only a prime minister
grappling with what it means to govern
in crisis i don't know about you
but i have had more than enough
of this disease and we will succeed
just as this country has seen off every
alien invader for the last thousand
years
we human beings will simply not content
ourselves
with a repair job we see these moments
as the time to learn and to improve
on the world that went before he
compared the disease to a state of war
himself a leader at a moment of history
in the depths of the second world war
when just about everything
had gone wrong the government sketched
out a vision
of the post-war new jerusalem
that they wanted to build and that's
what we're doing now
promises on education skills homes wind
power
on offer but with almost zero detail the
uk government
has decided to become the world leader
in low-cost clean
power generation as saudi arabia is to
oil
the uk is to win andy confronted
whispers about his own ability now
i've read a lot of nonsense recently
about how my
own bout of kovid has somehow robbed me
of my mojo and of course this is
self-evident drivel
even in the darkest moments we can see
the bright future ahead and
we can see how to build it and we're
going to build it
together but did it impress tories right
round the country
watching along i would have liked um
some recognition
that there are problems i mean we're
having a bad time up here
i'm just hoping hoping hoping we all
come out of this well
and that he does i was really impressed
by it actually uh it was very upbeat i
thought
it was a nice change it was very
positive and optimistic
although enjoyed the prime minister's
speech i would say that it wasn't the
standout moment for me
he always talks highly of the union we
need to make sure that we're taking
the home towards the nationalists more i
think we saw a bit of the old boris
there is
a degree of frustration by some members
that we're not
we're just not doing what we would
normally do
as a conservative party in power but
the prime minister quite rightly he he's
he's setting the tone in the agenda
at any other time this whole week would
have been a victory parade for tory hq
a moment for boris johnson to lap up the
applause
after the election but it's been
anything but that
and although he dangled better days
ahead
there was very little mention of the
real risks to people's jobs and health
the country faces right now
a stutter of applause from a small stage
for a politician that craves the big
platform
who can't be remotely sure how the world
will look when the lectern's out again
next year
laura coonsburg bbc news westminster