The Know Daily - Wednesday 11 October

_{Read in 5m 46s ∙ Listening to Gabrielle}

This photo of a kangaroo playing air guitar is just one of the finalists in this year’s Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards. While the winners will be announced on 23 November, we strongly recommend taking a scroll through the other shortlisted (and equally amusing) images!

🌹 Conference season continues

Keir Starmer pledged to “get Britain building again” if elected, during his keynote speech to the Labour Party Conference on Tuesday.

Tell me more.
Starmer promised to create the “next generation of new towns” near English cities, should Labour come to power at the next election (which is widely expected to take place next autumn).

He told the Labour Party conference in Liverpool that this would not mean “tearing up the green belt”, but rather building on what he termed the “grey belt” - essentially patches of dirt and scrubland. The party expects the majority of up-front investment to come from the private sector, said the BBC , “with local areas bidding for new towns required to seek out private backers”.

Starmer also pledged to build 1.5 million new homes during the five years of the next Parliament, as part of a “decade of renewal under Labour".

What else happened yesterday?
As Starmer geared up for his speech, he was covered in glitter by a lone protester calling for electoral reform. The man managed to shout “true democracy is citizen-led” before being hauled off stage.

“Questions will be asked about how the man managed to get on stage and make contact with Starmer,” said The Guardian , pointing out that entry to the event had been strictly controlled.

How was the speech received?
“Throughout the speech, the Labour leader set himself out as a reformer,” said the BBC . “But he received his biggest applause as he claimed he had moved Labour from a party ‘of protest’ to a government in waiting.”

But not everyone within Labour is happy with Starmer’s approach, with critics on the left of the party telling CNN that the conference was a “micro-managed festival of nothing”.