Our writers deliver their verdicts on Andy Burnham’s first Labour party conference speech:

Andy Burnham has rejected the suggestion that he was picking on pensioners with the pensions triple lock change as “completely wrong”.

Asked why he was targeting pensioners, the prime minister told ITV’s : “I think you’ve got it completely wrong really, if you don’t mind me saying, to put it like that, because I have put out today a vision for a national care service.

“There are pensioners out there who watch your programme who are paying for care costs from their basic state pension. Now, is that right or fair?

“We have to fix this system. But what I’m saying about the triple lock enables a better support, better care for people in their homes. No care charges.

“So, please let me just make that point that people need to see these things in the round. It’s a better deal for older people going forward.”

Money to plug a £4.7 billion gap in the defence investment plan will be found, Andy Burnham has promised.

The Prime Minister told Times Radio defence was “a major priority” for him.

He continued: “Of course it is, given where the world is right now. I said as soon as I came in that we would fully fund the defence investment plan.

“I’ve spent a lot of time on that and it will be fully funded.

“There was a shortfall, there won’t be.”

Mr Burnham also told the broadcaster: “What I was putting out there (on Tuesday) was quite a big argument about how Britain can change over the next decade – change the way we support young people, build more council homes.

“Both of those things will bring the welfare bill down in the next few years, and certainly in the second half of the next decade, and that opens up the opportunity for us to meet our commitments on defence.”

Andy Burnham has cited 's interview with former Conservative chancellor George Osborne as he outlined his plans to tackle the problems posed by Brexit.

Asked whether he wanted the UK to rejoin the EU, the prime minister told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he wanted to “look at the options”.

“We could stay as we are. That’s definitely an option, if people think this is the right place to stay,” he told the programme.

“We could look at what George Osborne has said about a customs union, we could look at what the Liberal Democrats said at their conference about the single market or we could go all the way", he said.

It comes after Mr Osborne told The Independent's editor-in-chief Geordie Greig that Britain’s economy has “fallen off a cliff” since Brexit and the only way to recover is by rejoining the Brussels-run customs union.

“Brexit has been a mess. Britain has basically gone off a cliff. It has had a huge impact on the British economy. It is clearly poorer than it would otherwise be", he said.

Pat McFadden has refused to rule out rejoining the EU without a second referendum.

Asked whether he would guarantee today that we'd only rejoin the EU with another referendum, the work and pensions secretary said: "I don't want to preempt what [Andy Burnham] is going to say later in the year. So I don't want to start ruling things in and ruling things out."

He said he will say more about this later in the year, and he will."

A Cabinet minister has hit back at suggestions that Labour is breaching its manifesto promise to keep the triple lock for the duration of this parliament.

Pat McFadden told Sky News: "I've got to push back against the suggestion that we are breaching any manifesto promise here.

"We said we would keep the triple lock for the duration of this parliament. We will keep that promise. The prime minister was absolutely clear about that in his speech yesterday, and it's really important that pensioners know that. And that's line one of this discussion on the triple lock."

Andy Burnham is someone "who knows what he believes in" - and that is something that has been missing from politics "for some time", a Cabinet minister has said.

Speaking about the prime minister's speech yesterday, work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden told Sky News: "He laid out in a very personal way the direction in which he wants to lead the country and the way in which he wants to change the country.

"And as he said himself at the end of the speech, whether or not people agree with everything in it, they know that this is someone who knows what he believes in, knows where he wants to lead the country, and I think perhaps people have been missing that from politics for some time."

He added: "What I really liked about the speech was the combination of short-term things and long-term things in the speech, and his confidence in himself as a leader, because it's a very tough job.

"I've seen leadership up close. I've worked closely with all, really, all the Labour prime ministers in recent memory, and I know how tough that is. And you need a strong sense of yourself to do it successfully. And Andy Burnham showed that in spades yesterday."

Andy Burnham said he has presented his “big vision” for a national care service at the Labour party conference in Liverpool this week, with the detail to come “next year”.

Speaking to Times Radio, the prime minister also said there was a “timing question” about when the service would be rolled out.

He told the broadcaster: “What I’ve announced at Labour party conference is the big vision – a national care service that can work to NHS principles because then you can have a system that works from home to hospital and back again, a more efficient way of providing care rather than two systems – and the big enabling decision that unlocks a national care service, which is the adjustment to the triple lock.”

Mr Burnham vowed when the service is rolled out “it will be fully funded”, adding: “We’ll obviously make those proposals next year.”

He said “there are options” to fully fund the scheme, saying: “You could obviously, if you wanted, put the time back, the date back, by which the service comes in.

“Because the triple lock decision will release the billions, more money will release as we go through the next decade, so there’s obviously a timing question there.”

He said he did not think he could introduce the service as late as 2040 “because the pressure on the NHS by that point – it’s already intolerable”.

Andy Burnham’s comments this morning on how he could seek to rejoin the EU follow on from The Independent’s exclusive report earlier this week that the prime minister would make the case for the UK to reverse Brexit.

Ministers have toldthat Mr Burnham is building the case to put rejoin in the Labour manifesto at the next election. They have said it is now a question of “how it is expressed in the manifesto, rather than if”.

Read more:

Burnham edges Labour closer to rejoining EU

The Independent’s political editor, David Maddox, says Andy Burnham used his Labour conference speech to lay out an agenda more radical and revolutionary than anything seen since Margaret Thatcher tore up the post-war consensus in the 1980s.

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