If Keir Starmer gains power, he explains why football will return to its home.

Keir Starmer expresses his enthusiasm for the possibility of football returning to its home under a Labour government.

And he joked that England only win when they’re in power. Football fans celebrated last week as it was announced the UK and Ireland would jointly host the 2028 European Championships.

In an exclusive interview for the Mirror ahead of this week’s Labour conference in Liverpool, the Labour leader said he was thrilled at the news. “Of course,” he said. “I’ve been wanting it to come home for so long.”

He added: “I think you’ll find we’ve only ever won the World Cup under a Labour government. So I think that record speaks for itself.” Mr Starmer used the interview to announce a £1.5 billion plan to slash hospital waiting lists by paying doctors and nurses to do surgeries and appointments in the evening and at weekends.

And he branded last week’s Tory conference a “farce from start to finish.” Asked where he hoped to be in 10 years time, Mr Starmer said: “Well, I hope that we will be reflecting on 10 years of Labour government in which we have not just fixed the problems that we’ve got, we have rebuilt the country and move the country significantly forward.

“And that the general feeling across the country is that we’ve got our future back. So I’d like to be reflecting on that. Not actually so much for my own sake, but on behalf of the country, because I’m not doing this for me. I’m doing this for the country, as is the whole Labour party.”