Jeremy Corbyn has declared he can lead Labour to power at the next election by harnessing the "optimism and hope" sparked by his campaign. In his first big speech, the new Labour leader announced that 30,000 people had joined the party since he was elected on Saturday.
He told the Trades Union Congress in Brighton, "We're going to win in 2020." Activists got to their feet to give him standing ovations before and after his 20-minute speech, with a few of them chanting, "Jez we can."
Hitting out at the Tories, Corbyn said, "They call us 'deficit deniers' but then they spend billions in cutting taxes for the richest families and for the most profitable businesses. What they are is 'poverty deniers'."
The new leader's first set piece appearance bore all the hallmarks of his impromptu and triumphant campaign. But his arrival on stage was mysteriously delayed by two minutes as his team seemingly struggled to find the right door.
Applause turned into awkward laughter as TUC president Leslie Manasseh said, "I promise you, Congress, he is on his way."
Corbyn's speech was far from the polished style that union members have come to expect from Labour leaders in the past. He didn't use an Autocue and although he had notes in front of him, he didn't often look at them.
Instead his fast-paced speech was delivered largely off the cuff as he peppered his anti-austerity rhetoric with wistful anecdotes of his time as a trade union organiser.
A rock star welcome #JezWeCan
As he arrived at the venue in Brighton by car, he was mobbed by a group of supporters attracted by the waiting media scrum. He smiled at them as they too chanted "Jez we can" before he was ushered into the building.
Meanwhile a swing band was entertaining the delegates in the auditorium as they awaited left-winger Corbyn's speech. Their final number was "Big Spender", a coincidence not lost on journalists in the room.
Addressing the audience as "sisters and brothers", Corbyn said, "I must admit it seems to be a very fast journey we're on at the present time."
He told delegates: "Ever since this Labour leadership election was announced, I've spoken at 99 different events all over Britain in 99 days, and those events were often very large.
"They were bringing together people who had been estranged from the Labour movement or the party, and young people who had not been involved in that kind of politics before. But what brought them together was a sense of optimism and hope, what brought them together was a sense of the way things can be done better in politics in Britain.
"And those values I want restored to the heart of the Labour party, which was of course itself a creation of the trade unions and socialists."
He announced that, with 30,000 people becoming Labour members since Saturday, party membership was "now more than a third of a million and rising".
But he warned: "Labour must be more inclusive and open. So we don't go through until 2020 with a series of surprises, we go through to 2020 with a series of certainties that we're a growing, stronger movement, we're more confident and determined than ever, and above all we're going to win in 2020."
And he said the number of votes cast for him in the leadership election was "more than twice the total membership of the Tory party in the whole country".
Corbyn also spoke about his time working for union NUPE, which later merged into Unison. He said people from all walks of life were skilled and talented, no matter what they looked like or how they sounded.
He said people who were good at gambling often "had brilliant skills at mental arithmetic". He told how he took one such person along to negotiations with the government, adding: "He would say to me, sotto voce: 'They're lying to you, Jerry, don't accept it.'"
Corbyn said: "When politicians get out of touch with reality, they sometimes forget where skill sets really lie. The elites in our society look with contempt on people with brilliance and ideas just because they don't speak like them or look like them."