Last Friday, I stood on the steps of Downing Street and made a promise to the British people. I said the work of change would begin immediately. And I meant it.

My new cabinet hit the ground running. We’ve lifted the ban on onshore wind. We’ve created a national wealth fund to invest in and grow our economy. We’ve met NHS bosses to get the 40,000 extra NHS appointments we need each week and 700,000 urgent dental appointments up and running as quickly as possible.

The Department for Education is resuming and expanding its recruitment campaign to kickstart our promise to hire 6,500 new teachers. We’re taking emergency measures to pull the justice system back from the brink of collapse. And, on day one, we scrapped the Rwanda gimmick and began setting up a new Border Security Command to smash the people-smuggling gangs for good.

Now is the time for politics as public service. A government committed not to its self-preservation but to uniting the country in the shared mission of national renewal. The start of the road back to restoring people’s hope and faith that politics can be a force for good. No more gimmicks, lies and self-serving self-obsession – this government knows we have a duty to the people we are elected to serve.

And the first duty of any government is to keep our country safe. So it was a privilege to attend Nato this week and reconfirm our commitment to the alliance in a volatile world. I met President Zelenskiy and assured him of our continuing support for Ukraine against Russian aggression for as long as it takes. And President Biden and I confirmed the special relationship between our two nations remains as strong as ever.

This government will build stronger relationships at home as well as abroad to make everyone better off. My first trip as prime minister was to visit Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to meet the devolved leaders, and assure them that this Labour government will not exploit division for political expedience. The success of our national leaders is the success of our country, and we will work with them to deliver the support they need and the opportunities that people deserve.

It doesn’t matter what colour rosette people wear. I will work with anyone who wants to see our country succeed. That’s why, on Tuesday, I met all the metro mayors to kickstart our plans for local growth. Decisions are best made by people with skin in the game, which is why I will get power out of Westminster and put it in the hands of local leaders. We’re empowering them to deliver for their local community on everything from transport to housing.

And this is a Labour party that truly reflects the face of modern Britain. I am so proud that among our 412 Labour MPs we’re within touching distance of gender equality, and there’s been a huge increase in minority ethnic representation. Thirteen new MPs have served our country in our armed forces. And in the Labour party we have the biggest cohort of LGBT+ representatives of any party in any parliament anywhere in the world.

In the cabinet, we have people who know at first hand the difference government can make in people’s lives. We have a housing secretary who grew up in council housing. An education secretary who relied on free school meals. And a health secretary who relied on the NHS for his own cancer treatment. They represent the belief in aspiration that lies at the heart of our party. It doesn’t matter who you are or what your background is – if you work hard, you should – and will – be able to get on in life. That’s the central mission of my government.

So we’ll serve Britain with serious solutions. But I have to warn people from the start, fixing the fundamentals won’t be easy. As the chancellor warned this week, our public finances are in their worst state since the second world war. Our prisons are in crisis. And the last government held its nose while sewage flooded our seas and streams. At every stage, they ducked the hard choices and swept the problems under the carpet.

Like a Downing Street party, they’ve left a mountain of mess for this government to clean up. Arrogant, reckless and irresponsible to the very end, they’ll go down in history as the government that fiddled while the country burned. They partied and profited out of the pandemic. They scrambled to advance their own interests while millions of people were pushed into greater insecurity. And they rewarded the people who helped crash the economy with seats in the House of Lords.

At best, they lost sight of their duty to the country. At worst, they always thought the country was there to serve them. Under my watch, the chaos and self-service that became commonplace under the Conservatives will never happen again. I have already started making those tough decisions necessary to clean up the mess and get us back on track. That won’t happen overnight. The long, hard, patient graft of making people’s lives better is much tougher than headline-grabbing gimmicks. It requires serious government – and that’s what you’ll always get from me.

We’ve been driven down the road of easy answers before, and we know it leads us into a dead end. Snake-oil populism is seductive – it preys on people’s hopes before it betrays them. Self-serving ambition leads to false promises that stoke division and end in disappointment. My ambition is for the country. The politics of service rebuilds trust by bringing people together and delivering real change.

I know you won’t judge us by our words, but by what we do now we’re on the pitch. So we will fight every day until you believe again. After 14 years of damage, the sunlight of hope is growing brighter. It’s not just football that’s coming home.

• Keir Starmer is the prime minister of the United Kingdom