BORIS Johnson has painted a utopian picture of the country he wants to create in his keynote speech to the Conservative party conference.

The Prime Minister, speaking alone instead of in front of the usual packed audience, told viewers of the virtual event that he wanted to boost housebuilding, the NHS, and strengthen the union.

He also announced a £160m scheme for wind turbine production, and intends to ensure every home in the country is powered by wind within a decade.

READ MORE: Boris Johnson has an ‘uphill challenge’ to win over more Scottish voters - Douglas Ross

Mr Johnson said he was mimicking the "vision of the post-war new Jerusalem" that the government planned after World War II, adding: "That is what we are doing now – in the teeth of this pandemic."

He went on to ask viewers to imagine " arriving in Britain in 2030 when I hope that much of the programme I have outlined will be delivered"

He described arriving in a "zero-carbon jet made in the UK and you flash your Brexit blue passport or your digital ID, you get an EV [electric vehicle] taxi."

Mr Johnson added people could see a "transformed" country "where young people have the joy of homeownership, and where they can bring up their children in the neighbourhoods where they grew up themselves, in the confidence that the schools are excellent and that crime is down; and instead of being dragged on big commutes to the city, they can start a business in their home town, a place that has not only superb transport connections and green buses, but gigabit broadband, and where the workforce is abundantly equipped not just with university degrees but with the technical skills that the new economy demands."

He said the air would be "cleaner" and "new landmarks" would be built, such as the 48 new hospitals he committed t building during his general election campaign.

Moving back to the present, Mr Johnson also issued a warning that the SNP "would like this country to be distracted, and divided by yet more constitutional wrangling", saying "now is the time to pull together and build back better in every part of the United Kingdom."

Mr Johnson criticised the Labour party, "who think everything can be funded by Uncle Sugar, the taxpayer."

He said: " It isn't the state that produces the new drugs and the therapies we're now using. It isn't the state that will hold the intellectual property of the vaccine if and when we get one.

"It wasn't the state that made the gloves and the mask and the ventilators that we needed at such speed. It was the private sector."

On house-building, he said Labour "may have million-pound homes in North London, but they deeply dislike homeownership for anyone else." and accused the opposition of wanting to "level-down" the country.

He added: "They literally want to pull statues down to rewrite the history of our country, edit the national CV to make it look more politically correct.

"We aren’t embarrassed to sing old songs about how Britannia rules the waves – in fact, we are even making sense of it with a concerted national ship-building strategy that will bring jobs to every part of the UK, especially in Scotland."

He said his party "believe passionately in our wonderful Union, our United Kingdom – while the Labour opposition who have done frankly nothing to defend the Union, and continue to flirt with those who would tear our country apart."

He announced that he would "help turn generation rent into generation buy." and explained: "We will fix the long-term problems of this country not by endlessly expanding the state, but by giving power back to people – the fundamental life-affirming power of homeownership, the power to decide what colour to paint your own front door."

On green energy, the PM said he wanted to "harvest the gusts" to power everyone's homes and announced a £160m fund for wind turbine manufacturing.

He explained: "I remember how some people used to sneer at wind power, twenty years ago, and say that it wouldn’t pull the skin off a rice pudding."

The rice pudding comments were, in fact, made by the PM himself in 2013 during a radio interview.

Mr Johnson continued: "Your kettle, your washing machine, your cooker, your heating, your plug-in electric vehicle – the whole lot of them will get their juice cleanly and without guilt from the breezes that blow around these islands.

READ MORE: Boris Johnson seeks to shore up the Union as he heads to Scotland 

"Far out in the deepest waters we will harvest the gusts, and by upgrading infrastructure in such places as Teesside and Humber and Scotland and Wales we will increase an offshore wind capacity that is already the biggest in the world.

"As Saudi Arabia is to oil, the UK is to wind – a place of almost limitless resource, but in the case of wind without the carbon emissions, without the damage to the environment."

The SNP said the Prime Minister's speech had failed to offer any support for people facing unemployment when the furlough scheme ends.

Ian Blackford, the party's Westminster leader, said: "Boris Johnson has repeatedly shown himself to be arrogant, incompetent, untrustworthy and not up to the job of Prime Minister. This speech did nothing to change that perception.

"The Prime Minister offered absolutely nothing to the millions of people who stand to lose their jobs, and see their incomes slashed, as a result of Tory cuts to the furlough scheme and the reckless decision to impose an extreme Brexit in the middle of a pandemic.

"Instead of announcing an immediate U-turn on Tory plans to scrap jobs support at the end of the month, and delivering a meaningful fiscal stimulus of at least £80billion to boost the economy, the Prime Minister has made a deliberate decision to let unemployment soar.

"By withdrawing jobs support, blocking the devolution of financial powers, and threatening to impose an extreme Brexit against our will, the Tories are demonstrating that the only way to protect Scotland's interests is to become an independent country."

Labour's deputy leader Angela Rayner said the public wanted to hear about how the country will get out of the coronavirus crisis.

She said:"The British people needed to hear the Prime Minister set out how he and his government will get a grip of the crisis. Instead, we got the usual bluster and no plan for the months ahead.

“We end this Conservative conference as we started it: with a shambolic testing system, millions of jobs at risk and an incompetent government that has lost control of this virus and is holding Britain back.”

Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats said he did not go far enough and accused him of hypocrisy over green energy.

Ed Davey, Leader of the Liberal Democrats, said: "People across the UK are worried about the planet and for their children's futures. We need a Government that leads from the front when it comes to tackling the climate emergency. But just a few years ago Boris Johnson claimed a wind turbine "couldn't blow the skin off a rice pudding".

"He is now late to the table and, regrettably, still not ambitious enough. If the Prime Minister really wants to deliver a groundbreaking Green Recovery, he would be talking about investing billions, not millions, in offshore wind and other renewables. £160 million is a tiny fraction of the investment needed.