Can’t display post tags

I have the tag:
<p><?php the_tags(); ?></p>
within the loop, but the only thing showing in the source code is
<p></p>

A tag cloud will display in the sidebar.

This is an older (circa v1.5) theme, but so was the previous theme which did display post tags. Here is my loop (compressed):

<?php if ($posts) {foreach($posts as $post) { start_wp();?>
<div class="post">
	 <a class="posttitle" href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" style="text-decoration:none;" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: <?php the_title(); ?>"><?php the_title(); ?></a>
	<div class="cite"><?php the_time("l F dS Y") ?> <?php edit_post_link(); ?> | <?php the_category(',') ?></div>
<div class="commentPos"><?php wp_link_pages(); ?><?php comments_popup_link(__(' Comments?'), __('1 Comment'), __('% Comments')); ?></div>
			<?php the_content(); ?>
<p><?php the_tags(); ?></p>
	<?php trackback_rdf(); ?>
<?php comments_template(); // Get wp-comments.php template ?>
</div>
<?php } // closes printing entries with excluded cats ?>
<?php } else { ?>
<?php _e('Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.'); ?>
<?php } ?>

I’ve attempted to update it to a current loop, but that just throws up white page errors.