The Labour left has been unhappy for about as long as Keir Starmer has led the party. The Labour right, by contrast, has mostly been pretty chippy. After the long, difficult war years under Corbyn (and you will find people who describe it in these terms), they were happy to have won: first internally in 2020 and then nationally in 2024. People from this bit of the party think of themselves as pragmatists; they want to win. At last year’s conference, I watched the then-new general secretary Hollie Ridley talk about winning being “personal to me” in the tradition of those on the right of the party who put victory above policy and term themselves “clause one socialists”. If you believe ...

I thought Keir Starmer’s speech in Liverpool this week was excellent. The Prime Minister showed that when his back is to the wall he will fight. He produced passion and purpose, two things which he is regularly accused of lacking. In truth, though, I thought Wes Streeting’s address to the same hall a few hours before was even better. What Starmer strives for, the Health Secretary has in spades. He is probably the closest this government has to a Blair-quality orator. Streeting is, in my view, the most impressive politician in the Cabinet. For all the justifiable claims about Labour’s agenda lacking shape and coherence, you can’t say the same for its approach to the NHS. Streeting has been a ball of ...

Missed in the conference hall – for the cheering was too loud (literally, delegates said they struggled to hear bits) – was Keir Starmer’s appeal to Conservative voters.Though with scant reference to the actual Conservative Party in his speech (mentioned only four times, compared to double that for Reform), what words he did have mocked them for their seeming late-in-the-day image evolution to avoid extinction.“I don’t know if they [ever] believed in grievance politics, but maybe they do now…”That, before a peroration on flags and national identity, was a pitch. It was a signal to voters that the Tory party is not what it used to be. And, subliminally, that Labour also is not what it used to be.Aimed at ...

As Labour Party delegates travel home from their annual conference in Liverpool, Your Party’s conference draws closer. Members of the as-yet-unnamed party (Your Party is just a placeholder) will make the same journey that Labour members have this weekend, travelling up to the northwest between 29-30 November for a founding conference. And now the party has been officially registered with the Electoral Commission: Jeremy Corbyn is listed as leader and Adnan Hussain as the party’s returning officer. Zarah Sultana is not mentioned. Since Sultana bounced Corbyn into announcing their plans, the pair have always been talked up as the party’s co-leaders. But a spat in recent weeks after Sultana launched the party’s membership portal without authorisation from Corbyn has poured cold ...

Did Bridget Phillipson overstep the mark in today’s deputy leadership hustings? That’s the question MPs and delegates are asking here in Liverpool after the Education Secretary said the election was a choice between her “or you can choose division and disunity that fills the pages of the right-wing papers and puts us back on the road to opposition.”  It was the only moment of open hostility between Phillipson and her rival Lucy Powell in an otherwise genteel proceeding (so much so that there was a ban on clapping). And the comment was a jolt to Powell supporting MPs and delegates from CLPs that have nominated her. Said an MP ally of Powell: “It was too far. It was a misjudgment. It’s ...

Keir Starmer has ended leadership speculation – for now In advance of the conference, some MPs speculated that Keir Starmer could be out of Downing Street by Christmas. The Prime Minister desperately needed to prove otherwise – and he succeeded. Despite his approval ratings reaching a nadir, Starmer appeared confident rather than despondent and delivered what was his best-received speech as leader. For months he has suffered from the perception that he is a mere puppet of his advisers – the PM did, after all, fail to read a speech as totemic as “Island of strangers” before he gave it. But yesterday Starmer made an argument that was distinctly his own – having taken a more direct role in the drafting process – ...

What does Keir Starmer believe in? Who is he for? Does he even want the job? These are the questions that have haunted the Prime Minister for months.  Starmer arrived at Labour conference knowing that he had to answer them. He took a more direct role in the drafting of this speech, work on which began over the summer at Chequers, than any other he has delivered.  The result was the best and most authentic address that he has given as Prime Minister. There is little risk that he will feel the need to retract phrases as he did so infamously in the case of his “island of strangers” speech earlier this year (which he, damagingly, went on to reveal he had ...

Party conferences have their own personalities. These may or may not relate to how well the party is doing in the polls – or even whether it is in Government. The Conservatives’ 2022 conference in the wake of the Liz Truss mini-Budget had a hyper quality, all excitement and chaos and wild speculation. Labour in 2023 was gripped by nervous excitement, a wonderous sense of “we might really be able to do this”, culminating in the image of Keir Starmer being covered in glitter by a protester during his speech, transforming in a cloud of fairy dust before the conference’s eyes into a prime minister in waiting. Last year, Labour had just won a historic three-figure majority and everyone was miserable. ...