Keeping it ‘Connected’. Online Labour conference enters second day

Labour is keeping connected, despite the pandemic. The party’s online ‘Connected‘ series kicked off on Saturday morning with an updated slogan: “A New Leadership”. Doing the media rounds this morning, Keir Starmer defended the branding. “Not very subtle, is it?” He was asked. “Corbynites might be a bit disappointed.” But the Labour leader echoed sentiments he expressed in his campaign earlier this year. Steering away from commenting on Corbyn, he told Sophy Ridge on Sunday that leadership under Starmer is about recognising that the party has “lost not just one election, but four”.

The party’s online conference launched with ‘Women Connected’ yesterday and LabourList remained glued to the screen to bring you all the highlights. We heard from Shadow Chancellor Anneliese Dodds on the Covid “motherlode”, Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy on women leading on the pandemic response around the world, and shadow early years minister Tulip Siddiq on childcare and unpaid carers in the health crisis. Former Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbbott seized the chance to speak out at an anti-racism Black Lives Matter rally, criticising Labour’s failure to recruit Black staffers in its London headquarters: “It’s astonishing to me that in 2020, you can walk into Southside – the Labour Party’s HQ on Victoria Street – and see hardly any Black people.”

And there is plenty more to come today. We’ll be hearing from deputy leader Angela Rayner at 11am, and Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard is expected to demand a targeted furlough scheme for Scotland. Panels will discuss the future of social care, whether the term BAME is fit for purpose and how we put health and wellbeing at the heart of society. There are also some interesting The World Transformed events taking place alongside Connected. Len McCluskey and Sam Tarry MP will join a panel to discuss the relationship between Labour and the unions, for example, and MP Rebecca Long-Bailey will be talking about left utopianism at 8pm. Keep your eyes peeled for LabourList updates. Sign up to LabourList’s morning email for everything Labour, every weekday morning.