Conference roundup: Starmer’s speech trumps Sunak’s – but where was security?

Good morning and welcome to the last of this year’s LabourList‘s conference morning briefings. There’s a few more speeches today – notably Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who will warn that without reform the NHS faces bankruptcy – before proceedings wrap up in the afternoon.

You can, as ever, catch up on yesterday’s action from conference floor on our site. Labour to Win backed candidates routed the left in the internal elections that happened at conference – my colleague Katie reports here – and yesterday the conference passed a motion firming up commitment to the new deal for working people (again, Katie reports here).

There’s one last CAC report out this morning, for the real CAC heads. Katie has a write up here.

Starmer stardust – and security failure 

I was live-blogging my way through the leader’s speech yesterday, and you can see the fruits of my labours here, featuring comment and reaction from MPs, business figures, commentators and union leaders. The response was overwhelmingly positive.

The images of Keir Starmer having glitter thrown over him by a protestor (who wanted… some kind of sortition?) at the start of his speech are all over the front pages today, and the party has capitalised on the incident by selling a range of exclusive “Sparkle with Starmer” t-shirts. The Labour leader’s calm and collected response to the incident has been widely praised. He took it like a champ, albeit a slightly glittery one, and I even spoke to a few people who reckoned the incident riled up Starmer and gave his subsequent speech a bit more energy and punch. In his remarks to UNISON’s reception last night, LabourList understands that Starmer said what was going through his mind during the incident was: I’m not going to let you undo four years of progress.

Although all did indeed end well, the response of many staffers I spoke to was not quite all’s well that ends well: two MPs have been murdered in the last decade, and one of Rosena Allin Khan’s staff members was assaulted only a few weeks ago by a member of the public who was yelling abuse about the Tooting MP. Such a serious security breach will rightly raise questions about how we do things in the future.

Starmer’s best conference speech yet?

The speech itself was, I thought, very good (lots of other people thought so too, but it’s my email). While still perhaps on the long side, it had nothing of the soporific quality of Starmer’s first conference speech back in 2021; Starmer has clearly grown into the role in many ways, and the notable improvement in his speeches is one of them.

Watching Rishi Sunak’s speech a few weeks ago, I was struck by how scattergun it was. Chipping Barnet PPC Dan Tomlinson (help him unseat Theresa Villiers) was on the money, I think, in his assessment that Sunak is stuck in Chancellor mode, perpetually giving laundry-list, disjointed speeches of the kind you might see in the House on budget day, but shouldn’t see aimed at the party faithful and the country beyond in the conference hall. By contrast, Starmer’s speech kept to its messages (optimism for rebuilding Britain and ending the cost of living crisis, and the assertion that Labour can do this because the Tories neither understand nor care to understand the struggles of working people) and felt cohesive. Whether his plea to Tory voters worked, I really couldn’t say: it sounded good, but I’m so violently Labour-brained I don’t feel particularly fit to comment.

Labour gains are down to us

Thank you to…

Editor Tom Belger writes: Thanks to all those who made it to LabourList’s 13  events this conference, and all our partners, staff and speakers who made them a success. Yesterday we hosted four seriously thought-provoking and jam-packed  panels, on violence against women, asylum, housing and how the leader’s office works – with the final one offering the unlikely sight of ex-advisers to Blair, Miliband, Corbyn and Starmer not just on one panel but finding much to agree and joke about. If that’s not LabourList fulfilling its mission to bring healthy debate and insider insight from and for all wings of the party, I’m not sure what is.

Lisa Nandy then rounded off our programme with a fascinating in-conversation event last night about her book All In, with Lisa on good form discussing everything from patriotism and civil society to football and bonding with Ed over being “right-wing” in the eyes of Marxist fathers. If you’re interested in holding an event with us over the next year (or next conference), email [email protected].

On LabourList…

RWANDA PLAN: Lord Coaker told a LabourList fringe that Labour would “stand up” for human rights if elected and scrap the Rwanda plan.

KEIR STARMER: The full text of the Labour Leader’s speech is on our site.

CLASS CEILING: Education policy expert Ed Dorrell on Starmer’s speech and what it means for his ambition to smash the “class ceiling”.

HUMAN RIGHTS: Director of Liberty Akiko Hart argued that Labour needs to resist Conservative attempts at weaponising human rights by portraying them as a “left-wing issue” at our fringe yesterday.

REFORM, REFORM, REFORM: Nathan Boroda writes on this plank of Starmer’s project.

STARDUST: Progressive Britain’s Tom Collinge on Starmer’s speech.

In brief…

DARREN “DAD JOKE” JONES: The Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury told IPPR’s green policy reception last night that he was thrilled that everyone was “hydro-pumped” about the prospect of campaigning for and electing a Labour government.

GOODBYE: That’s it for our conference round-up. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading it (and do get in touch if you have any thoughts). The prospect of doing this every morning did leave me contemplating doing a John Stonehouse-style disappearance before conference kicked off, but actually it was fine. Was it fine? It’s over now and that’s what matters. We’ll be back in your inboxes tomorrow when normal service resumes. Safe home and good trains to everyone travelling back from conference.