‘Labour prepared for power at its conference; the Tories for opposition’

Keir Starmer is a politician probably more suited to governing than campaigning. Yet the confidence and unity of Labour’s Liverpool conference make it ever more likely he will get to test that theory in Downing Street next year.

Starmer’s unflappable response to the incivility of a thankfully harmless protestor made that incoherent disruption a net gain. There was more grit than glitter in the speech itself.

We know Keir grew up working-class, but most voters won’t

That Sir Keir grew up working-class may be familiar to the party audience – but most of the country does not know this yet. Yet this was less back-story than front-story – about the argument that Starmer wants to put to the country next year.

Mission-led government has given Starmer – the technocratic ‘fixer’ – his framework for power. The Liverpool speech showed it is the mission to break down barriers to opportunity – a story about social class – which resonated with party members as giving a social democratic heart to the Starmer project.

And while Starmer’s caution is often described as “small target” politics, the clarity of Starmer’s YIMBY house-building agenda saw Starmer adopt the “big target” politics of 1.5 million new homes in a five year term.

I grew up working class.

I’ve been fighting all my life.

As Prime Minister, I’ll fight for you. pic.twitter.com/5OhxUExvT3

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) October 10, 2023

Labour was strikingly on message

If jaded political veterans know what to expect from the party conference routine, the 2023 season had several strikingly unfamiliar features.

The discombobulating break with political tradition so that Labour’s event was held after the Conservative conference, rather than before, for the first time in living memory.

The dramatic mood swing to exuberant happiness of the Scottish Labour Party. By-election winner Michael Shanks and Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar were feted everywhere as the cavalry that might have the SNP on the run at last – moving the goalposts for a UK-wide majority too.

In Michael, the people of Rutherglen and Hamilton West have an MP who is on their side.

With Labour, people across the UK will have a government that is on their side. pic.twitter.com/OM9uQCnLN0

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) October 6, 2023

There was much the largest entourage too of non-party attendees from civic society, business and the media seen since New Labour was in office. Visitors who spent time with both party tribes saw a stark contrast between the volatile cacophony of the Tory conference and Labour’s strikingly on-message seriousness.

Labour was preparing for government while the excitement on the Tory fringe came from those in the governing party already preparing for the battles of opposition.

No leader gains huge poll leads from opponents’ woes alone

Staunch support for Israel was a central theme of a Labour Party conference, from the pin-drop solemnity of the conference silence to a Labour Friends of Israel vigil attended by a thousand people, with many more in a queue which snaked around the conference unable to get in.

The dominance of global events meant Labour was speaking to itself more this week than it may have hoped. Yet Stamer’s Labour leaves Liverpool in a position of strength it could not have dared to dream of three years ago.

Starmer has been lucky too: a triple meltdown of Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Nicola Sturgeon shifted the political kaleidoscope in his favour. Yet no leader established a 16 point poll lead without getting his own decisions right to benefit from those mistakes.

130 gains looked an impossible mountain in a single term yet Labour’s members will return to their constituencies and prepare to campaign for a majority government.

They have a stronger sense of the core election argument that the party will put to the public –not simply the time for change from the Conservatives, but how to start to sing Labour’s own song for change too.