Keir’s speech shifts convention temper from doom and gloom to extra hopeful (quickly)
A stiff breeze off the Mersey, and I feel a wind of change coursing through Labour’s ranks on the Costa del Scousa.
And party bosses hope it’s blowing away the cloud of controversy hanging over Sir Keir Starmer and his senior ministers.
The “freebies” mini-scandal dominated coverage of the Liverpool conference, but instead of gloom and doom, the message now is zoom and vroom: a mood shift from pessimism to hope.
There is light at the end of the tunnel, insisted Sir Keir in his keynote speech, prompting sceptical veterans to speculate that it’s an oncoming train.
And some media were more keen to see what he was wearing than hear what he was saying: the cut of his cloth, rather than the cut of his jib.
But he could have worn his toolmaker father’s dungarees and still get a standing ovation as the first Labour Prime Minister for 15 years to address the party faithful.
Rather than be overwhelmed in the hall by his, er… spellbinding oratory, I watched the speech in the Baltic Fleet tavern with like-minded enthusiasts.
I’d heard much of it before, in the General Election that I thought was over. Indeed, I heard it again only two weeks ago, at the Trades Union Congress in Brighton.
But on the basis that you can’t have too much of a good thing, I did the gig again. Starmer will never be a Kinnock, or even a Blair, at the rostrum – but after Corbyn, at least he’s credible.
Not everybody is happy. How could they be? This is the Labour Party, a happy band of brothers and sisters who rarely agree on the way to the bar much less on strategy for government.
Unite, the party’s biggest affliate, tabled a motion demanding restoration of the winter fuel allowance, potentially embarrassing the Prime Minister ahead of his speech.
In the end, the Fudgemaster-General who masterminds these things, saved Sir Keir’s face by shifting debate to this morning, when the talkathon is practically over.
A classic conference swerve! If only governing was so simple.
