What a Difference a Year Makes

This time last year rain poured down from the Liverpool skies for three days solid and the mood among Labour conference delegates matched the weather.

What should have been a victory parade marking the party’s landslide election win and the first Labour government for 14 years turned into something of a wake following a summer of riots, slumping poll ratings and political own goals.

This year the polls are even worse, economic growth projections are stagnant, ministers seem powerless to stop the rise of Reform UK and there is open talk of replacing Keir Starmer.

And yet, somehow, the mood at the conference and in the bars and restaurants of Albert Dock was better than 12 months ago as delegates enjoyed blue skies and balmy autumn temperatures.

The beleaguered Prime Minister delivered a proper, grown-up Labour PM’s speech, drawing on Tony Blair in setting out twin paths marked ‘renewal’ and ‘decline’ and on Gordon Brown in rhetoric and in unashamed promises of more state intervention.

He ripped up his predecessor’s target of 50 per cent of school leavers going to university, rebalancing further and higher education in favour of skills and apprenticeships.

He donned a class warrior’s mantle as he set out to reclaim the ‘working classes’ (note: not ‘working people’, the formerly approved Labour description) from Nigel Farage and doubled down on his employment of ‘racist’ to describe Reform UK’s extreme proposals on the visa status of settled migrants who have obtained Indefinite Leave to Remain.

Attacks on the Reform plans, which would send a shock wave through employment, not to mention wider society, were one of a number of ways Labour sought to repair its seriously impaired relations with business, after employers were hit with an unexpected National Insurance hike in last year’s Budget.

Another came when the Chancellor added, unasked, corporation tax to a list of income tax, National Insurance and VAT as levies which were protected against an increase in Labour’s manifesto which she said still ‘stands’ – although the messaging was slightly unclear as ministers admitted no final decisions regarding the Budget on 26 November had been taken.

BREXIT BELLIGERENCE

And both in speech and on broadcast, Keir Starmer adopted a more belligerent stance towards Brexit, blaming it for small-boat crossings as well as other ills. Ministers, speaking in private, were happy to signal efforts to develop significantly greater trade links with the European Union – something else likely to be welcomed in financial services and many other sectors. Expect to hear more from the Government on this in the weeks and months ahead.

Keir Starmer bought himself time in Liverpool – and also did enough to see off (for now) the threat to his leadership posed by Andy Burnham. But he is by no means out of the woods.

Even after his speech received an enthusiastic reception, you did not have to travel far to hear private speculation – from ministers, MPs and delegates – about his future with varied challengers’ and/or successors’ names in the frame including Burnham, Wes Streeting, Shabana Mahmood and even a returning Angela Rayner.

In truth Liverpool was always likely to be by far the easiest of the three ‘tests’ posed for the Prime Minister to outcome. As delegates rushed for Lime Street station the skies darkened – as if signalling stormier times to come – most notably the Budget and its inevitable tax rises and ‘computer says no’ refusal of even the most modest schemes.

The third test – the sternest of all with Labour’s bruised and battered voting coalition under threat from left and right – comes with a bumper set of elections across the country next May. The Prime Minister has set the lines of battle – he more than anyone knows he may only have eight months to show definitively that he can win the fight.