What does Keir Starmer have planned for his conference speech, due to begin shortly? Not so much the words in his script, but what he plans to say if – when – he’s heckled.
Starmer has been taking quite a Neil Kinnock stance over the past few days, antagonising the hard left with his rule changes for leadership elections and refusal to back a £15-an-hour minimum wage. And you can’t channel Kinnock without expecting a few heckles in your conference speech.
Those around the leader see this conference as being the last hurrah of the left
LabourList‘s Sienna Rodgers reports that Momentum has instructed its delegates to heckle about the wage pledge, rather than sing ‘ohhh Jeremy Corbyn’. They believe that Starmer will have prepared a retort to heckles about the former leader but will find it much harder to give someone calling for higher wages a dressing down from the conference stage.
Those around the leader see this conference as being the last hurrah of the left, with Andy McDonald’s departure from the shadow cabinet being inconveniently timed but ultimately useful as it weakens the left’s reaches into the top echelons of the party.
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