The R word strikes terror into the hearts of ministers and their diary managers alike but spare a thought for the poor people organising events at this year’s Labour party conference after last month’s Shadow Cabinet reshuffle. I am in admiration of the creative energy of the fringe organisers who are desperately trying to hang on to their confirmed speakers. While it might be a bit of a stretch to refocus a debate on local government finance for the newly appointed lead for International Development, God love the lobbyist who tried.
Having been released from the task of levelling up the country, I am relishing the chance to level up the world. It doesn’t come without challenges. A long-planned trip to Yorkshire to discuss refuse collection had to be binned (sorry) in order to fly to New York for the UN General Assembly and the culture shock was immense. New York traffic and a last-minute flight meant I had a crazy dash across Manhattan to meet senior UN officials and the First Lady, Jill Biden, at a UNICEF event on children’s rights. A very nice, passionate man, who appeared to work for UNICEF, tried to interest me in a discussion about my development priorities but sadly he started talking just as the event began. I politely but somewhat firmly disentangled myself to listen to the young ambassadors. I only discovered when he went up on stage that the man who tried to talk to me was the Pirates of the Caribbean actor Orlando Bloom.
Celebrity faux pas aside, the incredible women I met at the event – from the young engineer from Ghana who has transformed girls’ education by sorting out access to water and hygiene in schools, to the Barbadian Prime Minister Mia Mottley, who is pioneering an emerging global agreement on climate change – have seriously fired me up for the challenge of the new job. Last time Labour was in government our economy was twice the size of China and much of the world’s debt was owed to countries like ours. Now, as democracy retreats and poverty advances, we are learning that the arc of history doesn’t always bend towards progress. If we are serious about shaping events beyond our shores, we will need an entirely different approach. The task for a new Labour government will be to bring the same energy and commitment as in 1997 but to an utterly transformed world. I’ll be laying out more detail at our party conference in Liverpool this week.
The Tory party conference was in my backyard this year, just down the road in Manchester, where we were treated to a feast of conspiracy theories and the setting up of straw men for various ministers to knock down: from the Chancellor’s decision to introduce benefit sanctions (already a thing) to the Home Secretary’s call to ban people from being granted asylum simply because they’re gay (not even a thing). It was the Transport Secretary’s condemnation of ‘sinister’ councils who control how often people can go to the shops that got a big laugh here in Wigan. After 13 years of Tory government and £15 billion of central government cuts, I’m fairly sure the local government official responsible for ‘monitoring shop use’ has long been made redundant. Maybe instead ministers could explain why our shops are closing and high streets are struggling in every part of the country.
My party conference diary is packed but a particular highlight is the chance to interview Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. I got to know her inspirational family when I was the shadow Foreign Secretary – a stint conducted entirely during a pandemic, which has given me the dubious distinction of being the first shadow Foreign Secretary in history never to leave Wigan. Nevertheless, it was a privilege to be able to lend my support publicly and behind the scenes to this incredible family who are still fighting for families forced to endure the same treatment they were. They know better than most that the world can be bleak and political systems can be brutal but after all they’ve been through, amazingly, they’re still smiling. Spending time with them is good for the soul.
There’s one other thing in my diary that cannot be moved and it’s my annual DJ set at Labour Students with my pal and National Executive Committee bigwig, Abdi Duale, as part of my one-woman mission to put the party back into party conference season. Last year I played 30 minutes of back-to-back Britney Spears and ejected anyone who complained. This year we’re still compiling our playlist (all suggestions welcome) but I’m thinking we should do a tribute to this Tory government – maybe Britney’s Toxic would fit the bill?
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