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Sir Keir Starmer has declared ‘change has begun’ in Liverpool. He defended the cuts to the winter fuel payments, announced a Hillsborough Law, and saw off a heckler. But did we learn anything from the speech in terms of policy? Is he leaving conference in a better or worse position than he entered? Isabel Hardman is joined by James Heale and Katy Balls.
‘Some things are more important than staying in power,’ Joe Biden just told the United Nations, and the General Assembly broke into sustained applause. Biden left the stage clasping his hand to his chest, so touched that he had so touched the crowd. ‘It’s your people that matter the most,’ said Biden. ‘Never forget we are here to serve the people. Not the other way around.’ It says quite a lot about the state of modern political leadership that such remarks are construed as moving insight. Let’s try to put aside how bogus Biden’s departing shtick is. The truth, which we all know, is that he spent the best part
The standout line from Sir Keir Starmer’s first speech to conference as prime minister – the one that will be quoted far and wide – will not have been what he planned. With his most serious, most pained expression, Sir Keir called for ‘an immediate ceasefire in Gaza’ and… ‘the return of the sausages’. He corrected himself immediately, of course – he meant to say hostages – but at that point he was (forgive me) cooked. While the faces of his front bench colleagues were effortfully composed in the hopes of pretending that their leader hadn’t just said what he just said, you know that their minds were feverishly
Keir Starmer gave a formidable speech to the Labour conference today. It was easily good enough to inspire the party’s natural supporters to cut him some slack over the bumpy months ahead. In doing so, the Prime Minister also clawed back some of the ground lost through the needless mistakes that have afflicted his rookie administration and shifted the dial just a bit from doom-mongering and towards hope for the future. Starmer’s spirit of doggedness may be the key to explaining how far he has got in life without exhibiting any sign of natural brilliance While he will never be a Boris Johnson-level natural communicator, Starmer nonetheless has improved his
Keir Starmer’s first conference speech as Prime Minister neatly embodied the past three days in Liverpool: patchy, uninspiring, with a strong finish and the promise of better tidings tomorrow. Starmer took to the stage today after a conference that feels more muted than Labour’s landslide victory might suggest. His speech was accordingly light on policy but heavy on warnings about what is likely to lie ahead. This fits with the broad theme of new Labour premiers meeting their party after taking power. Much like Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson and Tony Blair in 1946, 1964 and 1997, Keir Starmer chose to use his first speech to be honest with his party.
It’s day three of Labour conference, and Sir Keir’s has just delivered his much anticipated keynote speech. The Prime Minister lauded his party’s general election success, warned delegates of more ‘unpopular’ decisions to come and insisted that ‘taking back control is a Labour argument’. The Labour leader received multiple standing ovations and even elicited a chuckle from his audience with a Lake District anecdote – in which he described how he was politely informed by an elderly cottage-owner: ‘If I’d known you were a politician, I’d have pushed you down the stairs when I had the chance!’ Charming! But it didn’t completely run to plan. Before Sir Keir wrapped up,
Thank you, Conference. And I do mean that from the bottom of my heart. Thank you, Conference for everything you have done to fulfil the basic duty of this party – our clause one – so we can return this great nation to the service of working people. Thank you, Conference. People said we couldn’t do it, but we did. And we did it together. And look at this now, a record-breaking conference. The biggest attendance ever in our history. And such a far cry from my first conference speech to a live audience of one – the camera man. Socially distanced, in an arts centre in Doncaster. Remember that?
Can you be a progressive without being po-faced? I wonder sometimes, especially when I read that public health minister Andrew Gwynne is considering ‘tightening up the hours of operation’ for pubs. The Telegraph reports that Gwynne told Labour conference that changes had to be contemplated because of ‘concerns that people are drinking too much’. After 12 weeks of this government too much is nowhere near enough. It follows the suggestion earlier this month that ministers could ban smoking in beer gardens and other areas outside pubs. Not only would either of these measures send hundreds more licensed establishments to the wall, they give an early indication of the kind of
Oops. After his first Labour conference as Prime Minister was overshadowed by power struggles in No. 10 and the growing scandal over wardrobe-gate, Keir Starmer was hoping to send a message of confidence and competence with his conference speech today. Unfortunately, the PM appeared to make an excruciating verbal slip when discussing the war in Gaza. After demanding an immediate ceasefire in the region, to large applause in the room, the PM then called for the return of ‘the sausages’ from Gaza. The Labour leader was forced to quickly correct himself, and say the ‘hostages’ taken by Hamas instead. Watch here: “A return of the sausages…” pic.twitter.com/1UYlN1m95q — Tom Harwood
Socialism, wrote George Orwell, has often had a habit of attracting posh cranks. He witheringly described the ‘sandal-wearers and bearded fruit-juice drinkers who come knocking towards the smell of “progress” like bluebottles to a dead cat’. Even though Starmer’s Labour has all but dropped the s-word, fully embracing its role as the party of the new elites, its electoral triumph certainly has been a boon to scolds and irritants. All the worst, most meddlesome factions in British public life appear to have been emboldened by this government. Woke censors? Tick. Nanny statists? Alarmingly so. And of course there’s the environmentalists, who clearly see in Labour their best chance for eco-immiseration in
Ahead of the Prime Minister’s address a number of Cabinet ministers are savouring the last full day of their party conference. Pat McFadden – Labour’s campaign co-ordinator and now the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster – was in conversation with the Guardian’s Pippa Crerar this morning, enthusiastically recounting election night, lamenting the loss of Labour colleagues who lost their seats and talking political strategy. McFadden lauded the support of his wife, the deputy campaign director, throughout the election campaign – ‘without her it wouldn’t have happened – before describing his reaction to the exit poll. ‘Relief was the word,’ he admitted. ‘I didn’t jump around the kitchen or anything
Back in September last year, Labour leader Keir Starmer unveiled his party’s flagship education policy: a drive for oracy, or public speaking, to be at the centre of the national curriculum. As Starmer said at the time, his government would put confident speaking ‘at the heart of’ teaching in schools, with these skills potentially making the difference between young people getting and not getting a job later on in life. It was clear at the time that the main driver of the policy was Starmer himself, who was apparently keen to smash the ‘class ceiling’. Is his oracy hobby horse now being stabled though? Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson spoke to
If you started again with a clean slate, a blank sheet of paper, you would never design a system of policing like this. It’s a system – in England and Wales – where there are 43 ‘territorial’ forces. No matter how big or small, each force has its own leadership structure, specialist units and support functions, such as finance, vetting and human resources. For instance, there’s Warwickshire constabulary with just 1,126 officers, and neighbouring West Midlands Police, with 8,000. They work together at times, but they are led, managed and organised in separate ways. The most glaring discrepancies are in the capital. The Metropolitan Police, which has 34,315 officers, is 34 times larger in
Donald Trump is arguably the most unsuitable candidate of any major western political party in living memory, let alone leader of its most powerful state. Brazenly dishonest at times, fond of extreme and reckless rhetoric and disdainful of most political conventions, he’s also the funniest politician in decades. The two things are not unconnected. Comedy as an art form has come under a great deal of strain in the past decade, a result of western society’s new moralisation. Comedians have increasingly sought to be ethical figures on the right side of a great moral struggle, ignoring the fact that funny people don’t have to be good people; indeed, some of the
There was a period during the pandemic in 2020 when the pubs were open but you could only go to one if you sat on your own and had a meal. You were allowed to buy an alcoholic drink but once you had finished your meal you could not buy another one. There was also a 10 p.m. curfew when the pub had to close and everyone had to go straight home. Whether this did much to stop the spread of Covid is debatable (there were reports of a lot of house parties starting just after 10 p.m.), but it allowed the ‘public health’ establishment to turn pubs into what
To the Labour party conference, where Starmer’s army is celebrating its first meet as a part of government in over 14 years. Labour frontbenchers are desperate to distract from their current woes — a freebie fiasco and leak inquiry over bad briefings, to name a few — and this morning it was Yvette Cooper’s turn to make headlines. The Home Secretary took to the main stage in Liverpool to laud her party’s time in power so far — and tear into her adversaries. On the issue of the Southport riots, Cooper was quick to turn the guns on her political opponents. First remarking that the riots shouldn’t be allowed to
Israel has carried out its largest-scale operation against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon since the summer war of 2006. Wave after wave of Israeli aircraft struck at 1,600 targets across Lebanon yesterday with the aim of targeting Hezbollah weapons stores. Nearly 500 people were killed, according to figures issued by the Lebanese authorities. After nearly twelve months of controlled escalation on Israel’s northern border, we are now potentially on the cusp of all-out war. Israel’s purpose in increasing the pressure on Hezbollah and Lebanon is to drive a wedge between the various components of the Iran-led regional alliance currently engaged against it. Hamas, a junior client of Tehran, launched the 7 October
Gary Neville, the Sky Sports pundit and former Manchester United footballer, can’t help himself when it comes to tedious political rants. His latest comes in the form of a one-eyed defence of the Prime Minister’s right to accept freebies, including tickets to Premier League matches. Neville, a prominent Labour supporter, believes Sir Keir Starmer has ‘not done anything wrong’ by accepting thousands of pounds worth of football freebies, and that watching Arsenal with his family was ‘his only release’. 'Given the absolute corruption of the past eight years… it's absolutely incredible people are angry about @Keir_Starmer getting free @Arsenal tickets'@GNev2 responds to the freebies furore while speaking at the @UKLabour party conference
How serious is the Labour party about tackling male violence against women and girls? In June, while campaigning for the general election, then shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper pledged the matter would be treated as a ‘national emergency‘. Last week, the Home Office finally announced the development of a national initiative to use data-driven tools and algorithms that analyse police data to identify and pursue perpetrators of abuse such as domestic abuse, sexual assault and stalking. Most abusers never face accountability This would be a positive step, particularly the proposal of using technology to build risk profiles for victims and perpetrators overseen by authorities to enhance victim safety. But it
Keir Starmer has his big speech today at Labour conference and, like Rachel Reeves’s offering yesterday, the Prime Minister plans to strike an upbeat tone while warning he can’t offer ‘false hope’. He will tell the hall in Liverpool that there’s ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ if the government takes ‘tough decisions now’. He will talk about his project of ‘national renewal’, saying: The politics of national renewal are collective. They involve a shared struggle. A project that says, to everyone, this will be tough in the short term, but in the long term, it’s the right thing to do for our country. This is very Labour conference
