It is sometimes said that the Labour Party is not good at hiding how it feels about the state of the party, the government or the nation.
Passionate and often highly factional, Labour’s ruthless scrutiny of itself is reflected in the spirit of the annual conference…and in Liverpool this year, it was bouncing.
This conference put the painful memory of May’s local elections and the backlog of crises deep into the mists of another era. Labour has detached itself from the Starmer administration and embraced a brand of full-fat, soft-left politics governed by a golden thread: public control.
Conference speeches, fringes and parties took the theme of ‘Hope again’ and ran with it, the enthusiasm of politicians and members for the party’s new direction palpable.
Conversations around growth in panel discussions drew heavily on the themes of devolution, investing in communities and urban renewal. Fringes on planning and development in London and beyond revolved around the delicate balance between blanket-YIMBYism and the specific housing needs of local authorities, a clear tension identified between the two in Labour’s attitudes towards building.
Andy Burnham passed the conference test with flying colours. A powerful speech coupled major policy announcements in not one, but several key sectors, with moving emotion around his family and his patriotism that few will forget.
He deliberately excluded from his speech the usual mocking of the opposition or recitals of the party’s recent accomplishments, instead using the opportunity only to set out what he intends to do with his window in power to better Britain. This decisive departure from the rhetorical style of his predecessor was recognised by the conference, with a membership again feeling confident about backing its leader.
Despite announcing substantial and sometimes radical reforms across water, energy, social care, pensions, EU policy and electoral reform, it is not lost on the Prime Minister that he has inherited half a parliamentary term.
Andy Burnham’s plan asks people to look beyond the next election, to trust in Labour again, and rebuild public services that younger generations are unable to remember working.
The fair question of funding is there, with murmurs from vested interest groups about the cost of public control amounting to far beyond what our economy can handle, and Chancellor John Healey will be held accountable for financing some of Burnham’s reforms in his Autumn Budget.
The sceptics are talking about how long the Burnham bounce can last for the party’s renewed popularity. Come what may in Labour’s future though, it is undeniable that its opponents face a political leader capable of real rhetorical craftsmanship that Labour has not had since the Blair days.
A conference atmosphere that could have been so bleak under a continued Starmer administration was electrified, with coals stoked to march into the 2029 general election with hope again.