Welcome to Conference Confidential, I’m Marie Le Conte and I would like to ask you to please speak a bit quieter. I had one too many Keir Royals last night. The name isn’t a typo, by the way – public affairs companies love a pun, they really do – but the champagne in the drink did feel like novelty.
The only fizz you used to be able to get at Labour conference was cheap prosecco, but of course that’s all changed now. Party of government, and all that. The Labour party is in power and now every fringe is properly catered, and every event is comically full.
As I was typing this, a contact messaged to whine that she’d arrived at a panel 15 minutes before the start, but still couldn’t find a place to sit. Others had to queue in the rain for nearly half an hour simply to get into the ACC.
In the evening too, you can tell that the tide has turned; the main conference bars are rammed, but lobbyists with company cards are more than happy to pay for ample rounds.
Anyone who has organised some form of guest-list only drinks in Liverpool could be heard fretting yesterday about logistics. One party allegedly had a number of RSVPs that was over four times the capacity of the venue.
If you are reading this and assuming, from what I’ve just told you, that the mood is buoyant and victorious at this year’s gathering, then I must ask you: oh, my sweet summer children, do you not know about the Labour party?
The ‘what now?’ conference
Listen, I’m aware that the following vignette will sound so perfect that you will have no choice but to assume I made it up. Still, I promise it happened. I was leaving a drinks reception last night and walked past a man as he waved his arms quite dramatically and told his friend: “We need a vision! And to implement that vision we need a strategy!”
Whoever he was, he had a real gift for snappy brevity, as he summed up in a few words what many others complained about throughout the day, over many more sentences.
There is a sense here in Liverpool that Labour won this massive majority in July but didn’t actually have much of a plan for what followed. In politics as in….well, it’s not the size but what you do with it.
The pervasive worry here also seems to be that Labour had grown quite complacent until the election, having only ever had to deal with the low bars of being seen as less messy than the Jeremy Corbyn years and opposing increasingly incompetent Tory administrations.
As one Labour figure pointed out, there’s now this dawning realisation that being in government is genuinely hard work, and “when you’re in government, you just keep being in government”.
You don’t really get to have breaks, or call for time-outs. There’s always a fire to be extinguished, a policy to develop then announce, a gaggle of journalists to be appeased, a scandal about to come out, ad nauseam.
Over the summer, some special advisers raised eyebrows on Fleet Street by going away on holiday without having briefed their colleagues on the various issues that could come up in that time. Either it’d not occurred to them to do so, or they’d assumed that whatever was going on could wait for their return.
It’s fair to say that they’re now beginning to reckon with the scale of the challenge, and the weight resting on their shoulders, but, again, a vision and a strategy from up top would be welcome. The now common refrain in Labour circles that not much can happen until the Budget in five weeks is beginning to wear thin. It is clear that the honeymoon period ended earlier than they’d wished.
What is needed is a big and bold speech from Keir Starmer tomorrow, but will it happen? I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. The big rumour in the conference centre yesterday was that the leader’s speech would contain very few announcements, and even fewer big policy items.
Optimistic Labourites may hope that this is No10 playing a clever game of expectations, but it doesn’t exactly feel like their style.
Some silver linings
In the meantime, though, the party can congratulate itself on a strong start to conference. The entire world has seemingly descended on Liverpool, and even niche fringe events are standing room only. Motions from the left are being easily defeated in the hall and, as far as I can tell, no MPs disgraced themselves in front of journalists last night, much to the annoyance of said journalists.
The night is young but it seems unlikely that any great scandal will break over the next few days, and it is entirely possible that all this grumbling will soon be forgotten. The only thing, really, is that the party ought to remember why they picked “Change Begins” as a slogan this year. There really is a huge appetite for change out there, but can they actually deliver it before it’s too late?
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