In politics “everybody” – including this everybody – is always wrong. We said Keir Starmer would make a conference speech – absolutely had to make a speech – brimful of shining hope, a gleaming, florid trumpet-solo of uplift and optimism. Instead, Starmer gave Britain his darkest conference speech so far.
Profoundly serious and grown-up, yes, but peppered with words such as uncertain, brittle, false hope; stories of misery and misadventure, and with the uncheerful news that Britain has not one, but three black holes: economic, social and political. There was deep passion, but the passion was anger directed at Tory lies and, most effectively – most nobly – at racism. This was the speech of an agonised father with a dark imagination; an administrator who does not love a stage and believes in “show don’t tell”.
It was not just unrhetorical but anti-rhetorical; the hard thoughts of a tough nut. He ended it with his collar up, marching against the storm. Nothing less like Tony Blair can be imagined, but one throwback to the New Labour years was that this has also been a conference in which the Prime Minister had to gently demonstrate that his Chancellor did not outrank him.
The Treasury has always been powerful, but never as much as under Rachel Reeves. Her speech sprawled confidently across the political agenda, with a feminist moral energy we haven’t heard from a senior cabinet minister since the flaming prime of Barbara Castle, who, along with Harriet Ha.