Labour in Liverpool: the new Government finds its footing

Labour’s return to power after 14 years in the political wilderness should have made the annual party conference in Liverpool a cause of celebration. It didn’t quite turn out like that.

The weather played its part. Torrential rain and a blustery wind off the Mersey left many of the thousands attending parties and fringe events look decidedly damp and bedraggled.

The media focus on football tickets, glasses and clothes was the cause of many furrowed brows and a first topic of conversation for many newly elected MPs.  The row over the Winter Fuel allowance also felt for many, not least the Unions, an unforced error.

For me, this Conference came at an awkward moment in the first days of this fledgling government. Labour has been in power for just over two months. The real moment of clarity on Labour’s vision comes in just over a month’s time when the Chancellor delivers her first Budget. 

I was struck by how often Ministers stressed their busy schedules as well as a desire to listen. One member of the new Government told me on Sunday night that in the past eight weeks he had visited over 30 countries.

Sir Keir Starmer promises a decade of renewal. The problem in politics is the pressures of today tend to crowd out the needs of tomorrow.  How the UK resets relations with the EU, provide global leadership on the climate change transition and ensure the UK is a global hub of tech investment are the kind of issues which really matter but due to the fierce urgency of events in Ukraine or in the Middle East can too easily be set aside.

The greatest test for this Government in my view is not to be distracted from the purpose that brought this new generation of Labour politicians into public service in the first place. There’s no doubt in Liverpool that a new generation has been elected to parliament. I lost count of the number of fresh faces who introduced themselves as the new MP for a place that’s not had a Labour representative in decades, if at all.

So much is expected of them, and yet the public mood is angry and anxious. Sir Keir Starmer tried in his speech on Tuesday afternoon to highlight his desire to create a Britain that belongs to you. It’s a difficult balance to strike in these fractious times. But it is the hard choices on spending, and especially addressing the issues of fairness and equality, and resetting the balance between wealth and income that will define whether in the end, he succeeds or not.