Labour’s Liverpool moanfest shows Starmer needs a narrative
Hello and welcome to Conference Confidential!
Iâm Marie Le Conte and I have been safely returned to south London.. It feels odd to still be writing about Labour conference because, quite frankly, Liverpool already feels like it happened months ago.
This may be because I finally got a good night of sleep and was in bed at midnight, instead of the Pullman hotel barâs queue, but there is probably more at play here. The Government had its first conference this week and, well, not much happened.
MPs and members alike spent the weeks before the shindig worrying that, though things werenât going terribly, they werenât going terribly well either, and the past few days havenât exactly changed that.
Ministersâ speeches came and went and none of them contained anything dramatic or controversial. No one behaved appallingly or, if they did, they managed to selfishly do so far away from prying eyes.
Everyone broadly got along, by Labour party standards. It very much felt like one of those movies you watch on a Sunday night and which are pleasant enough but, on the whole, entirely forgettable. By Monday morning, youâd probably already struggle to remember the plot.
This is because the plot of the movie didnât really matter, and neither did this conference. It happened because it had to, and now itâs over. We can all get back to our lives. Still, not everything is rosy in government, and the party could have done with something better than âfineâ.
What a moanfest that was!
Being at Labour conference this year meant constantly feeling like you were being strangled by an ouroboros of misery. People complained to you that things werenât going well enough for the party then others complained to you that everyone was complaining, and those original complainers hit out against those who dared not to feel miserable.
It was an annoying experience at times, but did raise the question: who has it right?
One Scottish Labour wag pointed out, for example, that there just isnât as much time as people think for the government to make things better. May 2026 will see both Scotland and Wales going to the polls, and a number of councils in London and elsewhere will be up for grabs.
A week may be a long time in politics, but 19 months can feel like nothing at all.
Will Starmer be able to noticeably change Britain for the better in that year-and-a-half? If not, could wounding midterm elections lead to such a reversal in narrative that the next general election would already be lost for good? Or is this just classic Labour catastrophising? Itâs just impossible to tell.
As More In Commonâs Luke Tryl pointed out at a fringe event on voting coalitions, the electorate is currently very volatile. According to their data, 17 per cent of people who voted for Labour back in July already regret it.
This, would, in another context, be enough to make Downing Street faint with fear, but doesnât actually tell us much.
Nothing is currently set in stone, Tryl said, and the partyâs fortunes may drastically change then change again before even the new year. That 45 per cent of people already think that Keir Starmer is underperforming their expectations definitely isnât great, but it is solvable. The only question, really, is how?
What was made clear in that panel is that the source of Labourâs victory may soon turn into its demise. Some years ago, More In Common decided to split the British electorate into seven distinct segments. Earlier this year, Labour managed to win five out of seven of them.
It was a remarkable feat but has led to a âslightly unenthusiastic coalitionâ, according to Tryl. How to keep them all even reasonably happy?
Itâs all about the narrative
âUnless you tell stories about what you are doing, what you are doing will not succeedâ, rising star MP Josh Simons pointed out later at the event.
It felt like both an obvious point and a welcome one. Starmer may believe that quietly getting on with the job will lead to further electoral success, but that isnât quite how politics works. Youâve got to take people on the journey with you, otherwise they are unlikely to follow.
As several of the panellists pointed out, no-one in Britain is currently yearning for a return to Boris Johnsonâs boosterism, but a middle ground ought to be found.
This is what was missing from Liverpool; no one in their right mind would have expected Labour to already have a huge list of achievements to present to the nation, but a more coherent story would have been welcome.
Fail to offer one and the space will be filled by the ouroboros of misery. Which may be my next bandâs name, actually.
One more thing
I would like to use this newsletter to make a personal call-out. It was brought to my attention on Wednesday that one Labour party staffer who attended conference not only had shingles, but knew they had shingles before taking the train up. Shingles! One of the most contagious ailments a person can have!
Did the entire global pandemic pass this staffer by? Did Matt Hancockâs career die for nothing? I was not given the name of this particular Typhoid Mary but, on the off chance they are reading this, would like to say: if I have somehow caught shingles â shingles! â from you I will find out who your MP boss is and I will only ever write mean things about them. I will be sooooo mean. You have been warned.
See you in Birmingham!
Marieâs newsletter will be sent to your inbox on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Next week itâs the turn of the Tories in Birmingham. Sign up here: inews.co.uk/my-account/newsletters
