The Labour party conference

 The Labour party conference

You'd have thought the Labour Party were ever so slightly fed up with being the opposition to the UK Government by now. Besides, nobody takes any notice of them because their views are simply not credible, convincing or impressive sounding enough. They represent the Shadow Cabinet and we're all conversant with their recent history. They once boasted a leader whose antisemitic, despicably racist pronouncements almost certainly rendered Labour unelectable at the last General Election.

And so it was that Jeremy Corbyn walked shamefully into the dark hinterland of British politics and nobody regretted his departure from the Westminster debating chambers, his voice now silenced. Every so often he was caught on camera by the Press marching out of his home with a serious and business like face before climbing into the back of a cab complete with bags of documents and a tattered copy of Socialist weekly in his hands. There was that distinctive look of a guilty man who knows he may have transgressed but was never prepared to admit  that he might have got it desperately wrong. So he shut the front door gates and that was it.

Yesterday Corbyn's successor Sir Keir Starmer stepped up into the limelight as the new leader of the Labour party and what happened next came as not only a shock to his system but entirely unexpected to those who may have known how party conferences work, a strange incident met with looks of stunned disbelief. If you didn't know what these political gatherings were all about then this was quite the most remarkable departure from the norm. In fact it was a bolt out of the blue since for all their faults and foibles politicians are normally respected for being totally on the ball, well informed and, in most cases, charming. But then again there are the odd ones, the eccentric individuals and ones we can't figure out.

Suddenly from nowhere a gentleman with a grudge to bear, let out all of his frustrations on Starmer. The said gentleman rushed onto the stage in Liverpool, fury etched on his face. He then sprinkled what looked like Christmas glitter all over Starmer and the world held its breath. For a moment Starmer looked totally startled before he realised that there had been a disturbing breach of security. It could have been a knife or even a gun as my lovely wife Bev pointed out, but order was restored and Starmer just brushed himself down and got on with eloquent speech making.

In the old days the Labour party represented typical working class values. They were the party of  the nationalised industries,  hard graft, militant trade union ideologies, beer and sandwiches with Harold Wilson, progressive socialist ideals and just pillars of reliability. They were communists, radical thinkers, industrious and always believed that Wilson's White Heat of Technology speech during the 1960s was years ahead of its time. 

Then Tony Blair came to their rescue and won the 1997 General Election, the Tories running scared or maybe that was just a misleading impression. Blair, according to some cynics, was just a Tory in the red clothing of Labour, a leading advocate of everything the Conservatives were discussing at the time. His principles belonged to Thatcherism and never the twain should have met. There were three renditions of Education, Education and Education and then he tackled the British economy with a cool aplomb that none of us could have seen coming.

Blair surrounded himself with Cool Britannia, an applicable slogan that seemed to fit in with the popular mood of the country. Blair invited Oasis Liam Gallagher and all of those leading celebrities who fervently supported Blair's philosophies. Suddenly Labour were in the driving seat and would remain at 10 Downing Street until 2010. There was that awkward patch when Gordon Brown took over from Blair and that pre-election grumble about one of the disenchanted locals, may come to haunt Brown. Brown simply didn't do confrontation so he was left to lick his wounds.

When Brown left Downing Street it spelt the beginning of the end for the Labour party until the present day. The way was open for the Tories to assert themselves as the party of trustworthiness, the rich and wealthy elite who were stakeholders in blue chip companies and banking heavyweights who loved to escape to the country over the weekend with vast country estates. They had millions in their accounts and the rest of Britain was just lazy and work shy. Who cared about the downtrodden proletariat? Just roll up your sleeves and just get a job with peanuts for wages. You're hardly worthy of any help.

Then in 2019, weeks before the first outbreak of Covid 19, one Boris Johnson became Prime Minister and the rest is just farcical history. In fact from the very moment Johnson walked into 10 Downing Street the troubles turned into catastrophes before things hit rock bottom. Johnson, in the end, just became a caricature of a leader, poised to fumble, stumble and bumble his way through his leadership years with utter incompetence. Week after week he stood at his lectern surrounded by well qualified doctors and scientists and just fell apart inside. At some point he began to resemble Charlie Cairoli with the traditional clown's red nose. Eventually Johnson left the building and the nation sighed with relief.

After a brief flirtation with the controls at Number 10, Liz Truss became another laughing stock and almost left the country dumbfounded with some of the most ill thought out policies ever formulated. And so we come to the present day and Rishi Sunak, a man who looks and sounds like a university undergraduate who can't wait to mix with eminent stockbrokers and big City financiers. Now Sunak fraternises with England football captains and tries to be down with the kids.

And so we find the Labour party in excellent nick this week. We didn't think we'd be saying this but they do look organised and comfortable with their identity. When Yvette Cooper came to the microphone yesterday to talk about the youth of today and knife crime we began to see the first buds of a major comeback for the Labour party. There is potential here but at the moment just untapped and lacking clout or credibility. 

Then there's Wes Streeting, Stepney's finest, a young careerist, ambitious, forward thinking and just what the Labour party needed or maybe not. And then we remembered the sheepish look of defeat on Jeremy Corbyn when he entered his Labour General Election hall in Islington. The next year looks positively intriguing for the Labour party. There may be bridges to be crossed and then built. There may be difficulties and complications just around the corner but then Labour should know what to expect. We wish a human rights lawyer named Sir Keir Starmer the very best. This could be fun.