Labour must explain fuzzy policy detail to get conference out of donation row’s shadow

Arguably, there’s a much much bigger problem for Sir Keir Starmer at the Labour conference than the freebies, the briefings and the incessant chatter about an absent chief of staff. 

As you go round the Liverpool conference centre, ask Labour MPs and members of the cabinet what they want to be talking about today.

What do they want the country to hear during the next four days – the most important moment they have to communicate with voters since the general election itself?

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It is the responses to this – and the lack thereof – that is privately unnerving so many on the conference centre floor.

But first, you get the grumbling.

One source told me Sir Keir is irritated that his family has been dragged into the media as part of this ruckus – despite the prime minister’s wife’s conscious choice to attend London fashion week after the furore about donations for clothes emerged.

Some put the leader’s failure to appear at a Saturday evening National Executive Committee (NEC) down to this grumpiness, though party sources deny this.

But it is noticeable his unyielding stubbornness in interviews – saying stopping him going to the football would be a step “too far” would suggest he does not see a problem in his approach.

It is increasingly easy to find Labour figures railing about “disproportionate” focus in the media on donors and gifts and freebies as new stories arrive hourly.

Yet, they have come unprepared to answer questions; cabinet teams still making up contradictory answers on the fly.

On Sunday morning, Education Secretary Bridget Philipson said taking donations from Lord Alli was fine because the birthday party he funded was a work event.

An hour later and Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner is saying that taking donations in kind – namely the New York apartment – is fine because the holiday was a private event.

How do we reconcile both? And everyone is grumpy.

Party figures are also cross because they are being surprised by events.

Sky News understands the Labour Party’s donors department was unaware of some of the freebies being handed directly to Labour MPs – they knew about the ones handed to the central party, but have not been across the full scale and detail of donations handed to individuals.

This has meant a lack of central intelligence on the critical issue of conference and meant they have been surprised by stories those thrown up by the Westminster Accounts database and the weekend papers about freebies. Not the backdrop they wanted.

And all of this is making the relationship between the Labour family and the fourth estate more corrosive.

It has been interesting to watch in recent days parts the party turning against the media – a trend unlikely to help ease Labour’s communications challenges in the months ahead.

The growing hostility is visible on social media, but it exists in person in Liverpool too.

However, if you press members of this government on what they would prefer the conversation to be – beyond freebies and power tussles – the answer is much more fuzzy.

Ministers and advisors will all tell you this conference is about communicating hope, telling the country that things aren’t so gloomy.

They talk about a house on a hill – a metaphor likely to be expanded on later in the week.

And of course there’s a desire to blame the Tories.

There’s promise of detail too, more specifics to come, starting in Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s speech on Monday, then Sir Keir’s on Tuesday, but we’re almost halfway through the conference and they haven’t come through yet.

Somehow they are struggling to communicate how they are changing the country – a problem that risks undermining so much of their agenda if they can’t get this fixed.

Take the announcements this weekend. Today’s policy was “planning passports” for brownfield sites, yet one cabinet minister admitted to me they couldn’t explain it.

The party literature says it changes the presumption so that proposals that meet certain design and quality standards will be automatically approved.

But if this can’t be communicated, and people can’t explain why this measure – amongst many – is critical to the planning reform project, will anyone notice?

Then there’s another big policy announcement from the deputy prime minister today – the investment zones for the West Midlands and West Yorkshire.

Ms Rayner said she would “move forward” with those zones in her speech, but study the words closely.

She omitted to say what a casual observer might have thought – that these zones aren’t new as they build on investment zones announced last year in the same areas by the then Tory Chancellor Jeremy Hunt.

Asked what the difference is, I was told that the Labour ones “will go further”, building from existing investment zones “but tied in to Labour’s new Local Growth Plans”.

Can incremental reform really shake up and excite the conference and the country beyond?

Labour is promising massive change to the country, but if it is struggling to explain what it is doing and why, will it be able to bring the party and voters along with it?

And if they can’t explain why they are doing what they are doing, can we be really sure they know where they are going?