Eighty days into government after a landslide election win, Sir Keir Starmer came to Liverpool as the first Labour prime minister in 15 years to address conference.
It should have been a joyous victory lap, but instead this is a PM already stumbling, wrong-footed by a row over the amount of freebies he took as leader of the opposition, and dysfunction in Number 10.
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A year ago in the very same conference hall, Sir Keir was being cheered on stage almost like a rock star, with staffers nearly in tears as their leader made his pitch to become prime minister.
And while the reception was still very warm as he delivered his speech on Tuesday, the country is fast cooling on their new leader.
The hope – and hunger – on display at last year’s conference when Labour were on the cusp of power, and Sir Keir was riding high in the polls, has given way to the hard reality of governing.
New polling by Opinium reveals that the prime minister’s approval rating has dropped 45 points to -26 since he became the country’s leader. It now makes him – by a point – less popular than his predecessor Rishi Sunak.
Meanwhile, the row over the prime minister taking free clothes, holidays and tickets to football matches and concerts has also cut through, with two-thirds of people in a recent YouGov poll saying it was wrong to do it.
So his task at conference was to try to get his “mission-led” government back on track and try to convey the purpose of the short-term pain he is warning us all about.
It was a speech of three parts.
The first was to convey the “change begins” message by running through some of the measures his new government have put in train – from setting up a new border security command to beginning planning reforms or launching Great British Energy to invest in renewable power.
The second was to “fix the foundations” as he explained the “tough decisions” he was making, and acknowledging the decision to cut winter fuel allowance had driven concern. His message was consistent to that in the election and immediate aftermath – change will take time and “it will be hard”.
The third element was to try to inject some sense of where the country could end up.
He told the audience: “The truth is that if we take long-term decisions now, if we stick to the driving purpose behind everything we do – higher economic growth, so living standards rise in every community; our NHS facing the future – waiting lists at your hospital down; safer streets in your community; stronger borders; more opportunities for your children; clean British energy power in your home – then that light at the end of this tunnel, that Britain belongs to you, we get there much more quickly.”
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This was another Starmer speech brimming with rhetoric around “national renewal” and a government “in the service of working people”. But for his massive majority, the announcements in this speech were modest.
When this government says “change begins”, the word “begins” is doing a lot of heavy lifting.
Insiders tell me that the inheritance from the Conservatives was much worse than they thought, the chancellor is finding her job much more difficult than she expected, and improvements to public services will be coming at the end of the parliament.
But while the public might have sympathy for that, where the leadership seems to be falling down is on the culture change that Sir Keir promised when he was leader of the opposition.
His was to be a government of service. He was going to restore trust in politics. He was going to heal the “wounds of trust” between voters and those who govern.
On this, Starmer has struggled, as the message discipline and slickness of the leadership campaign gives way to infighting and rows over freebies.
Away from the podium speeches and around the fringes of this conference, in a late night bar or over a quiet coffee, the mood is defensive and a little deflated.
There is private admission from senior ministers and staffers that the PM has got into a mess over the “free gear Keir” row.
Two figures tell me that it should have been shut down earlier and more emphatically, instead of running over the weekend into conference.
“We should have killed it off, it looks bad,” said one senior government figure.
Another expressed frustration that the government had gone off message and Downing Street didn’t clean it up quickly enough, with the headlines over donations kick starting the conference, adding: “We need to get back to the missions.”
One figure told me Starmer had been “upset” by all of it, particularly as it has brought his wife Victoria into the spotlight.
You can only imagine the frustration he must privately be feeling as he comes into the first conference in 15 years where Labour are in power on the backfoot, with his ratings falling and public opprobrium just weeks after delivering a landslide.
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PM needs to ‘lift’ conference
There is also unhappiness around the Number 10 leaks. On the side-lines, political operatives are whispering about the fury felt among many of the backroom special advisers who are seeing their pay cut as they move into government, while Sue Gray’s pay rise puts her on more than the prime minister.
“The advisers hate Sue Gray,” is how one figure put it.
It is a huge frustration to Starmer, who I am told highly values her advice.
Cabinet ministers also speak highly of Ms Gray in private. One told me: “On the machinery of government, she’s really helpful linking up different departments and cabinet ministers and helping us work out how it is done.”
Those who know the PM well say that Ms Gray is not going anywhere, and that the task after this conference will be to get the barnacles off the boat and focus relentlessly again on the missions.
Sir Keir wanted to lift voters’ eyes back to the horizon and “the light at the end of the tunnel” in his first conference as prime minister.
But instead he is personally weighed down by his promise to do things differently and his decision to take over £107,000 in freebies in the last parliament.
It’s hard to sell a message of “change begins” when there are questions about whether your actions match your words.
