If Sir Keir Starmer keeps the focus on vibes alone at this conference, he’ll probably do just fine here in Liverpool.
Flags. Patriotism. Determination. Change. Grit. Frustration. Optimism. The word cloud on Tuesday will come out just fine.
And there’s no doubt he’s helped along the way by the faux fight with the King of the North. Government aides were laughing at yet another Andy Burnham this morning – having renounced the Bond Markets, he’s now denounced the renunciation. They’re not worried.
But the big lingering question is not about vibes and not about personnel. It’s about whether any of it will actually work. Policy – not Sir Keir’s strong suit – is absolutely fundamental to delivering the change he harps on about, and will ultimately determine whether this government succeeds.
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Because the problem of this government, and its interminable obsession with who is up and who is down, is because until now Sir Keir has lacked a vision of change the country can get behind – something he pleaded guilty to on TV this morning by saying he would fix that this week. Without policy, it is hard for the people in Liverpool to have passion.
Absent this morning is any conversation about the biggest challenge facing this government – the £30bn black hole.
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The government is having three meetings a week about it, yet the prime minister has conspicuously nothing new to say about it and no desire to say it. The chancellor suggested additional growth from a youth mobility scheme. Not only is that policy not signed off, but the idea that it would touch the sides of the £30bn black hole is, as ex-Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) director Paul Johnson points out, for the birds.
This is one challenge that Ben Nunn, Rachel Reeves’s director of communications, will not have to worry about if he agrees to return to Number 10 after the budget to plug the gaps as I revealed on the Politics At Sam And Anne’s podcast.
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There will be some defence of the fiscal position in Monday’s Reeves speech. But the kindest explanation more generally about the absence of discussion about the black hole from a ministerial aide was that it would come after conference season with “difficult” conversations with the Parliamentary Labour Party. But equally, why do today what you can put off until tomorrow.
So then there is a question of the policy they do want to talk about: ID cards.
This was announced on Friday, but the question asked by ministers is whether the party can withstand the opposition which is already looming on the horizon.
Sir Keir sold the idea as a patriotic answer to part of the problem posed by illegal migration, and stopping people who come over here on small boats from taking jobs. There was no clear answer from the PM when pressed on the BBC this morning that people who employ illegal migrants were already breaking the law.
But the challenge on this policy goes deeper, as I also reveal on the podcast. I understand that inside government there is no idea how to begin to answer the question of how this will work. It could be based on the existing passport databases, the driving licence databases, the veterans card or visas system.
But even more strikingly, I am told by a government spokesman that despite this being core to identity and sold as an answer to illegal migration, the Home Office is not in the lead but instead it will be overseen by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), now run by Liz Kendall.
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“We have some of the youngest staff in Whitehall,” said a source on why DSIT was the right place to lead the policy.
The Home Office passed on the opportunity to take the lead. None of this bodes well for a successful rollout. This is yet another a massive policy that was not in the manifesto and bears all the hallmarks of being rushed.
Then there is broader gap between Sir Keir’s approach on immigration and that of the new home secretary.
He called some Reform UK policies racist this morning, emphasising the dividing line is between legal and illegal policies. But writing in The Sun, Shabana Mahmood is talking about making things that are currently legal illegal – changing the Refugee Convention, changing the rules around indefinite leave to remain.
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Under her vision, maybe 400,000 people could be required to leave. These are huge numbers for a Labour home secretary to be thinking about. Removing numbers on this scale could make the dividing line with Reform UK much harder. How much is Sir Keir really across the new approach being taken by Ms Mahmood?
How does the Reeves pro-EU youth mobility announcement conflict with the Mahmood approach in her speech and interviews? Who is reconciling competing ministerial interests?
I am repeatedly told that Sir Keir acts as if the announcement of the policy is the moment he hands it over to colleagues, then only checks in months later, bemused why things haven’t happened.
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Some people think he is very much the chairman of his government. Perhaps he needs to become more like an interventionist chief executive.
Because ultimately if stuff doesn’t work, the vibes will be out of control.
