A case of much ado about nothing?

Like the storm scene in King Lear, the crashing waves and roaring wind outside the Brighton Centre mirrored the elemental sound and fury of the party conference within.

Labour’s Young Pretender was on manoeuvres. Bonnie Prince Andy (Burnham) wooed one packed fringe event after another, as if flirtatiously enlisting Flora Mcdonald to transport him from the Manchester mayoralty to No 10. Across the road, in the World Transformed tent, journalist Paul Mason and a member of Corbyn’s shadow cabinet were lecturing a panel on “How Labour can win”. This was a bit like asking Lord Cardigan to advise on the proper moment to launch a Crimean cavalry charge. But so far, so Labour conference.

Inside the main hall, Angela Eagle was fighting a long and ultimately doomed campaign to get a grip on members’ speeches. Under the banner “STRONGER FUTURE TOGETHER”, Labour was doing what it does best… arguing. Delegates gleefully thrashed out their differences on everything from Nato and the rules-based order, to party bureaucracy and, inevitably, Israel/palestine, the subject of a Young Labour motion later that day.

“Wind up, please?... Last sentence now… keep to time!” snapped poor Angela. Delegates agreed on some things: UBI, flexible work, “collective ownership”. But easily the biggest was for a matter of party bureaucracy – a Wakefield CLP member appalled by the lack of time allocated to the Israel/ Palestine motion.

Reinforcements arrived in the form of shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, who sounded like another Labour Angela in her Four Yorkshiremen-style opening salvo. “At our state school, the library was turned into a classroom… as for textbooks, there were never, ever enough to go around.” Reeves is a powerful speaker, with an eye for a catchy slogan. She branded the recent NIC hike a “jobs tax”, pledged to “buy, make and sell more in Britain”, and support bricks-and-mortar shops by taxing online outlets.

The audience particularly despised outsourcing companies – when Reeves pledged to take more “in-house”, the cheers drowned out even her mighty bellow. “Conference,” she thundered, “THAT IS WHAT A LABOUR GOVERNMENT WILL DO.”

The chamber swelled with applause, and Reeves waved and radiated her Vera Lynn thousand-megawatt smile. The ovation muffled even the roar of the storm outside. But how many beyond the hardcore of party faithful were listening? Inside, it seemed, Labour was still talking to itself.