Four days before Tony Blair was to make his first address to Conference as Labour Party leader, he was panicking. The speech, which formed the argument for amending Clause IV on the common ownership of industry, remained unfinished. “Is this madness we’re even considering it?”, he asked his press secretary Alastair Campbell, agonising over the endless re-writing of different sections. Campbell, in his diaries, reports that Blair “was beginning to look exasperated. His hair was wild, two big prongs of it heading off towards the ceiling.”
Keir Starmer’s neat hair, on the other hand, remains unmoved. People close to the Labour leader say an almost finalised text of his first proper Conference speech has been shared among key internal and external advisers for weeks. Starmer is prepared.
While Blair and Starmer are both barristers, Blair only practised for a few years, whereas Starmer reached the peak of the profession over two decades. Blair was known for his deft advocacy and charm, though it was clear he was more interested in politics from an early stage. Starmer was forensic, thorough and hard-working, obsessed with his burgeoning human rights practice. It is no surprise the more experienced counsel, who took silk and went on to become director of public prosecutions, has marshalled his arguments well in advance of the trial beginning.
While the two seemingly have contrasting approaches to the preparation of the speech, there are similarities to the contexts in which Blair and Starmer take to the stage (technically Starmer’s first appearance was at the height of Covid, staring into a camera and without an audience). Both speeches are to a party that has been in opposition for over a decade. Both leaders are taking on elements in their own party—Blair with his arguments over clause IV, and Starmer with his motion to reintroduce an electoral college for leadership elections, weakening the role of party members. Indeed, Starmer is said to have consulted Blair’s speechwriter (and Prospect contributor) Philip Collins while preparing his speech.
Yet the differences in the landscape facing both leaders are more striking. Blair’s first opinion poll as Labour leader gave the party a 33 per cent lead over the Tories. If Labour draws close with the Conservatives today, there is a meltdown on social media over the prospects of a Labour government. Polling does not simply reflect the political mood, but shapes it. Leaders of the opposition who seem to be the prime minister in waiting appear, naturally, weightier and more authoritative compared with a pretender who is desperately seeking more support from a wary public.
Labour is far less popular than in 1994 and the electoral challenge is more daunting for Starmer. A swing akin to that which Blair achieved in his 1997 landslide—approaching 10 per cent—would give Starmer only a tiny majority. Without a revival in in Scotland, Labour would have to win seats like Jacob Rees-Mogg’s North East Somerset constituency, where he holds a majority of 14,729, to achieve a vaguely workable majority.
Starmer also leads a more unruly party. He took over after Corbyn’s five-year tenure, during which the party machinery swung to the left and the membership bloomed with socialist activists. Of course, Blair faced internal opposition to his reforms, but the hard left was tired and worn down after losing the battles of the 1980s during Kinnock’s leadership. Starmer faces prominent left-wing voices in the media and on his own backbenches who repeatedly undermine him. Starmer has soft control of the ruling National Executive Committee and the wider party machine, but this power, as we will undoubtedly see over the course of the party conference, is fragile.
Blair was also able to clobber a tired Conservative Party, tearing itself apart over Europe and embroiled in scandal. Johnson has, for the moment, a unified party behind him, with a shallow but defined political project, to “level up,” to “get social care done” after allegedly completing Brexit, and to “build back better.” He is more popular than many political observers choose to believe. On the doorstep campaigning, I continue to be struck by how many voters speak of “Boris” as a “good lad,” who “gets it” and is “trying his best.”
Starmer knows he faces a stark challenge, and analysis and criticism of his own performance will be relentless. In contrast to Johnson, the polling repeatedly shows that Starmer is yet to make an impression on large swathes of the public. “Don't know” is remarkably popular when the public are asked about the leader of the opposition. After Labour went into the last general election with the most unpopular leader in modern British history, even these numbers are an improvement. But clearly Starmer will need to make an impact soon.
The conference speech is a crucial moment. It is a rare opportunity for Starmer to make a pitch to the country that is not merely a reaction to events. And while this is only his first proper conference speech, it is likely to be his penultimate attempt before a general election in 2023. He must—in the words of Blair during his opening salvo to the 1994 conference, once his hair had been styled appropriately—set out a “vision for our party and our county: what we are, where we stand and how we will govern.”
“Starmer must begin to make an impact beyond the slow drudge of detoxification”
Blair’s 1994 speech was, in some ways, his best. It is worth re-reading. Blair dismantled the Conservative government from the left—ridiculing their attempts to use compassionate language—while humorously dealing with tensions within his own party. The speech was optimistic and proud, marching confidently onto Conservative terrain while remaining unashamedly progressive. It was a tour de force in opposition rhetoric, offering a clear sense of direction without announcing a single new policy for government. Campbell, according to his diaries, tells Blair that he will never get a better press reception to a speech. He was right.
Of course, all leaders of the opposition attempt to set out their agenda in a conference speech. It must be liberating for them to have a relatively blank canvas upon which to paint their vision for the country, rather than constantly “opposing” the government and reacting to a 24-hour news cycle. And if conference speeches do not always shift the mood in British politics, they can certainly capture it—in 1994 Blair was the modern, unstoppable force in British politics set against a discombobulated Tory government.
While Starmer has announced a raft of policies since becoming leader, he is the perfect proof that policies do not amount to a project. If he is to transmit his political identity, he must first tell the British people who he is and what, and who, he is for. This week, he is publishing a 14,000-word essay to complement the—hopefully more pithy—conference speech, which is an admission that meat needs to be added to the bones on this front.
If Corbyn believed in energising new voters and building an anti-austerity majority, and Ed Miliband thought a route to victory could be found by attracting voters who were struggling due to the tough edges of an outdated capitalist economy, Starmer’s strategy remains unclear. There has been an important and impressive change in tone: the party will not re-fight the battles of Brexit, it will not be hyperbolic in its opposition, it will be patriotic and emphasise themes such as law and order, defence and family. Yet this is not a formula for victory, but a mitigation of the immediate past. Starmer must begin to make an impact beyond the slow drudge of detoxification, to draw new and effective dividing lines in British politics and to tell a story about the nation’s future. Critically, he must begin to talk to the country, beyond those members and activists who will travel to Brighton this week.
That this has not been done yet is not necessarily a criticism of Starmer—the vastness of the challenge means stipulating any political project too early is not an option. There was work required just to earn the right to be heard. But at some point, Starmer must make his move. Time is already running out.
