Last year’s Labour conference speech saw Keir Starmer transformed – in a shower of fairytale glitter, thanks to the efforts of an errant protester – from an opposition leader to a Prime Minister in waiting. This year’s speech necessitated a similarly impressive magic trick, albeit one of a different flavour. As my colleague George Eaton wrote this morning, Starmer needed to use to today to “recast his image” and add definition to the new Labour government, while also injecting some hope and optimism into the doom and gloom narrative he’s settled into over the summer.
Rachel Reeves made a start yesterday, with a quite literal change of tone (she was smiling so emphatically you could hear the renewed positivity in her voice) and a promise of better days to come if the government made the difficult choices now. Her hint at further investment helped frame the government’s message in a sunnier light. Would Starmer do the same?
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