Keir Starmer's conference speech was his best yet - but he could still be next Kinnock: Bill Carmichael

The BBC described the mood among delegates as “buoyant “and there was much talk of Labour “turning the corner” which, if true, is a remarkable achievement coming just three years after their worst election defeat since 1935.

Feeding off the government’s largely self-inflicted troubles, Sir Keir and his team were determined to take full advantage to portray the Labour leader as a Prime Minister in waiting, and his shadow cabinet as a credible alternative government.

One opinion poll showed Labour 17 points ahead of the Conservatives, and such is the confidence they can achieve an outright election victory, Sir Keir emphatically ruled out any future pact with the SNP – a pledge that may well return to bite him on the backside in a couple of years’ time.

So is this a crucial turning point like 1992, when Black Wednesday destroyed the Conservative’s reputation for financial competence and laid the foundations for Tony Blair’s landslide election victory five years later?

Well, Sir Keir is clearly a decent and talented man, but he is certainly no Tony Blair. He had a good conference, although I think he still has some way to go to seal the deal with voters.

First, the good news. There were some dramatic changes, particularly in the field of optics.

For example, four years’ ago the Labour conference was a sea of Palestinian flags, and Jewish MPs had to hire private security officers to protect them from their “comrades” at their own conference, such was the toxic culture of virulent anti-Semitism amongst the extreme left, which then controlled the party.

This year, the contrast could not have been sharper. Against a backdrop of a giant union flag and a photograph of the late Queen, the delegates sang ‘God Save the King’, although hilariously many didn’t look too happy about it and the party had to print flyers to remind them of the lyrics.

If it is possible to sing through gritted teeth, those Labour delegates managed it. But although it was all very cringeworthy, it was disciplined and respectful – qualities not normally associated with the Left.

Most importantly it represented a recognition by Labour that elections are won on the centre ground, not at the extremes.

The ideological purity spiral, in which left wingers denounce each other in order to gain traction with increasingly extreme and alienating views, almost always leads to a rejection by ordinary voters and heavy election defeat – as Labour discovered in 2019.

If Sir Keir is to realise his dream of entering Number 10 he’ll need the support of what we used to call “Mondeo Man” and “Worcester Woman”, in other words the ordinary people in the middle, not the ranting blue-haired teenagers who when the election comes won’t even bother to get out of bed to vote.

Sir Keir’s speech, though notably light on detail, was probably one of his best yet. But he is certainly no orator, and he lacks the sparkle of Tony Blair. His delivery is wooden and the whole thing felt contrived and artificial.

Boris Johnson may have been slightly cruel when he described Sir Keir as “Captain Crasheroony Snoozefest” but he is not far off the mark.

What is lacking is the “vision thing” – a simple, compelling, easily understandable narrative that demonstrates to ordinary voters how a Labour government will make their lives better.

I suspect the next election, like pretty much every election, will be decided by bread and butter issues such as ‘which party is going to make me better off’?

My back-of-a-fag-packet calculation tells me that the cancellation of the National Insurance rise and the cut in the basic rate of income tax will save me the thick end of £1,000 a year.

I’ll spend that money on local goods and services, helping to sustain and create jobs in my community, and creating and spreading prosperity.

For this reason I reckon the decisions on how to spend the money I work hard to earn are best made by me, rather than politicians and bureaucrats in Westminster.

Will Labour let me keep more of the money I earn, or will they take more of it away, as they have every time they have been in power in the past?

And before Labour gets too cocky, let’s not forget Neil Kinnock’s triumphalist Sheffield rally a week before the 1992 election in which he screamed: “We’re all right!” like a superannuated rock star.

He lost. Beware hubris.