Keir Starmer used his party conference speech to sharpen his message and go heavy on patriotism in a pitch to ‘hero voters’
As an exercise in party management, this has been the most successful conference for Labour since Tony Blair’s last in 2006.
There was buyer’s remorse the moment Gordon Brown took over in 2007; the conferences of the Ed Miliband years left deeper scars than evident in public; and that was nothing compared to the civil war of the Corbyn era.
Last year, Keir Starmer’s first proper conference was consumed by clashes with his left flank and Corbyn groupies.
This year, his own party – with a very different membership turning up in Liverpool – decided to give Keir Starmer pretty much a clear run.
Politics Hub: Live updates from Labour conference
That’s meant the question all week has been whether today’s speech connects with the public, makes an argument for a better Britain that voters can believe and is memorable enough to impact on a noisy political scene.
To do this, Keir Starmer has changed speechwriters. Gone were the authors of last year’s windy treatise that overstayed its welcome.
In its place is Alan Lockey, who worked for Tony Blair’s policy chief Matthew Taylor at the Royal Society of Arts. The change was noticeable: the speech more muscular, more tightly constructed and with sharper phrasing than anything previously seen from this leader.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Starmer lashed out at energy initiatives in the UK being owned by foreign companies before making the announcement.
The three themes listeners were bludgeoned with all the way through the hour were patriotism, solidarity and integrity.
Praise for the “remarkable sovereign”; invoking how the “Late Queen would turn our collar up and face the storm”; talk of “British power to the British people”; arguing the Tories are responsible for “redistribution from the poor to the rich” – a highly targeted speech.
This is because there is a clear political strategy behind this approach.
Under the guidance of pollster and strategist Deborah Mattinson, Labour is prioritising winning back a slice of the electorate they call “hero voters” – one-time Labour supporters who backed Brexit and then voted Tory in 2019 but who they think are up for grabs at the next election.
An overt drive by Starmer to stress his patriotism, sense of solidarity and integrity is only one part of Team Starmer’s drive to win back “hero voters”. The other was to hammer the differences between himself and Labour’s Corbyn era.
Read More:
Labour surge to biggest poll lead over Tories since 2001
‘The cavalry is coming’: Labour shadow minister says party ‘ready to govern’
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner says Labour has what it takes to win the next general election and is the ‘party of the people’
The former regime may have played a comparatively tiny role in this year’s conference compared to 2021, yet still Starmer decided the public needs to be reminded.
Again, the repudiation of antisemitism. Again, another standing ovation. A different membership in Liverpool this year, and Starmer attempting to use that to his advantage. The Tories the enemy of the speech, but the Corbyn era an almost equal opponent.
One big announcement at the heart of the speech – the creation of a British state-owned energy company to rival France’s EDF, known as Great British Energy – got a standing ovation.
As he acknowledged, its birth will be tricky, its role in the market yet to be fleshed out – it is more political signal than fully fleshed out change. Whether this idea will stay uppermost in voters’ minds is yet to be seen.
But the other striking thing about the speech was the way he wanted to signal confidence.
By addressing Brexit head-on – which for a long time has unnerved party strategists – attacking the government for failing to “grasp the nettle” and promising to deliver “control” in a way the Tories have failed. This would not have been possible 18 months ago.
A good party conference speech provides verbal weapons for their troops to deploy on doorsteps in the months ahead. Starmer provided his team with options – pretty much for the first time. Let’s see if his flock use them.
World
Sky News obtains first accounts of what happened inside Syrian cities shaken by bloody violence
No checkpoint is the same, some want paperwork, others wave you through after a brief look inside – but from Damascus to Latakia, there are a lot of checkpoints, and in one way or another, you are checked every time.
It wasn’t like this just a month or two ago, but it is now after the most violent few days the country has seen since Bashar al Assad was forced from power in December last year.
We drove through cities like Jableh, on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, almost unrecognisable now.
The bustling streets, markets and shops are silent, apart from the sirens of passing General Security convoys – their armed soldiers packed on the back of pick-up trucks.
The debris of battle is everywhere, buildings are burnt out and peppered with bullet holes, glass from smashed shopfront windows spills across the pavement and spent machine gun casings litter the streets.
Cities like Jableh, on Syria’s Mediterranean Coast, are almost unrecognisable now
The debris of battle is everywhere after pro-Assad militia attacked the city
After three months of relatively peaceful times, things have dramatically changed here, all because of the events of 6, 7 and 8 March.
A Thursday, Friday, and Saturday that could determine Syria’s future.
Driving out of Jableh and over a bridge, we pass through another checkpoint, then through a deserted village, home to a community of Syrian Alawites. Shops and homes are destroyed, soldiers guard the roads in and out.
We are on our way to the Hmeimim air base, home to the Russian military in Syria.
It’s also now home to as many as 10,000 Alawites who are now camping in and around the base.
The Hmeimim air base is home to the Russian military in Syria
The site is also now home to as many as 10,000 Alawites camping in and around the area
They are seeking shelter and protection, watched on by Russian soldiers who remain inside.
Some of the thousands are in tents or under makeshift cover, others are sleeping rough or in their cars.
Thousands of people are in tents or under makeshift cover
One of many children displaced after her family were attacked by pro-Assad militia
Some are sleeping rough or in their cars
I first visited the airbase last December – then it consisted of a small cluster of shops and restaurants, established over years to service the Russian personnel.
Now the shops are shuttered and the restaurants cleared of tables to allow the families to sleep.
As I approached the gates of the base, I was surrounded by people pushing against each other, trying to get to me to tell me stories of being burnt out of their houses, or of family members killed in front of their eyes.
Crowds gather around Sky’s Stuart Ramsay to describe how their relatives were killed by pro-Assad forces
A young woman pulled me aside. “We need help, international help,” she whispered.
“We need international peacekeepers; my house was on fire.”
In the crowd, I met Adiba Shehaidi. She’s sleeping rough outside the base after escaping her village, Ain al Arous.
“They attacked us, just like that, slaughtered us, our friends, our neighbours, our children, our relatives – our in-laws, all of them, were slaughtered. They stormed the houses, shooting…” she recounted her story of escape.
“What can we say? To the world, what can we say? What was our crime?” she cried.
People in mourning after killings
Grieving relatives have described how their families were slaughtered
We were told that whole families had been killed with some buried in mass graves.
Not far away from the base, in the village of Al Sanobar – we found one. A mass grave consisting of two trenches, dug under the cover of darkness by villagers. They buried 80 people here.
Sticks had been placed in the earth to signal a body buried beneath. We are told a family of 17 are in one of the graves.
A mass grave in the village of Al-Sanobar
Sticks have been placed in the earth to show where a body is buried
Further into the village, we came across a group of men digging more graves. They told us they had found the bodies of their families, friends, and neighbours littered on the streets and in houses.
So far, they have buried 223 people, all from this one village.
Latakia, on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, is where pro-Assad fighters are accused of killing Alawite civilians
On trucks, the bodies wrapped in blankets and plastic were brought to their final resting place near their homes. Under a blistering sun a simple ceremony is held, then side by side they are buried.
These families have been devastated – their anguish obvious.
Read more:
Alawites take refuge from Syrian army
Government forces clash with Assad loyalists
Syria vows to investigate mass killings
Convoys of government security forces are now constantly patrolling all the areas where the killings took place, and they are trying to encourage the Alawites to return to their villages, saying it is now safe.
Convoys of government security forces are patrolling all the areas where the killings took place
The head of General Security, Mustafa Kunefate, told me what happened here was unacceptable and must not happen again.
He explained how Assad loyalists had attacked and killed soldiers, police officers, and civilians – filming it and posting it on social media. This, he said, led to “undisciplined groups” arriving to this part of Syria, acting “outside of the Ministry of Defence’s command”.
The head of General Security, Mustafa Kunefate, tells Sky’s Stuart Ramsay that Assad loyalists were to blame for the killings
Kunefate: What happened was unacceptable and must not happen again
“Among these groups were some with a questionable intent, many arrived with no clear instructions, simply coming to break the siege on the Ministry of Defence personnel and police,” Mr Kunefate told me.
“This resulted in chaos and a breakdown of discipline among the fighting groups that entered the coastal region.”
The scene of some of the worst fighting happened in the city of Jableh when the pro-Assad militia attacked. Much of the centre of town has been badly damaged in the fighting, and it is tense.
Security convoys patrol cities like Jableh, badly damaged during fighting with pro-Assad forces.
General Security convoys constantly patrol the city, home to Sunni civilians who were murdered like their Alawite neighbours.
Imad Bitar’s father Talal died after his car was fired upon by Assad fighters.
I met him in their family home where he told me he wants peace but believes it will only happen when Assad’s fighters are captured.
Sunni civilians in the city of Jableh were also murdered by pro-Assad fighters, including Imad Bitar’s father Talal
“We must find a way to live together, our only demand now is for the remaining factions to leave Syria and for those responsible for the regime’s crimes to face a formal trial. It’s not about sectarian divisions, it’s about justice.”
This has been a difficult time for the new government trying to unite Syria.
The massacres of Alawites at the hands of militia puts President Ahmed al Sharaa’s unity project in jeopardy.
But if there is a positive from that dreadful weekend, it is that the government acknowledges the mistakes and is promising to bring those responsible to justice.
The World with Yalda Hakim at 9pm on Sky News will feature a series of special reports on Syria from our chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay and special correspondent Alex Crawford.
Watch their latest report inside Al-Hol camp, where thousands of families affiliated to the former Islamic State group are being held by Kurdish forces in northeast Syria.
A crew has entered the International Space Station (ISS) to replace the astronauts who were stranded there for nine months.
A SpaceX capsule delivered four astronauts on Sunday on a mission to allow Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams – who have been on the ISS since June 2024 – to return home.
The Dragon craft, with the Crew-10 astronauts inside, docked with the orbiting laboratory at 4.04am UK time, around 29 hours after it had been launched on the top of the Falcon 9 rocket from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Butch Wilmore (back row centre) and Suni Williams (back row right) celebrate with the rest of the astronauts replacing them on the International Space Station.
The replacement crew, including Russia’s Kirill Peskov (centre), were welcomed on board the International Space Station (ISS). Pic: NASA
NASA’s Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, both military pilots, along with Japan’s Takuya Onishi and Russia’s Kirill Peskov, both former airline pilots, will spend the next six months at the space station.
Their mission will allow four members of Crew-9, which includes Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams, to return to Earth.
Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore during their unplanned nine month stay in space.
File pic: NASA/AP
It took several minutes for Dragon to safely dock at the ISS, in what is an automated process.
But there was about 1 hour and 45 minutes of additional safety checks before the hatch could be opened.
Mr Wilmore swung open the space station’s hatch and rang the ship’s bell as the arrivals floated in one by one and were greeted with hugs and handshakes.
How they were stranded
Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams originally planned to go to space for just eight days but got stuck on the station after their Boeing Starliner spacecraft started experiencing problems.
Technical issues left them stranded, and various attempts to bring them home were unsuccessful.
The craft encountered so many problems that NASA insisted it return to Earth empty, leaving the pilots behind until now.
‘You can hardly even put it into words’
“It was a wonderful day. Great to see our friends arrive,” Ms Williams told Mission Control after the new astronauts had been welcomed aboard.
The moments after docking with Suni Williams, centre, finally facing the prospect of returning back to Earth.
Pic: NASA/AP
The astronauts, including Japan’s Takuya Onishi, greeting one another after arrival on the International Space Station.
Pic: NASA/AP
Speaking after the successful docking, Ms McClain added: “Crew-10 has had a great journey up here and I cannot tell you the immense joy of our crew when we looked out the window and we saw the space station for the first time.
“That is such an amazing journey. You can hardly even put it into words.”
The dragon capsule was manoeuvred towards ISS before it docked. Pic: NASA
The view from the ISS as the Dragon capsule edged closer and docked. Pic: NASA
The journey back to Earth
The four newcomers will spend the next few days learning the station’s ins and outs from Mr Wilmore and Ms Williams.
Then the two of them will strap into their own capsule later in the week, one that has been up there since last year, to close out the unexpected extended mission.
The pair’s ride back arrived in late September with a downsized crew of two and two empty seats reserved for the leg back.
The Dragon capsule safely docked with the International Space Station. Pic: NASA
But more delays emerged when their replacements’ brand new capsule needed extensive battery repairs.
An older capsule took its place, pushing up their return by a couple of weeks to mid-March.
Read more from Sky News:
Four in five headteachers abused by parents
Trump kills at least 31 civilians in Red Sea
KT Tunstall’s musical reinvention
Weather permitting, the SpaceX capsule carrying them and two other astronauts will undock no earlier than Wednesday and splash down off Florida’s coast.
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports12 months agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports1 year agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business2 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway