Good morning.
Since the party won the election in July, Labour’s messaging has been downcast. Abandoning the high spirits that followed their seismic victory, Keir Starmer has opted for gloom-laden predictions of hard times ahead. The prime minister’s message to the country late last month was that “things will get worse before they get better”. Coming into office and immediately setting expectations so low is a political risk – if there was ever a moment to lead with hope and optimism, critics argue, it is now. As Labour’s annual party conference kicks off in Liverpool, there are big questions about whether the government will move on from the pessimism that has characterised their first few months in power, and steer the tone and tenor of the conversation on to something else. In a conversation in yesterday’s Observer, the prime minister was keen to stress that he offers more than just doom and gloom, with plans to provide a vision for what Britain could be.
For today’s newsletter, I spoke with Anushka Asthana, deputy political editor of ITV News, former Guardian journalist and author of Taken As Red, about what to expect from Labour’s annual party conference this week. That’s right after the headlines.
Five big stories
Israel-Gaza war | Seven people have been killed after an Israeli airstrike hit a school housing displaced people in western Gaza City, Palestinian health officials said. Meanwhile, Hezbollah has said it has entered an “open-ended battle of reckoning” with Israel after launching a series of rocket attacks on the north of the country as world powers implored both sides to step back from the brink of all-out war.
Politics | Rachel Reeves will announce that she has ordered investigations into more than £600m worth of Covid contracts awarded under the Conservatives as Labour struggles to get back on the front foot over questions of ethics.
Sudan | The UN secretary general, António Guterres, is “gravely alarmed” at reports of a full-scale assault on the Sudanese city of al-Fashir by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and has called on its leader to halt the attack immediately, according to Guterres’ spokesperson.
Business | Fifty pubs a month closed for good across England and Wales in the first half of this year, with experts warning that tax rises in 2025 could make it even harder for some businesses to keep their doors open.
Inflation | The price of petrol and diesel in the UK is falling at the fastest pace this year, with households paying about £4 less to fill up a family car than they did a month ago.
In depth: ‘A lot of senior figures and MPs are desperate for a more optimistic tone’
It has been 15 years since the Labour party last had a conference while in government. Twenty thousand people are descending on Liverpool, many of whom arrived yesterday, to lobby the government, hash out policy positions … and inevitably partake in terrible karaoke. So what awaits them?
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The vibes
The non-stop pessimism from senior figures in government is deliberate for two main reasons, Anushka Asthana says. The first is to hammer home the bleak inheritance left by the previous government. “They want to be clear about where the country is right now – but they want to argue that it is not inevitable”.
“We had this exact same fight in 2010 when the Conservatives blamed the Labour government for the situation the country was in. They laid out a narrative of economic incompetence that became really entrenched and damaged the party for a long time,” she says. The tables have now turned, and it is Labour’s chance to lay out the damaging narrative against the opposition.
The other reason is that hope and optimism in British politics in the past has been drummed up off the back of false promises. “One thing they think in Downing Street very strongly is that they don’t want to give false hope and they want to be, in their view, realistic and honest,” she adds. “They think the electorate has been left cynical and despondent as a result of past governments,” and they want to remedy that. “The public is sick of boosterism”, one Downing Street insider told the Guardian’s Pippa Crerar, that is, a pattern of overpromising and under-delivering which has deeply damaged faith in politicians and politics.
The difficulty is that “a lot of senior figures and MPs are desperate for a more optimistic tone, and they don’t believe that necessarily requires committing loads of money”, Anushka says. They argue that a change of government for the first time in over a decade is reason for hope alone.
Despite the overwhelming response that the tone is too glum, one source has told Anushka “we will adjust the base and the treble but we won’t change the tune”, meaning they still believe their overall framework is the right even if it is not landing particularly well.
It seems as though there has been an acknowledgment that the fatalism of the past few months has to be balanced with some ideas about the future. One source told Jessica Elgot that the plan is to point to “all the things that we can begin this autumn and that is the story we can tell – that we will not allow our inheritance to stop the work of change”.
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Resetting the agenda
Starmer has come under significant scrutiny in the past few weeks. The decision to cut winter fuel payments for all but the poorest pensioners created a firestorm, and the prime minister is still battling the reputational damage over donations that he and his wife have accepted amounting to over £100,000 in gifts and freebies since December 2019. Despite No 10’s insistence that the country does not care about this story, voters do in fact care deeply. A poll by More in Common found just 7% of the public think it is acceptable to take donations for senior ministers’ clothing and only 8% think donations of hospitality to politicians are acceptable. “The difficulty is it feeds the narrative that politicians are on the take,” Anushka says. “It’s coming up on the doorstep and it looks hypocritical.” While some of the donations have some semblance of an explanation – as prime minister, Starmer accepted corporate hospitality at Arsenal games because he cannot sit in regular seats for security reasons – others do not. Why, for instance, did he have to accept £2,485 worth of designer glasses?
Furthering the sense of hypocrisy is the zeal with which Starmer attacked Boris Johnson over donations a few years ago, when he dubbed the former prime minister “Major Sleaze”. Similarly, Starmer is batting away criticism over chief of staff Sue Gray’s £170,000 salary, despite attacking the Conservative government over the pay of former Tory chief adviser Dominic Cummings. “At one point, Starmer juxtaposed the pay rise for Cummings against pay freezes for public sector workers – well, now he can expect the Conservatives to juxtapose the pay rise for Sue Gray against the money taken off pensioners,” Anushka says. The government is hoping that conference will be an opportunity to try to take back control of the agenda.
However, Starmer’s casual dismissal of the controversies is beginning to waver. Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy has said the prime minister and Labour ministers will stop accepting clothing donations because they don’t want voters to believe they are “living very different lives”.
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What else can we expect?
As the party seeks to move on from the toxic combination of scandal and misery, a number of policies will be pushed for promotion: planning reform, renters’ rights, rail nationalisation, onshore wind, devolution workers rights and teacher recruitment, among many other issues. However, all of this threatens to be overshadowed by the spectre of the October budget which has been widely pitched as difficult and painful – expect spending cuts and tax rises.
Meanwhile, the left of the Labour party will have a significantly diminished presence this year at the conference. The World Transformed, a leftwing political festival that for the past eight years has happened alongside the Labour conference as a fringe event, has been cancelled this year.
Several senior figures to the left of the party, like former chancellor John McDonnell are suspended from the party, and others are frustrated with the leadership stance on the two-child benefit cap and the winter fuel allowance. As a result, the conference will probably be dominated by delegates from the party’s centrist wing and will be a demonstration of the strength of Starmer’s support across the party. “But I’ve been an observer of politics for a long time and no prime minister can ever maintain control of all MPs, indefinitely,” Anushka warns.
Taken As Red will be released on 26 September and is available to pre-order at the Guardian Bookshop.
What else we’ve been reading
Edward Helmore has all the details on the Succession-style struggle for the Murdoch empire that is under way in a Nevada courthouse. Nimo
Chris Wilding – the son of Elizabeth Taylor – talks movingly to Simon Hattenstone about his mother and growing up in the shadow of a superstar: “There were crowds wherever she went; always a gaggle of photographers following, people gawping … it was horrible.” Toby Moses, head of newsletters
As a BBC documentary has delved into the abuse and sexual predation of Mohamed Al Fayed, former Vanity Fair editor Henry Porter looks back at his investigation to expose the Harrods owner almost three decades ago. Nimo
Are you ready for your full-body health scan? Linda Geddes tried out a new machine that sounds like something out of Star Trek and promises to identify everything from heart conditions to your predisposition to certain cancers. Toby
Transport for London has been navigating a cyber attack for weeks. Gwyn Topham writes that although there has been little impact on the physical service, the slow burning problems are likely going to prove considerably costly. Nimo
Sport
Football | Manchester City broke Arsenal’s resistance with a 98th-minute leveller as the champions drew 2-2 at home to their nearest rivals – thanks to a scrappy goal from John Stones, pictured above – after the visitors had Leandro Trossard sent off just before half-time.
Formula One | McLaren’s Lando Norris dominated the Singapore Grand Prix beating Max Verstappen by 21 seconds, despite hitting the wall twice.
Cycling | The double Olympic gold medallist Remco Evenepoel successfully defended the world time trial title he won in last year’s World Road Championships in Glasgow, with victory in this year’s event in Zurich.
The front pages
The Guardian leads on “Labour to investigate £600m Covid contracts given under the Tories”. The Times looks to the Labour party conference with “Good times ahead if we seize them, says Reeves”. The Telegraph takes a different line with “Reeves: UK must accept hard times or risk ruin”. The i leads with “Reeves urged not to return to austerity, as Labour faces winter fuel revolt”. The Financial Times leads with “European steelmakers press Brussels to tackle a flood of Chinese exports”.
The Mirror leads with Labour going after tax cheats with “We will get your money back”. The Mail splashes with “Now Rayner hires £68,000 ‘vanity photographer’.” The Sun’s lead is “Dance floored”, looking at the TV ratings for the BBC’s live broadcast of Strictly Come Dancing.
Today in Focus
Born to rule? The hereditary peers about to lose their seats
Helen Pidd meets Charles Courtenay, the 19th Earl of Devon, to discuss the history and fate of the UK’s hereditary peers.
Cartoon of the day | Edith Pritchett
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The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
Phil Daoust’s latest Fit for ever column sees him ponder the question of whether – at 61 – irreversible damage had already been done to his skin. With cancer cases on the rise, he spoke to experts at Salford Royal hospital, to find out whether years of sun exposure and taking “terrible” care of his skin could lead to serious health consequences (his column also features a useful guide to what to look out for in new moles or ones that have changed in size, colour or shape).
Thankfully, there were no major causes for concern, and as well as a comprehensive skin MOT, Phil did get some important information about how to protect himself in future, from staying out of the sun when it’s at its hottest, to which sunscreen to slap on and when. “I expect I’ll fail more often than not,” writes Phil. “But having apparently dodged a bullet, I’m going to at least attempt to stay out of the firing line”.
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.
