Starmer’s vision silenced Labour sceptics – but disillusioned voters will be a much tougher crowd

‘One of Keir Starmer’s tasks at conference was to look less like a man sneaking up on power – and more like a leader striding with purpose and a destination in mind.’ Photograph: Jon Super/AP

Combine confidence of success with dread of disappointment, and you get the nervous excitement at Labour’s annual conference this week. On paper, the facts line up to make a Labour government look inevitable: opinion poll leads, byelection victories, demoralised Tories practically craving release into opposition.

But for a party that has swallowed a lot of defeat, a diet of promising data doesn’t ease the gut feeling that something could still go horribly wrong. In the hotel bars and around the conference fringe, everyone knows that Keir Starmer is very probably Britain’s next prime minister, but there has been a provisionality to that view that falls short of faith.