Over a cuppa in Liverpool, the Labour MP was getting nostalgic about the election campaign. Drivers would spot her on the street and stop their cars in order to wish her luck and give her a hug. Then she became wistful: “They’re not hugging me now.”
The Labour conference was a curious cocktail of the jubilant and the jittery, the gleeful and the grumbly. Celebration of the largest parliamentary landslide in a generation was mixed with angst about Labour’s tanking popularity. Don’t let anyone tell you it was an entirely overcast occasion. I met plenty of buoyant delegates along with ministers saying how brilliant it was to be in power after so many miserable years in opposition. One cabinet member expressed delight that “after 14 years howling into the void, we can now do things”. The mantra “the worst day in government is better than the best day in opposition” was often to be heard.
