John Rentoul, chief political commentator – ‘We haven't seen anything like it since Blair’
I was knocked sideways by the oratorical power of that speech. I've known Andy Burnham for a very long time and he has never been much of a speaker. The section after the long pause before he recalled the death of his father was one of the best pieces of conference rhetoric I have ever heard. Until that point, I was ticking off the cliches, starting with the reference to John Lennon's "Imagine" in the introductory video. I liked the theme of building a "better Britain for everyone". That is my kind of Blairite talk, but it was rather outweighed by the three references to "working-class aspiration", which is all very well but not everyone.
