By Andrew Marr

The only way was ever up.

Keir Starmer arrived at the Labour conference in Liverpool facing terrible opinion polls, hideous economic choices, a pugnacious challenge to his leadership and with a badly depleted Number 10 team at his elbow.

More serious than all of them was a widespread perception, in the public as well as the media and much of the Labour Party, that he no longer knew what he stood for or, really, in which direction to face.

Party conferences don't turn around opinion polls. They can’t magically resolve economic crises. But one problem, Andy Burnham's leadership challenge, collapsed. The Manchester mayor found a wall of hostility in the neighbouring northern city as Labour people, an emotional lot, rallied to their leader.

He sensibly repacked his bags, went home and remains to fight another day. The Treasury, by the way, claimed his intervention, when he told the party not to take the bond markets so seriously, cost the British state £1.75 billion in instantly higher borrowing costs.

However, despite his perceived vagueness, the prime minister found his voice........

© LBC