1) He’s the most effective speaker we’ve had in a PM for years

I’ve been attending party conferences since 2001 and in that time I’ve heard around 70 leaders’ speeches from all the parties. This was one of the most important and defining – I expect it will remain among the half-dozen most memorable. It was big on heart, rather than brain, at times hugely emotional and strangely moving as Burnham became overcome when discussing the recent death of his father. This was both big and bold and nostalgic but also intimate, quiet, drawing you in, gently elegiac for what has been lost in a way you could appreciate (even if you don’t accept Burnham’s diagnosis of what has gone wrong). I judge speeches on ‘the tingle factor’, whether I get that prickle up my spine. It was not Kinnock ’85 or even the best of Blair’s speeches but it was as good as anything we’ve seen since.

It was not Kinnock ’85 or even the best of Blair’s speeches but it was as good as anything we’ve seen since.

It was not Kinnock ’85 or even the best of Blair’s speeches but it was as good as anything we’ve seen since.

2) He wants to go big or go home

We knew it was going to be big as soon as we heard the PM had taken his ministers into a lengthy political cabinet before he got to his feet. This was because his team had kept the details tight and needed sign-off from his top team. As someone who spends a lot of time demanding that politicians tell us who they are, have an analysis of where we have gone wrong and a plan to fix it, as well as a means of doing so, this was, to a degree, a breath of fresh air. ‘You may disagree with some or all of what I’ve said,’ he said at the end, ‘but I’ve given you what you all say you want’ – i.e. clarity and a plan. He was undeniably bold: a National Care Service, a pledge to introduce electoral reform, a national commission which opens the door to rejoining the European Union.

3) His idea of ending division is for everyone to agree with him

Burnham came on stage for his big speech at Labour conference to the Farm’s ‘All Together Now’. He declared that his creed and said this moment marks the end of division. ‘A Britain for everyone,’ he promised. He claimed he was eschewing the ‘tubthumping’ political speech he wanted to give. ‘I’m going to give you a real speech,’ he claimed, packed with ‘hard truths’. In the 55 minutes which followed, however, he outlined the most partisan left-wing set of priorities we have seen since the days of Harold Wilson. Hard truths became a wish list of Labour nostalgia. He talked about building ‘a new economy and a new politics’ but much of it was wearily familiar for anyone acquainted with the politics of the 1970s.

Burnham’s brand of patronising tweeslop reigns supreme

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4) He blames Blair nearly as much as Thatcher for Britain’s malaise

Burnham explicitly called for the changes of the last 40 years to be overturned, as if the 1970s were some sort of halcyon age of British politics and society, rather than the tired denouement of a failed postwar consensus. It was as if the three-day week, Britain’s days as ‘the sick........

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