Are you listening lists ways Labour Keir? Blair can win

Tony Blair's conference on the theme of the "Future of Britain" was less like the launch of a new party, and more like a reeducation programme for the Labour Party. This should not have been surprising.

- JOHN RENTOUL

The idea that Blair, who held back from trying to set up a new party when Jeremy Corbyn was leader, would think that it was a good idea now that, as he put it, "the Labour Party has recovered its basic poise" – makes no sense.

Blair was explicit, however, in the interview he gave at the end of the conference, that Keir Starmer has not yet done enough to win. Labour has "done a lot" of what it needs to do, he said, "but it's got the chance to do more". He praised Starmer for having "done an amazing job" in rescuing the party from the "disaster" of the Corbyn years, but everything he said about rising to the challenges facing the country made his impatience clear.

"The next election, in my view, will be as much about Labour as it is about the Conservatives," Blair said, "because I think people will think: 'Yeah, OK, in principle, we should put the Conservatives out.' But before they make that change, they've got to be sure of Labour."

The purpose of the conference was essentially to try to push Starmer into a more Blairite position, even though Blair claimed to be offering ideas for any party to pick up. There were Conservatives (Ruth Davidson) and former Conservatives (Rory Stewart and David Gauke) there, but they were part of a classic New Labour big tent, rather than an attempt to create a new centrist formation.