Return of Gaza sausages a blip in banger of a speech

The “return of the sausages” was not in Labour’s manifesto but somehow, in the excitement of his first conference speech as prime minister, Keir Starmer made it an extra policy commitment.

- JOE MURPHY

Did he really just say that? Yes, he somehow managed to garble the word “hostages” during a heavy passage about the Middle East. But it simply didn’t matter because this was “Superman” Starmer’s day – the day his cantankerous and impossible party finally conceded that, yes, all things considered, it loved its leader.

The thing about Labour is you can never take the hall for granted. And despite a summer of winter fuel discontent, briefing wars and now a scandal over his £16,200 clothing freebies (how does a man whose suits look identical run up such a high bill?), the cheers of 5 July echoed again.

A clue that things were likely to go well came an hour before the doors opened, when the queue for seats was already stretching through the exhibition centre. Ministers walked sheepishly past the ordinary members to take their rows in the hall.

As the seats filled up, they played over giant screens a Star Warsstyle rolling list of seats won by Labour at the general election. A bit like that scene where Luke Skywalker’s craft skims over the Death Star; it rammed home the eye-popping scale of Starmer’s July landslide.

After a video montage of the election night’s best moments to boost the mood even higher, Starmer bounced on stage in his election suit and a pair of those free specs and the crowd surged to its feet, the first of many standing ovations.