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Morning,
Labour travels to Liverpool this weekend for its annual conference.
Under the Tony Blair years these became depressingly sterile events where debate was kept to a minimum and the party luxuriated in being in power.
This year's gathering could hardly be further from the slick, stage-managed conferences of New Labour - and Labour has never looked further away from power.
Labour is engaged in a battle for the soul of the party and its participants appear only too happy to conduct their warring in public.
The mass resignations of the shadow Cabinet earlier this summer has also left a number of gaps in the schedule.
Those attending are braced for a sulphurous atmosphere where recriminations will fly over the re-election, barring at last minute upset, of Jeremy Corbyn.
Allies of the leader will be hoping that MPs respect the will of the party membership and heed his calls for unity.
The leadership is planning an intensive charm offensive to win back some of those who resigned from frontbench roles.
They hope that the words exchanged in the heat of the leadership contest will be forgiven.
There is no doubt some MPs will return to the fold and will try again to make a Corbyn leadership work.
Others could return if Corbyn agrees to bring back shadow Cabinet elections - though he seems in no rush to do so.
But there remains a sizeable group who would see it as a betrayal of their principles if they were to return.
Not least because they could struggle to explain their decision if questioned by the media.
As a footnote it should be mentioned that one of the few silver linings of the coup has been the performance of MPs such as Angela Rayner and Rebecca Long-Bailey who were quickly drafted into the shadow Cabinet to make up numbers following the coup. The week kicks off, as usual, with the Labour Women's Conference.
Frustratingly for those involved, this has been overshadowed in recent years (2010, 2015 and this year) by the announcement of the new Labour leader.
There will be a common theme to much of the speeches at the conference: the unacceptable levels of abuse targeted at female politicians.
Yvette Cooper will not hold back from criticising Corbyn for failing to do enough to stop the trolls, many of whom are acting his name.
If you want to get in touch my email is jason.beattie@mirror.co.uk and you can follow us @mirrorpolitics on Twitter.
Thanks,
Mirror Politics |
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