(Read on, or view here: https://youtu.be/BW8K7HeGp-8) Normally, the party conference season is one big yawn. Most of the coverage fit for fish and chip wrapping almost before the ink’s dry on the page. But this year was different. Very different, as the three weeks of conflicting ideas will define debate for the next three years. Labour’s win in Thursday’s central London by-election was just a spin-off. The contest on Keir Starmer’s old patch after he’d been biffed out of Nu

(Read on, or view here: https://youtu.be/_882GO8Ot7s) Though that slogan at Labour’s Liverpool get-together last week comes with a mass of caveats, there has been a gear change at Westminster. For the first time since the government’s big win at the last election it’s now looking ready to make use of its majority. As our Political Correspondent Peter Spencer reports, it’s clearly clocked the ancient Greek saying: ‘United we stand, divided we fall.’ That’s not to say that the

(Read on, or view here: https://youtu.be/XXh1w1Isf2g) Party conferences don’t normally add up to a hill of beans. But the Labour Party Conference getting under way now in Liverpool is different. Partly because it gives our new Prime Minister his first chance to get the fans onside, and partly because the latest mega-poll gives them a reason to do as they’re told. It’s been a long time coming. For the past year the spectre of Nigel Farage’s Reform Party forming the next govern

(Read on, or view here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfxrRgbVYO_E) The oncoming party conference season promises a mass of wacky ideas, impulsive headlines, and largely meaningless flimflam. But the underlying and real question is exactly what the Chancellor’s planning for next month’s budget. His choices will likely add up to the make or break for Andy Burnham. At the extreme end of the getting-it-wrong spectrum, think Liz Truss. Her squinty-eyed take on tax cuts s

(Read on, or view here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfxrRgbVYO_E) At home and abroad, our new Prime Minister is showing us how he plans to translate his soothing words into hard facts. In each case there’ve been howls of outrage from the losers, and whoops of joy from the winners. Either way, it’s clear that Andy Burnham has no intention of just relying on vibes. For newbies in Number Ten, landing the top job is a shock to the system that most admit they really did

(Read on, or view here: https://youtu.be/T_rfLI9RxO8) Almost wherever you look, things aren’t going to plan. Far from setting the world to rights at his party’s big Birmingham bash, Reform leader Nigel Farage is so far on the back foot that he’s practically toppling over. At the same time, far from running the country as an always here Prime Minister, Andy Burnham’s being forced to look overseas. While the by-election to replace his predecessor is looking tricky every which w

(Read on, or view here: https://youtu.be/R-FJvF3NSlI) With MPs swopping their flip-flops and shorts for more businesslike gear now that Parliament’s reopening, our new leader is every bit as braced for action. In his case swopping nice chats with punters for being shouted at in the commons. And he’ll soon find out how sturdy the so-called Burnham bounce really is. The point being here that with the summer recess over the boss has got to translate words into deeds. That’s to s