Rolling coverage of the Labour conference in Brighton, including Jeremy Corbyn’s speech
- Labour firms up its support for rail nationalisation
- Extracts from Jeremy Corbyn’s speech
- Corbyn’s speech - Snap verdict
- Guardian editor interviews John McDonnell in Brighton tonight
- Early evening summary
Here are the main points from what John McDonnell said.
And then someone said something about “punishment beatings”. That’s laughable.
McDonnell says it is hard for people to cope with change. They have to assure people that there is room for everyone. Producing policy through rumbustious debate will produce better policy.
And that’s it.
Q: Tell us about yourself?
McDonnell says he was brought up in Liverpool, in a working class family. He worked on the shopfloor, then went to Brunel, then worked for the NUM. Then he was on the GLC. And then he became an MP. But he never had a career plan.
McDonnell says that, for the first time, a majority of people in the shadow cabinet are women.
He says the notion of top jobs never came into it. The idea of their being four top jobs in government is based on 19th century thinking, when the Foreign Office just invaded places, and the Home Office just repressed people.
McDonnell says Labour has to build a movement again. The party will rise to the challenge, he says.
Q: What about the fears that MPs will be deselected?
McDonnell says some of the reports this week, including the one about “punishment beatings” (Michael Dugher in the Sunday Times) are nonsense.
McDonnell says Syria and Trident are the two difficult issues for Labour.
Nato and Europe have not been divisive issues.
Q: How will the party deal with issues where it is split?
McDonnell says on many issues the party will be able to compromise. On others that will not be possible.
McDonnell says he won’t back bombing Syria.
McDonnell says at times he was “brimming over with anger” at the wasted opportunity of New Labour.
Jeremy Corbyn is different. McDonnell says he can be aggressive. Corbyn is more consensual.
McDonnell says he learnt a huge amount about finance at the GLC from one of the officials, who was one of the best public servants he has met.
McDonnell says the Eastern Daily Press put a notice in the paper asking if anyone knew anything about him. A woman wrote in, saying she used to sit next to him at primary school, and that he used to whisper the maths answers to her.
McDonnell says they started booking halls. And far more people than expected turned up.
Q: You used to be seen as a revolutionary. And now you want to be seen as a bank manager.
Q: Why did Labour lose?
McDonnell says Labour’s message was not clear enough.
McDonnell says that he wanted Ed Miliband to stay on. He says he admired Miliband a great deal.
Miliband is planning to get involved in a think tank. Miliband is taking a year out, he says. (Out from frontbench politics.) He says he hopes Miliband comes back to serve in a Corbyn administration.
Katharine Viner is interviewing John McDonnell now.
Q: How do you feel about the fact that you are now shadow chancellor?
Back to the McDonnell fringe. We’re in a room in the Grand Hotel, and it’s packed.
We’re about to start.
Speaking at a fringe event, shadow business secretary Angela Eagle said that party members didn’t want Labour to “hedge around marginal differences with the Tories for tactical reasons” and they’d chosen “the most high risk way possible” to make that point.
You can’t keep banging your head against a brick wall with someone else’s narrative, someone else’s ideas that weren’t designed to help you.
You have to change the narrative and that’s what John [McDonnell] tried to do in his speech yesterday. He was pointing out that there are economists who don’t think the neo-liberal system is the only way of doing things.
John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, is about to take part in a Guardian fringe. He’s being interviewed by Katharine Viner, the Guardian’s editor-in-chief, and it will be starting in about 10 minutes.
Richard Heller has now written for the Guardian about his involvement in Jeremy Corbyn’s speech. He says he first offered this passage to Neil Kinnock. Here’s how this article starts.
I discovered in a Karachi traffic jam today that Jeremy Corbyn intended to make use in his conference speech of a passage I wrote some years ago with the theme of “you don’t have to take what you’re given”. I have always been proud of that passage, both for its content and its cadences, so much so that I have offered it regularly to every Labour leader from Neil Kinnock onwards and to other Labour speakers. Four years ago, I published it on my website along with some other zingers and exordiums.
Here’s Tom Clark’s analysis of the Corbyn speech.
Back to the speech, and here are two more videos with reaction from Labour members in the hall.
Michael Crick has more on Richard Heller.
Richard Heller, who gave Corbyn long passages of his speech, was Denis Healey's special adviser 1981-3 when DH fighting Bennites like Corbyn
Jeremy Corbyn's key speech line was "You dont have to take what you are given", but it emerges you can, if it works as a line in a speech.
Here’s Damian McBride, Gordon Brown’s former spin doctor, has been tweeting about the Heller lift. I particularly like “unforeseen external fuckarama” - presumably a comms technical term.
All you ever want is the speech reported straight. The nightmare is an unforeseen external fuckarama, and plagiarism is as bad as it gets.
If that's right @wifimarxist, then phew, and that might kill it. The fact it wasn't used by Ed M isn't great but could be made a positive.
Here is another quote from a Labour spokesman on the Heller/Corbyn story.
Heller was consulted and gave permission for his material to be sourced as Jeremy Corbyn felt it captured perfectly what he wanted to say to the British people.
My colleague Hugh Muir has spoken to Richard Heller. Heller told him this:
I sent it to Team Corbyn as I have sent it to each and every Labour leader before him. I am very proud of that passage. I had no idea they were going to use it until today, but I am delighted that they have. It is a very fine passage. I sent it by post two weeks ago, to the leader of the opposition’s office.
I offered it to him as Labour leader, because I felt it was a passage applicable to anyone with the values of the Labour party. I also published it on my website, probably about four years ago. It may look like they took it from there but that isn’t the case and to say it was stolen or plagiarised is nonsense.
A Labour spokesman has just been touring the press room in the conference centre. He said Neale Coleman, Jeremy Corbyn’s head of policy and one of the authors of the speech, spoke to Richard Heller a while ago and told him he liked some of his ideas and that he was going to use some of his material.
When it was put to him that Coleman seemed to have lifted some of the material word for word, the spokesman that Coleman liked the ideas and that there were limits to how you could reword them.
In a remarkable blog for the Spectator, Alex Massie says the passage in the Jeremy Corbyn speech about inequality existing since the “dawn of history”, and it being Labour’s job to fight it, seems to have been largely lifted from something offered to Ed Miliband in 2011.
The original draft was written by Richard Heller, a former Labour party adviser. Heller has a blog where he posted suggestions for things that Miliband could say in speeches. In 2011 he suggested Miliband use “You don’t have to take what you’re given” as a theme. And he drafted a long passage, starting like this.
Since the dawn of history, in virtually every human society there are some people who are given a great deal and many more people who are given little or nothing. Some people have property and power, class and capital, status and even sanctity, which are denied to the multitude. And time and time again, the people who receive a great deal tell the multitude to be grateful to be given anything at all. They say that the world cannot be changed and the multitude must accept the terms on which they are allowed to live in it.
Since the dawn of history in virtually every human society there are some people who are given a great deal and many more people who are given little or nothing. Some people have property and power, class and capital, status and clout which are denied to the many.
And time and time again, the people who receive a great deal tell the many to be grateful to be given anything at all. They say that the world cannot be changed and the many must accept the terms on which they are allowed to live in it.
Here is some more reaction to the speech from Labour members in the hall.
Ipsos MORI has done a Twitter sentiment analysis of tweets about Jeremy Corbyn’s speech. They looked at 41,000 tweets and classified almost 20,000 of them as positive or negative. Some 76% were positive. By comparison, when Ed Miliband gave his last conference speech as leader in 2014, only 24% were positive.
The two bits of the speech that got the most positive reaction on Twitter were the reference to social media becoming increasingly important in the future, and the Keir Hardie quote at the end.
Michael Gove, the justice secretary, has put out a statement about the speech on behalf of the Conservative party.
Labour have confirmed that they are a threat to our national security, our economic security and to the security of every family in Britain.
The Labour leader’s policies to borrow more, print money and put up taxes on people’s jobs and incomes would wreck our economy. That would weaken our nation’s defences, damage our NHS and hurt our country’s working people – with the poorest hit the most.
In an unprecedented move, Jeremy Corbyn’s speech was broadcast live on Iran’s national television. Iranian state TV has become more relaxed in showing such speeches by foreign political figures after the nuclear agreement struck in July. It also showed Barack Obama’s address to the UN general assembly live on Monday. They were both broadcast on the news channel of the Islamic republic of Iran’s broadcasting (IRIB) network.
Corbyn’s views on the Middle East and Iran makes it more easier for the Iranian state television to give his speech an airtime. “Parts of Corbyn’s speech were broadcast live by Iran’s state TV. I bet they loved what he said on foreign policy under his leadership,” said one user on Twitter.
Here is Owen Jones’s take on the speech.
Two business organisations, the CBI and the Institute of Directors, have criticised Jeremy Corbyn for being over-negative about the economy.
This is from John Cridland, the CBI director general.
We share Labour’s aim of ensuring the benefits of growth are spread more evenly across the UK, but we don’t recognise Mr Corbyn’s characterisation of the economy. While there’s still more to do on exports, the recovery is more balanced than Mr Corbyn argues. It is not based on a house price-fuelled asset bubble, but on business investment, which is spurring stronger wage growth and rising living standards.
There was not much space for business in this speech, with the new Labour leader striking a largely pessimistic tone on the economy. The recovery after the financial crash of 2008 has been difficult, but we would have liked to see more acknowledgement of the vital role the private sector has played in creating jobs and driving growth.
While we are more positive about the UK’s current economic performance, Jeremy Corbyn did identify several areas of concern that will chime with businesses.
And here are verdicts on the speech from some Guardian readers.
There are another 3,000 BTL.
Here is reaction to the speech from two Labour members in the hall.
Here is the full text of Jeremy Corbyn’s speech.
Here is Mark Serwotka, the PCS general secretary, on the speech.
This was a speech of a real leader, someone who lives and breathes democracy and solidarity. Jeremy has brilliantly answered his critics, setting out a vision of a country where honesty and decency replace greed and conflict. We now have the opportunity to build a genuinely formidable opposition to Tory austerity inside and outside parliament.
And here is an excerpt from Gary’s contribution.
The speech was clear. It had purpose. It anchored a party that has for too long been adrift by reminding it of its core principles and core mission. Corbyn spoke in unequivocal terms about his support for the weak against the strong and fairness against inequality. He voiced support for refugees, trade unions, council housing, peace, international law and human rights. Amazingly, for a Labour party leader, this already made it an exception.
Here are some audioBoom clips from the speech.
Here is Corbyn on Trident.
And here are some tweets about the speech from political journalists.
Some of them liked it, but generally the verdict is negative.
Just amazed anyone can think that was anything but terrible. Labour's left - let alone party as a whole - can do so much better. #lab15
Not one mention of general elections (fighting, winning, losing, significance of), Labour's only means of changing anything much #lab15
Authentic Corbyn conference speech:wholesome/innocent, warm/unstructured, modest/policy lite/sweet. But he addressed party more than country
COMMENT Corbyn's speech managed to give both the Labour Conf and the Tories everything they were hoping for.
Authentic, warm, witty speech from @jeremycorbyn, going into new territory with rights for self-employed. Hope he builds on that! #lab15
Corbyn eloquent in trad left way: misery,poverty, war, mental health. But just like Ed: Where's the praise for business, growth?
that Corbyn speech stuck dutifully to all the trad leftwing themes that have niche appeal. Enthuses his base only. Mad. #lab15
Jeremy Corbyn’s speech to Labour conference was excellent http://t.co/wTJPBGNdJ3
First take: rapturously received in the hall, as you might expect, Corbyn will change the frame of politics, irrespective of 2020 PM chances
I suppose that will boil down to an ok three mins for 6pm news - which is how most voters will see it - but heavens that was grim #corbyn
Corbyn broke most rules of conf speeches; full of flaws, but courageous on some issues. Prob very effective with party, maybe not w voters
Much negativity re Corbyn's speech but it was ok. He'll have appealed to Lab's base. He's done enough to survive & Tories therefore smiling
Corbyn 100% right to criticise Cameron and UK's suck up relationship with odious Saudi regime #lab15
Most of this speech has been about how the Labour Party makes policy. Very little to say to the people of Watford
Most of this speech has been about how the Labour Party makes policy. Very little to say to the people of Watford
What we have learned: Corbyn is a personable chap. He cares about stuff. He likes debates and campaigning. He has no plan to win power.
I wonder if someone will tell Jeremy Corbyn before this time next year that Labour lost a general election.
Jeremy Corbyn gave the worst leader’s speech I have ever heard. (My review for @CapX) http://t.co/ezJgncWrSs
Corbyn's aim of a kinder politics and caring society is admirable. But I missed the bit where he explained how it wins Labour elections.
I do wonder how much Corbyn has reflected on Labour losing the election. Badly. And on what it means. He didn't mention it at all.
Jeremy Corbyn’s speech will have confirmed voters’ worst fears about Labour says @atulhhttp://t.co/KPDOD04CtI
Would be interested to hear from people who liked that speech - it felt a bit laundry list/preaching to the converted to me.
Was this written by Simon Hughes ?
I suspect that some of the Labour MPs who were so quick to distance themselves from #JeremyCorbyn might now be having second thoughts.
That really was a dreadful speech though. Clearly people are getting something from it, but it was terribly delivered & had no theme at all.
It's really a big "No to ..." speech - which is why the audience are loving it so much.
Corbyn speech was a pudding without a theme
Andy Burnham expected to be giving this speech until mid-summer. Here is what he said about it.
I think out there the public are crying out for a different way of politics, a different style of politics, they are fed up of the soundbites the spin, they want to see authenticity, people who mean what they say and that’s what you saw today from Jeremy Corbyn.
He’s fought all his political life for the things he was speaking about so it does come from the heart. That’s what’s been lacking in politics in recent times.
According to BBC monitoring colleagues, parts of Corbyn speech were broadcast live (unprecedented) by Iran's stateowned TV channel
I'm told Jeremy Corbyn borrowed his red tie from a member of staff before his big conference speech #Lab15
Here is Unite’s general secretary, Len McCluskey, on the speech.
Today Jeremy treated us to a different kind of politics and I believe people will like what they see. Principle, honesty, fairness and dignity – our lifelong Labour values - are taking their rightful place in the public realm.
He was inspirational – in setting out a new vision for our country he gave our tired politics a long-overdue shot in the arm.
Corbyn’s speech - Snap verdict: Giving a political speech looks like a straightforward undertaking, but there’s an art and a craft to it and there is a reason why great conferences speeches succeeed. This wasn’t a great conference speech. In fact, judged technically, it was second-rate, or worse. It meandered, it had no real structure (at one point Corbyn even appeared to repeat himself), and it lacked an obvious punch. Oratory - even the low-grade stuff you get a British party conference - is about crafting messages in a form so that they resonate, and stir the heart, and lodge in the mind (at least for a week or so). With this one, it was not even clear what the one over-riding message was.
Yet that’s the old politics assessment, and the whole point about Corbyn is that he is different, and that he won a surprise election victory because people were fed up with that sort of conventional statecraft. Corbyn explained this well, and perhaps the best bits in the speech were those where he mocked media commentators. The passage about sports reporters dismissing a club with a growing fan base as a failure was particularly effective. (See 2.55pm.) To his credit, Corbyn did not allow himself to be tempted into saying anything inauthentic. Much of the speech reflect his long career in grassroots protesting, and even the passage about how he loved Britain because of its values (the one pushed by the spin doctors, anxious to counter the negative impact of anthem-gate) sounded genuine. A more plastic figure could easily have been enticed into phoney patriotism.
Corbyn says he is almost at the end. He has spoken at 37 meetings since the conference began, he says.
The last bearded man to lead Labour was Keir Hardie. He died a century ago this weekend.
My work has consisted of trying to stir up a divine discontent with wrong.
Don’t accept injustice, stand up against prejudice.
Let us build a kinder politics, a more caring society together.
Corbyn says the Tories want you to take what you are given.
Since becoming Tory leader, Cameron has received £55m in donations from hedge funds.
Corbyn quotes Ben Okri, the Nigerian writer.
The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to tranform, to love.
Corbyn says all the policy work will be underpinned by Labour’s values.
Since the dawn of time there have been people given a great deal, and others given little.
Corbyn says he is going to make mental health a real priority. It could affect everyone. He wants to end the stigma around it. And he wants to make “parity of esteem for mental health a reality, not a slogan”.
Corbyn comes back to housebuilding.
John Healey has shown how a housebuilding programme could pay for itself.
Corbyn says Labour is now committed to a fully integrated, publicly owned railway.
Corbyn says he set out ideas to help small firms during the leadership campaign.
But many people who run small businesses or who are self-employed are particularly badly hit. The self-employed do not have statutory sick pay, or statutory maternity pay.
Corbyn says he is proud of our history, and he particularly singles out the BBC and the NHS for praise.
Corbyn says he wants to rid Britain of injustice, and to ensure all citizens benefit from prosperity.
He does not use the precise form of words briefed in advance. This is the quote released overnight.
It’s because I am driven by these British majority values, because I love this country, that I want to rid it of injustice, to make it fairer, more decent, more equal.
And I want all of our citizens to benefit from prosperity and success.
Corbyn now gets to the passage about British values.
Fair play for all, solidarity and not walking by on the other side of the street when people are in trouble. Respect for other’s point of view. It is this sense of fair play, these shared majority British values, that are the fundamental reason why I love this country and its people.
These values are what I was elected on: a kinder politics and a more caring society.
Corbyn says David Cameron broke a promise he made in the election campaign not to cut tax credits.
A single mother working part time could lose £2,000, he says.
Corbyn says people got disappointed by Labour in Scotland.
I know you feel we lost our way.
I agree with you.
Corbyn asks what his first big campaign will be.
Before the summer, The Tories introduced a plan to get millions of people off the electoral register in December, he says.
They want to gerrymander next year’s mayoral election in London by denying hundreds of thousands of Londoners their right to vote.
Corbyn says he does not believe in personal abuse of any sort.
Treat people with respect, he says.
There is going to be no rudeness from me.
Maya Angelou said: “You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.
Cut out the personal attacks, the cyberbulling.
Corbyn praises Tom Watson for using digital media as a key resource.
In the future social media will be increasingly important, he says.
Corbyn says Labour must embrace “a modern left movement” and use to build a society for the majority.
Some journalists who have complained for years about lack of involvement in politics have now been criticising Labour.
Corbyn turns to change in Labour.
What happened this summer with the leadership election was a political earthquake.
According to the script, socialist and social democratic parties were in decline.
Corbyn praises Barack Obama for reaching a deal with Iran. That shows the way other conflicts can be resolved.
He says he “yields to no one” in his oppostion to the “foul and despicable crimes committed by [Islamic State] and by the Assad government.
Corbyn taunts the Tories for their support for Saddam Hussein in the 1980s.
It didn’t help our national security that, at the same time I was protesting outside the Iraqi embassy about Saddam Hussein’s brutality, Tory ministers were secretly conniving with illegal sales to his regime.
Nor does it help our national security to give such fawning and uncritical support to regimes like Saudi Arabia and Bahrain who abuse their own citizens and repress democratic movements. And who are using British weapons in their assault on Yemen.
Corbyn turns to national security.
The best way to protect the British people against the threats we face to our safety at home and abroad is to work to resolve conflict.
That isn’t easy, but it is unavoidable if we want real security.
Corbyn says he was proud to speak at the “refugees welcome” demonstration hours after being elected as Labour leader.
He wanted to send out a message about the kind of politics he is pursuing.
Corbyn says Labour would make every school accountable to local government education authorities.
And Labour won’t bring back selection, “because we have aspirations for all children, not just a few”.
Corbyn goes on:
The Tories’ austerity is the out-dated and failed approach of the past.
He says investment is at the heart of his approach.
Corbyn says the Tories have left the economy in a bad state.
And the shocks in the world markets this summer have shown what a dangerous and fragile state the world economy is in.
And how ill-prepared the Tories have left us to face another crisis.
There is an investment crisis, he says. Britain is at the bottom of the international league on investment. Or near the bottom - just below Madagascar, and just above El Salvador.
Corbyn says:
And that’s the nub of it.
Tory economic failure.
Corbyn says people advise you not to talk about your opponents’ issues.
But I want to tackle one thing head on.
The Tories talk about economic and family security being at risk from us, or even from me.
Corbyn says he has been taking advice. He welcomes advice, he says.
Corbyn says he has huge admiration for human rights campaigners.
He praises those in particular who campaigned for the release of Shaker Aamer. Ordinary people, standing on cold streets, have secured his release.
Corbyn says he has a message for David Cameron. He urges him to intervene personally with Saudi Arabia to stop the beheading and cruxifiction of Ali Mohammed al-Nimr.
Corbyn recently wrote an open letter to DAvid Cameron about this case. For backround, here is an extract.
I am writing concerning the case of a Saudi protester, Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, who was arrested as a child in 2012 and sentenced to death by ‘crucifixion.’ As you may be aware, Ali has now exhausted all his appeals and could be executed any day – in a particularly horrific manner, which involves beheading and the public display or ‘crucifixion’ of the body.
Ali was arrested over alleged involvement in protests against the Saudi Government which followed the ‘Arab Spring’. He was the victim of numerous fair trial violations – reportedly including the use of torture to extract a false confession from him, which he was prevented from recanting in court. There is a great deal about his case already in the public domain, and I understand that the FCO has already announced that it plans to raise it with the Saudi authorities, so I will not go further into detail at this point.
Corbyn says he is not going to change his politics.
I’ve been standing up for human rights, challenging oppressive regimes for 30 years asa backbench MP. And before that as an individual activist like everyone else in this hall.
But Corbyn says his victory was not just a vote for a change of style.
It was a vote for political change in our party as well.
Let me be clear, under my leadership Labour will be challenging austerity.
The huge mandate I have been given by the 59 per cent of our electorate who supported me is a mandate for change.
First and foremost tt was a vote for change in the way we do politics, in the Labour party and the country.
Corbyn turns to leadership.
I am not imposing leadership lines.
I don’t believe anyone has a monopoly on wisdom - we all have ideas and a vision of how things can be better.
Corbyn thanks Harriet Harman, saying the Equalities Act is one of her many achievements.
He thanks Iain McNicol, the Labour general secretary, party staff and volunteers.
Corbyn says Labour needs to renew its policies.
He thanks people who have served the party.
Corbyn welcomes the new people who have joined Labour. More than 160,000 have joined, and more than 50,000 since the election.
His own constituency now has 5,000 members, he says.
Corbyn starts with a joke about how “barely anything of note” has happened to him in the last two weeks.
The papers have taken an interest in him, he says.
Amongst the things I’ve found out about myself are that, according to one headline, Jeremy Corbyn welcomed the prospect of an asteroid wiping out humanity. Obviously I wouldn’t endorse this policy without getting the support of conference first.
There is so much applause he cannot get going.
Any chance we can start, he says twice.
Jeremy Corbyn is on stage now.
Hall at Brighton conference centre is packed with Labour members waiting for Corbyn to speak #Lab15pic.twitter.com/0qTgKtAbyE
In the hall the afternoon proceedings are getting underway.
A young delegate from Islington north is speaking. She says she has known him for years. Her father was a political prisoner in Pakistan who came to the UK, she says.
David Cameron is in New York and he has given a interview that was screened just a few minutes ago - conveniently timed to pre-empt Jeremy Corbyn’s speech.
In it, Cameron said Labour was “heading off into the hills” under its new leader. Here is the Press Association copy.
Labour is “heading off into the hills” under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, David Cameron said in a pitch to disaffected centreground voters.
The prime minister was asked about the election of the left-winger during a interview with CBS while in New York for talks at the United Nations.
The conference hall is filling up now in anticipation.
Conference hall filling up in Brighton for Corbyn speech. Much excitement that he's wearing a tie. pic.twitter.com/fb4NSs7nsy
Labour’s conference will on Wednesday debate and vote on whether to support military action in Syria.
An emergency motion laying down strict conditions before supporting any move by David Cameron to bomb Isis has been accepted today.
The debate will expose rifts between senior party members over action which is could be put before the House of Commons by Cameron next month.
The shadow foreign secretary, Hilary Benn, who has been battling to maintain party unity on the issue of airstrikes, told the party conference on Monday that the party would support effective action in Syria, while ruling out backing UK troops on the ground.
John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor and a close ally of Jeremy Corbyn, has suggested Labour MPs may be a given a free vote if Cameron brings a fresh motion to the Commons supporting airstrikes in Syria alongside those in Iraq.
Diane Abbott, the shadow international development secretary, by contrast departed from her speech script to say explicitly that she opposed airstrikes.
The motion, submitted by Unite the union, asks for conference to support four strict conditions before voting for military action.
Angela Eagle, the shadow business secretary, is on the World at One. She says that John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, only wants to introduce the financial transaction tax on a global basis. Martha Kearney, the presenter, says McDonnell had given the impression earlier during the conference that he would consider implementing it unilaterally if he could not get a global agreement to bring it in.
The Labour conference is going to debate air strikes against Islamic State in Syria tomorrow, the BBC reports.
Labour WILL debate and vote on taking action in Syria tomorrow ....
In the conference centre people have already been queuing for some time to ensure they get a seat in the hall for Jeremy Corbyn’s speech.
People are already queuing for Corbyn, 2 hours before he's due to speak #lab15pic.twitter.com/qirOSXXKOf
The New Statesman’s George Eaton says the Labour conference has technically voted for full Trident renewal. The proposal was buried in a long policy report that went through on the nod.
Labour conference voted for full Trident renewal yesterday (paragraph in Britain in the World policy report).
Deborah Mattinson, the former Labour pollster, told the Daily Politics a few minutes ago that she thought Jeremy Corbyn’s speech would be the first from a major party leader in about 30 years that has not been tested first on a focus group.
She has been conducting her own focus groups to find out what people make of Corbyn, and she has written up her findings in a Guardian article we posted yesterday.
Here are three columns from today’s papers with interesting, and very different, analyses of Jeremy Corbyn.
Corbyn’s policy agenda is far from clear. Clarity is impossible when leader and front bench are at odds on several key areas. In contrast, Corbyn’s style is distinctive and fully formed. In his interview with Andrew Marr on Sunday he was relaxed and witty, addressing Labour’s unprecedented divide as if it was a chance for grown-up politics – an impressive performance.
The context gives Corbyn no choice but to make the most of his fragility, an overwhelming mandate from his party and intense public opposition from most MPs. Oddly the unusual circumstances liberate him from the rules of politics that have applied since the late 1970s. In recent decades interviewers have tormented leaders by pointing out that they may not be able to impose their will on their party and are therefore “weak”. Corbyn replies modestly that he has a mandate from his party but MPs take a different view on some issues. He will try to persuade them. Thank you and good night. My guess is that voters will like his style.
The Corbyn conundrum, as the new leader prepares to give his first conference speech today, is this: he must either betray the supporters who swept him to victory on a wave of left-wing idealism, or he must alienate the shadow cabinet he has crafted with such pragmatism to try and hold his party together. It’s an impossible choice because the positions of the two groups are utterly irreconcilable. This week’s row over the nuclear deterrent simply illustrates many more equally profound splits over tax, welfare, immigration and foreign policy. As one shadow cabinet minister admits, candidly: “Most of us disagree with Jeremy on most things.” A majority of MPs would say the same — and yet he was backed by an overwhelming 59 per cent of those who voted in the leadership contest ...
“I don’t believe anyone has a monopoly on wisdom,” he will tell the conference today. Shadow ministers are taking the opportunity to mark their territory by setting out all their differences with the leader. Privately, though, the reaction of most frontbenchers is a mixture of incredulity, anxiety and barely suppressed hysteria at a situation that is clearly unsustainable.
Mr Corbyn’s rise to eminence is not a verdict against Britain’s social failures. His movement is not, as it claims, a howl at inequality and questing militarism that has been gathering wind under complacent elites for years. Corbynism is not an expression of how bad things have become but how comfortable they are. Whatever our era ends up being called — late capitalism, high modernity — it has thrown up a class of people who can afford to treat politics as a source of gaiety and affirmation.
The electors who were decisive in giving him the run of the Labour party tend not to be working class or doctrinally socialist or even very political, though all three types exist in his ranks. They are public-sector professionals or students on their way to becoming the same. They are comfortable, more likely to live in London than the post-industrial north, more likely to read the broadsheet Guardian than the tabloid Mirror. And they are candid about the psychology of their movement.
Jon Trickett, the shadow communities secretary, has just finished his speech to the conference. As well as the communities brief, he is shadow minister for the constitutional convention that Labour is proposing. He explained some of what this would involve.
The convention will be a major plank of our activity in the coming years.
If we are to get our country working for all of us, and not the privileged few.
Here’s a video from my colleague Owen Jones about the mood at the Labour conference.
John Healey, the shadow housing minister, addressed the Labour conference a few minutes ago. There were three key lines.
More than four in five of us, aspire to own our own home.
Yet home ownership has fallen each and every year over the last five years.
There are a range of policy changes which will increase the number of social homes built at little or no cost to the public purse. Restoring the private contribution towards public homes by tightening up on developers’ obligations to include social housing in their projects could yield big rewards and without harming overall viability, as could ending the giveaway of tax-payer investments through big right-to-buy discounts. The Lyons Review on housing which was published last year set out a number of further ways in which we could increase the supply of new homes within existing fiscal constraints.
Even with these changes, a bigger social house-building programme would require some additional capital spending. The politically and economically crucial distinction between this and other sorts of government spending is that this is borrowing to invest. Just like when prospective home-owners take out a mortgage, a business buys a new capital good, or a student decides to go to university. And the proof of this as I have shown above is that this investment creates a long-term asset and yields a financial return to the public purse in lower housing benefit payments.
It is unworkable and wrong. It will mean fewer genuinely affordable homes when the need has never been greater so it fails the test of sound social policy.
And it fails the test of good economics because it squanders a long-term asset by selling it on the cheap.
Kerry McCarthy, the new shadow environment secretary, used her speech to address concerns that, as a vegan, she could not be a champion of the livestock industry. She told delegates.
Yes. I am a vegan. Some people are worried by that.
A Ukip MEP said on my appointment that I would have ‘little in common with consumers of food’.
I’d much rather see people buy British lamb, British apples, than imports from half way round the world.
Lilian Greenwood, the new shadow transport secretary, told the conference in her speech that Labour would oppose any further attempts to fragment or privatise rail services. The government is reviewing the future of Network Rail, and privatisation is one of the options it is looking at. Greenwood told delegates.
We know that more fragmentation and more privatisation are the last things that passengers need.
Conference, I promise you this.
Tosh McDonald, president of Aslef, the rail union, also strongly welcomed Labour’s new position on rail in a speech to the conference. Having the railways in public ownership was “a no brainer”, he said.
It should be run by the state, by the people, for the people, and any profits should be going to help with housing.
Manuel Cortes, general secretary of the TSSA transport union, has just been speaking in the conference hall about Labour’s shift on rail nationalisation. (See 9.21am.) He said that it was a “wonderful day” and that he had “never, ever been happier”. The TSSA has been pushing for full renationalisation for years and, even though it has got Labour conference to back motions on this issue in the past, the party leadership has until now largely ignored those votes. He told the conference
I’m absolutely delighted that after years and years of campaigning the Labour party has finally seen sense and that we are telling the British people that there is clear red water between us and the Tories when it comes to our railways. We will be running our railways in the interests of passengers and taxpayers.
Yesterday we had our magnificent new shadow chancellor telling us that we are the anti-austerity party. Today, when you go for this statement [ie, the NEC statement on rail], we’re also the anti New Labour party, because privatisation, deregulation, they all come from the same neoliberal tool box that gave us financial deregulation.
Lisa Nandy, the shadow energy secretary, is addressing the Labour conference now. Some extracts from the speech were released overnight and, as the Press Association reports, she is proposing plans to allow communities to take over power stations.
Plans for public ownership of power plants to challenge the dominance of the Big Six energy suppliers will be set out by Labour.
The party will work with council leaders to push for a “clean energy boom” in cities as part of a move to “democratise” the energy sector.
There should be nothing to stop every community in this country owning its own clean energy power station.
We will work with our local government leaders to push for a clean energy boom in our great cities.
A typical household in Germany can choose to buy its energy from over 70 different suppliers (out of a national total of over 1,100).
Half of German energy suppliers are owned by local authorities, communities and small businesses. There are now over 180 German towns and cities taking over their local electricity grids, selling themselves cleaner (and cheaper) electricity they increasingly produce for themselves. It would (currently) be illegal to do so in the UK.
In one of her interviews this morning Lucy Powell, the shadow education secretary, was asked about this picture. What was Jeremy Corbyn doing posing in socks and sandals, she was asked.
Powell had a straightforward explanation.
I think what he wants to show is that he cares less about photo opportunities. He doesn’t care so much about those things, but he wants to have a new approach to politics.
Lord Kerslake, the former head of the civil service who is conducting a review of the Treasury for John McDonnell, the new shadow chancellor, told the Today programme this morning that he was going into it with an open mind.
The sort of thing we want to look at is whether or not it fits with the task of creating growth, creating fairness in society. So I don’t start with a presumption about splits or changes in the organisation. I think these are questions that should come up through the review and through the input of many people of expert views and indeed across the country ...
[The Treasury] has a huge impact on the economic well-being of this country and indeed wields enormous power across government, so I think it’s right to look at its operations. I hope that people will go into the review with an open mind actually, listen to what people have to say, bring in expert advice and indeed the public’s views as well and let’s just see where you can make changes and improvements.
This morning the Labour conference will consider a statement from the national executive committee on rail. It is significant because it shows that Labour has marginally firmed up its position on rail nationalisation within the last 10 days.
At the general election Labour stopped short of backing full rail renationalisation. Instead the party said that, when rail franchises came up for renewal, publicly-owned enterprises would be able to bid for the right to run them. There was no guarantee that they would get preference over private bidders.
Jeremy Corbyn unveils his first official policy since becoming leader of the Labour Party, with plans for a “People’s Railway” under which his government would fast-track a renationalisation of England’s rail network.
The plans would lead to a third of franchises being brought under public ownership by 2025 if he became prime minister at the next election. Mr Corbyn will announce that each route would be renationalised when its franchise expired. Some five out of 16 franchises are due to expire between 2020 and 2025, including East Coast, Southern and TransPennine Express ...
bringing private franchises into public ownership as they expire and also using break clauses to accelerate this process when this is in the interests of passengers and taxpayers.
Here, in full, are the extracts from Jeremy Corbyn’s speech released overnight by the Labour party.
As I travelled the country during the leadership campaign it was wonderful to see the diversity of all the people in the country.
Even more inspiring was the unity and unanimity of their values.
I am not imposing leadership lines.
I don’t believe anyone has a monopoly on wisdom - we all have ideas and a vision of how things can be better.
Lucy Powell, the new shadow education secretary, has been giving a round of interviews this morning about what Jeremy Corbyn will say in his speech. Here are the key points.
I think it is his opportunity to communicate directly with people in their homes this evening on the TV bulletins and I think he’ll want to get across that message that people have nothing to fear from him, they share his values, he shares their values and we are going to go on what is actually quite an interesting and new journey together about how we engage with people and do politics together.
The polling on that is clear, that many of the things he espouses and that we as a Labour Party put forward are popular, but people want reassurance that we can run the economy and that we can deliver these policies in a way that doesn’t put the country at risk. I think that’s what he will be seeking to do.
They are a big growing number of people in our economy and job security for them is very poor, their safety net is very difficult for some of them, yet they are the risk-takers and wealth-creators of our country. I think we are going to see some policy there around maternity and paternity pay for the self-employed.
I know that is a bit boring for people because we always want to see the rabbit out of the hat on the new policies, but that is exactly the kind of new approach to politics that I welcome and I think people will welcome too.
He is not trying to go off into a room on his own and develop policies with his advisers. He wants an open and democratic and outward looking approach to policy-making so that is why he has not got fully formed policies that he is going to be announcing today.
He’s just been elected leader of the Labour Party, so I’m really not in the business of speculating how long he will last and how successful he will be. I wish he will be successful.
Things are very volatile in politics, things are changing quickly. The balls have been all thrown up in the air in the Labour Party by Jeremy’s victory, and I’m pleased to play my part in trying to bring those balls back into play and set out our stall ahead of the next general election.
But we’ve got a long way to go, we’ve got time to do that - it’s nearly five years until the next general election. So we can all work together, we’ve all got a part to play in working together to develop that policy, those values and our vision for the country ahead of the next general election.
We’ve got a full morning of conference events to come, but there is only one event that really matters today - Jeremy Corbyn’s speech to the conference at leader. That will take place soon after 2.15pm. I will be covering the build up and the speech itself in great detail, as well as bringing you all the best reaction and analysis.
Some extracts have been released in advance. Here’s Patrick Wintour’s preview story, and here’s how it starts.
Jeremy Corbyn will tell the Labour party conference that he loves his country, shares British majority values and wants to forge a gentler politics in society.
In his first conference speech as party leader, Corbyn will say on Tuesday he was elected to lead Labour because he offered a kinder politics and a more caring society.
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