Conference diary: From Brighton to Manchester, it’s party season

Last weekend my colleague Jon Craig, the veteran political correspondent, tweeted a picture of himself beside the seaside in full piece-to-camera mode accompanied by the words: “So here we go. The conference season is under way.” 

In usual times, such a message would fall below the standards of accuracy Jon upholds – not least because the TUC and the Liberal Democrats had already held their annual meetings, virtually online. But this year, everyone could see what he meant. 

The Labour Party Conference in Brighton was the first time in two years that a significant British political gathering had taken place in person and face to face, with organic human contact both in the main hall and on the fringes. 

My week has already taken in Berlin, Brighton and Westminster and will end with the Tories in Manchester. At the Westminster studio, we are still observing corporate health guidelines. Only “cabinet level” interviewees are allowed into our offices. But elsewhere, we were back to full personal contact.

The Germans are no keener on wearing masks than Britons. Nearly everyone was bare-faced, thronging Unter Den Linden leading up to the Brandenburg Gate, which had been transformed into the final straight of the Berlin Marathon. Masks are only compulsory in some confined places in Germany, and oddly masks are vehemently insisted on when walking between restaurant tables where they are once again taken off. Both here and there, opening up seems unstoppable. We will find out soon whether this autumn’s socialising activities will be superspreader events or if we have been behaving cautiously for far too long. 

In political terms, Germany felt truly like another country. Its people managed to elect a replacement for Angela Merkel, seemingly without rancour or stress. In marked contrast to this country or the United States, society’s respect still lingers for both the political process and the politicians within it. The election was a sideshow for most people rather than a provoker of angry divisions. This is because change happens very slowly, thanks to a highly engineered proportional representation (PR) system reflecting both national and regional voting trends. 

The calculations are so fine that the precise number of members in the new parliament is unknown until it has been worked out how many extra will be needed to ensure that the percentages are truly reflected there. PR also forces the parties to share power. For years the two “peoples’ parties”, Christian Democrats and Social Democrats, dominated the system, sometimes in coalition, sometimes singly with a small coalition partner tagged on. Now their combined vote share has fallen to fifty per cent. 

To command a parliamentary majority, the next governing coalition will have to be made up of at least three parties. Germany’s electoral rules have smoothly accommodated the fragmentation of class-based political allegiances common to most democracies. Die Grünen, the Greens, have matured to the point that they can contemplate being in coalition with either centre-left or centre right. 

Meanwhile, the hard left, Linke, and hard right, AfD, have been exposed as minority splinter groups. It is easy to see why there was such a heavy vote for a motion supporting proportional representation at Labour’s conference in Brighton. 

In Britain, we love a row between parties or, if not, inside them. The fear of the mainstream and the hope of radicals on the wings is that proportional representation gives a firmer foothold to troublemakers. The rise of UKIP, thanks to PR in European Elections, is Exhibit A for the prosecution. If British voters didn’t take those elections seriously in spite of their consequences, perhaps a general election would be different. 

The Liberal Democrat strategist Chris Rennard argues that PR would actually do mainstream Labour a favour since the hard left which has dogged the leadership in the various guises of Bennites, Cobynistas, Militants, and Momentum would have no excuse not to split off into a small, Linke-style, party of their own.

Certainly, the Corbynite wing of the party much in evidence in Brighton was markedly reluctant to be prised from the bosom of “this great movement of ours”. Their childish petulance tarnished the “mood of conference” this year. 

A fluke of history and “moronic” indulgence, shown by the likes of Margaret Beckett, helped them capture the keys in 2015. The higher authorities of democracy have since reclaimed control, and the far left is having a tantrum at the prospect of being asked to share or go it alone. 

The Labour Party has reached similar domestic crises many times before in its history, and through sentimentality and absence of ruthlessness, it has never quite managed to stop it from happening again. The exiled Jeremy Corbyn graced fringe meeting after fringe meeting where he was treated like a high-caste guru. But, like the hecklers during the leader’s speech, he seemed of dying relevance to Labour’s future. 

Grey Sir Keir, with his thin pedigree in the party, gave a hint last week that he might just, reluctantly, of course, be the man to see the hard left off the party’s premises.They already have their own conference in the circus tents of The World Transformed.

Most Guardian columnists were sniffy, but several shadow cabinet ministers claimed it had all been worth it for headlines in the Conservative leading press including “I’ll be Keir: Corbo Era Never Again”, “Keir Slams the Door on Corbyn”, and “Victory more important than unity, Starmer tells leftwingers”.

And so onward to Manchester. Adding a contemporary touch, both the Brighton Centre and Manchester Central were in action as NHS covid centres until the politicians took back control. But that is the limit of what they have in common as party conference locations, which have become another front in the culture wars.

Last century, the parties followed each other around the same circuit of venues, mainly on the coast. These days the neglected seaside is primarily a no-go area for the Conservatives and one suspects, its crumbling hotels are not up to the standards of the high-rollers who mainly finance the party. Brighton is lefty and green, David Cameron fell out with Bournemouth over-policing and red Liverpool, an increasingly popular destination for Labour, isn’t even on the Tory list.

Conservative Conferences have oscillated between Manchester and Birmingham, adornments of the industrial revolution that recall nineteenth-century imperial grandeur and mercantilist might. Ironically the conference halls in both cities are also monuments to de-industrialisation. The BCC is built on what was the heart of Birmingham’s canal and warehouse complex, familiar to fans of Peaky Blinders. Manchester Central used to be just that, the central railway terminus for England’s other second city. 

How to level up after so much has been levelled down remains a conundrum. As does making Brexit work, one of the challenges thrown down by Starmer in Brighton. Add to that fuel and supermarket shortages, the rising cost of living, the clogged criminal justice system and concerns over violence against women and unfulfilled goals against the climate emergency. 

There is a lot an incumbent Prime Minister might want to address in his most high-profile speech of the year. We shall see. Boris Johnson is more likely to get by with his usual mix of humour and optimism. He is known as “a great communicator” but has yet to deliver a great, or even serious, political speech. 

His scripted homilies to the nation during the pandemic have failed to capture the moment or stick in mind so far. But with carefully ruffled hair, he is unrivalled as an amusing turn, in person or as a newspaper columnist. 

Liberated to press the flesh at the conference, the Prime Minister is likely to convert Manchester into an end of the pier show.