So where does Sir Keir Starmer’s ferocious attack on Nigel Farage rank among the great party conference speeches by Labour leaders?
One former minister told Sky News Sir Keir’s claim that Mr Farage “hates Britain” was right up there with Neil Kinnock’s blistering assault on the Militant Tendency almost exactly 40 years ago.
In Bournemouth, on 1 October 1985, denouncing Derek Hatton’s Liverpool Militants, Mr Kinnock famously declared: “I’ll tell you what happens with impossible promises.
“You start with far-fetched resolutions. They are then pickled into a rigid dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, outdated, misplaced, irrelevant to the real needs.
“And you end up in the grotesque chaos of a Labour council – a Labour council – hiring taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers.”
Sir Keir is not the first Labour leader to face the possible threat of a leadership challenge, of course. Gordon Brown’s admirers point to his 2008 speech ridiculing would-be challenger David Miliband.
“I’m all in favour of apprenticeships,” he quipped. “But this is no time for a novice.” Brown’s allies claimed he was referring to the youthful Tory leader David Cameron. But no one was convinced.
Another good party conference quip came from Tony Blair in a dig at his rival Brown in his 2006 conference swansong, in a joke about his wife Cherie.
“At least I don’t have to worry about her running off with the bloke next door,” said the soon-to-depart three-times election winner.
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He wasn’t the leader, but John Prescott’s finest hour came in a 1993 conference speech when he rescued leader John Smith from defeat in a crucial vote on bringing in one member, one vote.
“This man, our leader, put his head on the block,” he said of Smith. “He has put his head there, now it is time to vote. Give us a little trust.”
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It was vintage Prescott: garbled sentences, mangled syntax and terrible grammar. But it won the day and propelled him to the deputy leadership of the party.
Back in 1960, Hugh Gaitskell famously declared: “There are some of us who will fight, and fight, and fight again, to save the party we love.”
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What many of these memorable speeches – including Sir Keir’s – have in common is that they were made when the party leader was in trouble and under threat from party rivals.
For many, their fighting speech proved to be a turning point. Sir Keir spoke in Liverpool this year about a “fork in the road”. Will this speech help him turn the corner?
