Labour Conference 2023 - my newbie experience
There's much that could be improved upon without upsetting grass roots supporters yet appeal to a fresh audience.
I’ve attended hundreds of tech events over the last 30 years. Tipping up at my first political gathering was something of a shock at multiple levels. Compared to my more recent past experiences, technology and logistics were borderline awful. Main conference content was so-so but as always, it was the conversations away from the set piece events that (mostly) caught my attention. Even so, while I’d planned to attend the full three days, I was done by mid-afternoon on day two, deciding to go home early. I concluded that I’m too old to spend hours schlepping from one badly signposted conference hall to another while also having to put up with mediocre, over priced conference food - coffee excepted.
When attending events, I always have a plan and this was no different. As a Party activist, I want to hear the messages and rationale for talking people into voting Labour. It’s not enough to say we’re not the other lot. Too many people I know feel exhausted and thoroughly disillusioned at politics. If ‘we’ are to be successful then we have to offer a credible alternative in which people can believe. Labour is getting there, but I need to understand three things:
How are we going to do what we say?
Who pays for it when it’s likely there will be very little, if anything left in the public purse?
What place does tech play in the broad scheme of things?
I’m also interested in how a Labour government will ‘fix’ the infrastructure needed to revitalize the north of England in particular, and especially the ‘east-west corridor’ between Liverpool and Hull. My home is part way across this geography and we urgently need help to start the process of lifting (leveling up?) our community. The flights of fancy announced during last week’s Tory Conference about Network North are just that. We need something solid upon which millions of people can rely.
In that context, I found Andy Burnham’s fiery riposte to the cancellation of the HS2 northern section at a Transport for North fringe meeting inspiring. The part that caught my attention was his anecdote about the lost opportunity for public purse land value capture when CrossRail was built.
The idea is that infrastructure helps improve land values from which the public purse can benefit as a way of funding such large scale projects. It’s what I’ve come to understand as part of a smart capitalist agenda, where the public purse not only acts as the financier of first resort but also benefits from the pay offs alongside taking the primary research risks. As economist Mariana Mazzucato and author of The Entrepreneurial State recently said:
It makes no sense for governments to take all the risks and get none of the rewards; it’s the difference between smart and dumb capitalism.
In Mazzucato’s world, smart economics leads the way towards a sustainable future. That is something I can get behind.
Smart capitalism to the fore?
What has been missing in this broad narrative has been a way out for embedded neo-liberal thinking such that Labour’s message of lifting the many and not the few resonates with business. When Liz Truss crashed the U.K. economy in 2022, we learned that ‘the market’ doesn’t determine our financial health but the bond market does. The side effect is that business was sideswiped by increased uncertainty which, in turn, upended planning at a time when the economy was already volatile. My understanding is that stability was the oft repeated question at Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves business meetings.
In my view, shared reward is a powerful way to remove an important element of uncertainty while satisfying multiple parties. My understanding in talking to local metro mayoral leaders is that it’s a topic that’s on the conversational table with Labour leadership. But are those conversations happening with Big Business? Reeves says she ‘loves’ business but then is caught out in the avowed intent to impose windfall taxes on Big Energy among other measures to provide finance for much neglected services. Sure, business is counting on Labour to deliver on its promise of stability but I still ask the question: where does the funding for growth come from and how is that growth funded other than by imposing taxes on business that will undoubtedly be unwelcome on their face? Any attempt to further tax individuals will almost certainly be met with a fiery backlash.
In my mind, the discourse around smart capital goes beyond the National Wealth Fund announced last year but about which little was said at this year’s conference. If implemented in line with devolved powers as promised by Starmer, wealth sharing would have the potential to put money into the hands of local authorities. That sounds great on paper but I wonder about political leadership’s ability to truly understand the ‘debits and credits’ involved in investment.
I have no doubt that the likes of Andy Burnham and his Tory counterpart Andy Street in the Midlands have not only the smarts but the smart people around them to make such ideas a reality. I’m not so sure elsewhere or, for that matter, at the heart of a potential Labour government. During Conference, Reeves was hailed as an economist who got the surprise endorsement of Mark Carney, a former Bank of England leader but that’s not enough. In recent years, the BoE has not covered itself in glory with former bank economists admitting to some serious mistakes. Media wonks might like the headline but does the public care?
We need the right economics coupled with the right approach to business where there is a recognition that sharing the wealth is not just sustainable but benefits everyone - including those rewarded with corporate bonuses.
At a panel discussing innovation as a driver for growth in the regions, I asked both Chi Onwurah, Shadow Minister for Science, Research and Innovation and Rain Newton-Smith, Director General of the CBI to talk to the issue of funding for innovation at the point of commercialization. While Newton-Smith nodded vigorously at my suggestion of partnership with government, Onwurah looked puzzled and dodged the question.
Later, I bumped into Susan Hinchcliffe, leader of my local council who shared the regional innovation panel. I asked for her thoughts about co-funding on the basis of Burnham’s shared reward idea. She felt that such ideas would struggle to reap the kinds of benefit in our region that Burnham envisaged. We didn’t have time to discuss this further but it is something I want to pursue. Such is the legacy of my life as a person trained in working with numbers.
Tech - a fail
On tech, I went to Conference with several training sessions booked to better understand how the digital tools work. To put it bluntly, my experience to date has been underwhelming, reinforced by the fact that the QR code for digital feedback for the training sessions threw a 404 error (page lost.) Local users tell me they have found some of the tools difficult to use. I found the digital conference event materials difficult to use. There was no clear thematic approach. Rather, it felt like the agenda had been thrown together based on a first come, first served, calendarised methodology. That meant topics were not grouped together but randomly organized. I ended up with a tangled calendar I had to finagle in order to make work.
I appreciate that topics have many angles to explore but the way events were laid out meant a lot of traipsing around a location that’s not the easiest to navigate where event signage was almost non-existent. It also meant that leaders required to attend conference events ahead of fringe events were often delayed. What made it more frustrating for me is that I couldn’t get to events where there was timing overlaps and so had to make tough choices that left long gaps elsewhere and with little available occasional seating. Oh yes - and the digital version turned up after the paper catalogue. It surprised me that the Deputy Leader and Shadow Chancellor’s speeches were all but invisible outside the conference hall, unless you ran the BBC Politics Live stream.
My buddy John Appleby has it right when he talks about the interplay between people, process and technology but it appears to me that those three are not working well together. Or as I prefer to say: you don’t get to pontificate about technology, its place in helping the economy (and especially AI!!) when you can’t get the basics right. It’s a clear demonstration you’ve only a limited idea what you’re talking about. And therein is a sure road to getting taken in by the mega vendors who are experts at selling you a glittering future and then delivering well polished turds. Having said all that, the tools training I attended opened my eyes to some exciting possibilities going forward. There’s no doubt for example that the analysis tools designed to help create ultra focused campaigns look super smart, even though I find myself befuddled at times around data collection. But that’s another story.,
Media obsessions
As a former media person, the reportage was of interest. I was largely underwhelmed. In some cases, I’d struggle to remunerate the hack with used toilet paper, the reporting was so bad. In other cases, it was plain annoying. The BBC’s Jo Cockburn was insufferable in her session with Angela Rayner, Deputy Leader, following leader Keir Starmer’s keynote address. Cockburn insisted on interrupting at every opportunity, at times barely letting Rayner finish a sentence. Among other mainstream media, I was struck by the extent to which outlets seemed to focus more on style than substance. I can argue that there wasn’t a huge amount of meat to chew on, with much of what was said being telegraphed in advance but does that mean there was too little worth reporting? Adam Bienkov at Byline Times captured a mood I (mostly) experienced when he said:
The most noticeable feature of this week’s conference was how little discussion there was of some of the biggest challenges facing the country. Brexit in particular was notable by its absence, as was any discussion of electoral and constitutional reform, outside of one protester literally storming the stage over the issue.
Well yes, except for the entertaining though mild protest about Brexit outside the conference area that included a reworking of Yellow Submarine.
That lack of discussion was perhaps best exemplified in Starmer’s keynote speech. The first half was pedestrian to the point of being borderline soporific for me. However, it improved in the second half with a few killer lines. “We are here to serve the country, not ourselves,” want down especially well.
But the speech didn’t contain anything radically different or new from what had been leaked/anticipated/rumoured (take your pick) and so felt like we got some great starters but lacked full fat calories to take to the doorstep. Does that worry me? Not as much as it might others. In her address the previous day, Rachel Reeves, Shadow Chancellor was on fire, delivering an unexpectedly rousing speech. It served as a great counterweight to Starmer’s more measured approach.
Earlier in the year I briefly met Reeves and was impressed with her firm certainty. But as I alluded to earlier, she has a complex and demanding financial landscape to traverse with many different interests to satisfy. Being dubbed an ‘iron lady’ is a good position from which to earn respect but frustratingly for me, it prevents her Shadow Cabinet colleagues from answering some of the financial questions I raise. Has media missed this? It seems so.
Elsewhere, some of the fringe meetings produced thought provoking content that could appeal to a wide audience. At the session I attended aimed at young people I saw an invigorated Lisa Nandy, Shadow Cabinet Minister for International Development talking up the importance of encouraging the next generation to engage with the political process. We were treated to a panel of worthy people under 30 years old who are making waves. But it is perhaps the general lack of attraction to youth that the room was barely half full. Unfortunately, the panel didn’t answer what for me as an elder person is a key question: what message does youth want to hear from my generation such that it feels politics are worth the effort? Almost none of my children and grandchildren believe that political activism is worthwhile. Getting all of them to vote will be a tough ask.
Final thoughts and wishes for 2024
It is a feature of politics that the way these events play out is multi-faceted and that any attempt to please everyone is bound to fail. Unlike the many media folk attempting to gauge the overall temperature, I didn’t get the impression of a broadly satisfied or happy church of attendees. Instead, I saw one that met individual agendas to sufficient extent that there were few, if any, alarms. I get that plays directly to the need to appear stable, even if feet are paddling furiously underneath the apparently calm waters. But some things need attention.
Much is made of leader Starmer’s lack of charisma and plodding style. I don’t have a problem with that because I’m not a fan of politics as theatre and in any event, in Rachel Reeves and Angela Rayner, Labour has fiery operators I can support all day long. However, years of watching the CEO’s of global tech companies and how their keynote performances are honed gives me an appreciation of the talent and finesse needed to hold an audience. As a polished lawyer, Starmer has the bones of decent oratory at his fingertips, but he doesn’t demonstrate enough confidence for delivering in a manner that captures the imagination. It doesn’t help that his speechwriters play to his weaknesses rather than seeking to amplify his strengths and so, in a sense, hold him back. These are eminently fixable problems.
My big wish for next year comes back to the technology. The Labour Party doesn’t take responsibility for fringe meetings, but these are incredibly popular and often contain great content. However, I couldn’t find a way to obtain recordings for sessions I missed. Neither could I see much evidence of video recording. Nor were there any post show notes and only limited media reporting. That means most of the content is invisible. Is this something you want when you’re one of the main event sponsors? How does that serve democracy?