COME BACK, TONY, ALL IS FORGIVEN:

An early tribute to the Queen - 'a remarkable sovereign' - set the tone for a speech that stuck resolutely to the centre ground. With Labour delegates singing the national anthem at conference for the first time a couple of days ago, the approach from Team Starmer is as clear as day - respecting Britain's traditional institutions is critical to winning over cultural and constitutional conservatives. And he was explicit about his targeting those potential Tory switchers with lines like: 'If you voted for a government to step in on your side... then I say to you that is what I will deliver.' 

It certainly signals a very different atmosphere to the days of Jeremy Corbyn's leadership, when the party was run in spectacularly amateurish fashion by anti-monarchist pseudo-revolutionaries.

It's also worth bearing in mind that small 'c' conservatism is of a piece with many voters on the centre-left and, whose own traditionalism Starmer tapped into with references to his working-class upbringing in the 1970s. His description of a pebble-dashed semi, with two hard-working parents offering the 'gift of opportunity' was as solidly centrist a message as you could imagine. Indeed, this was a speech peppered with talk of family stability, community spirit, pride, the public's desire for democratic control, economic self-sufficiency, and - importantly - a points-based immigration system.

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