Labour Party Conference 2024: Wednesday

 

On the last day of conference, I decided to get up and go home early in order to catch up with work. Since the weather was nice, I walked to the station to explore a little, this part of Liverpool. I came across a sadly ruined church (top right of collage) and was surprised to find out it once the highest building in Liverpool and was built by its Welsh community. It was known as the "Welsh Cathedral" or the "Toxteth Cathedral". Some 120,000 Welsh people migrated to Liverpool between 1851 and 1911. I can remember as a very young boy, visiting relatives in nearby Birkenhead who still spoke Welsh at home. 

On the train home I managed to get a seat with a table and the passengers opposite me had also been at the conference and worked in "media". They were openly discussing what they thought about the conference. One said to the other that they thought that Labour was rather "smug" at conference and that it had been pretty boring. Many of the new MPs had clearly not expected to win and at fringes were like "rabbits caught in headlights". Which I thought was rather unfair but could be worse. 

While I did not think it was that boring, I did recognise the "smugness" characterisation. But it has been a long 14 years since we were last in power. It was admittedly far more exciting previous years when the Tories seemed to be doing everything possible to bring about their defeat (Think "Truss and Lettice"). 

The row's over child benefit, winter fuel allowances, Gaza and "freebees" has certainly been very difficult but I still believe that the worse day of any Labour Government is far, far better than the best day of any Tory Government.