Rachel Reeves practically shouted this speech down a tunnel. There is always something tubular about her oratory but her nerves amplified the megaphone manner.
The effect was blurty, jerky, echoey, under-oiled. Between paragraphs she did not let her cheeks relax. They maintained a terrible rictus grin.
Mind you, there was something so peculiar about it all that she became quite watchable. As a performer she may be less annoying than Sir Keir Starmer.
She was still settling down, still blinking like a mixy rabbit, when hecklers struck. They were across the hall from me and I did not hear what they were saying but reportedly it was about Palestine.
The ringleader, a young man with a foppish fringe, was eventually collared roughly round the neck and hauled to the floor. Oh dear, sir, did my steel toecap collide with your ribcage?
Rachel Reeves practically shouted this speech down a tunnel, writes Quentin Letts
The ringleader of the hecklers was a young man with a foppish fringe, and he was eventually collared roughly round the neck and hauled to the floor
Ms Reeves watched in frozen horror before remembering she was supposed to be making a speech. She produced the line that ‘this is no longer a party of protest’, which is what the Starmerites always say when they are interrupted.
For the rest of the speech, the security guys were bristling, scouring the audience for suspects. It’s a wonder they didn’t ask a scowling Ed Miliband to leave.
The speech was light on policy, inevitably so with a Budget imminent. That left more room for Ms Reeves to talk about herself. We heard about her parents, who were both teachers.
She worked in numerousreferences to class politics (good grief, aren’t we past all that?) and boasted about the controversial tax raid on private schools. That won less applause than she was possibly expecting.
There were some 80 uses of the first-person. ‘I did this’, ‘I did that’. ‘People looked at us – people looked at me – and decided Labour could be trusted with their money,’ she bellowed.
Sir Keir, sitting a few feet away, kept giving dutiful applause, eight claps almost every time. Ms Reeves denounced the Tories for ‘trickle-down economics’. Eight claps from Sir Keir.
It’s a wonder they didn’t ask a scowling Ed Miliband to leave after the hecklers struck, writes Quentin Letts
Chancellor of the exchequer Rachel Reeves (R) laughs with Keir Starmer (C) and Angela Rayner (L) before delivering her keynote speech to conference on Monday
There were three ovations. Each time they began with the MPs in the front row and slowly the rest of the hall clambered to its feet. Trickle-down ovations.
When she talked of the burden of government, she said: ‘I embrace this, I am ready for it’.
If Wes Streeting fancied a clear run at the Labour leadership when Sir Keir is sent to the glue factory, he may need to think again.
Outside, long queues of delegates and lobbyists were drenched by Liverpool rain. The Chancellor’s conference speech always attracts a crowd of City bankers and the hall slowly filled with schmoozers in soaked Savile Row suits.
A pong of wet dog soon pervaded the air.
Ms Reeves called for ‘an end to defeatism’ yet her vocal delivery blocks any sense of optimism. It has a mechanical quality, lacking elision.
There is no honey in the throat, no Castrol in the gearbox. When she spoke of ‘our ec-un-um-ic story’, it could have been a Dalek talking.
Before Ms Reeves we were addressed by Jonathan Reynolds (left), the Business Secretary. Likeable sort of chap, looks like Prince Michael of Kent (right), wobbles his head a lot
Labour politicians applause during conference on Monday
Before Ms Reeves we were addressed by Jonathan Reynolds, the Business Secretary. Likeable sort of chap, looks like Prince Michael of Kent, wobbles his head a lot. He’s the one who has been trying, perhaps without much success, to stop Angela Rayner from burdening employers with endless mad regulations.
The conference warmed to Mr Reynolds and he was so excited by the applause that as he returned to his seat he kissed Ms Reeves, kissed Ms Rayner and then kissed Sir Keir before realising what he had done and giving a butch sort of apology to the Prime Minister.
As for Ms Reeves, when she finished her speech, her face went rigid and she stayed rooted to the spot for about five seconds. Eventually she did a couple of blinks and cyber-walked back towards her place.
She greeted Sir Keir briefly, blanked Ms Rayner, and fell into the arms of the minister without portfolio, her sister Ellie.
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