Anyone attending this year’s Labour conference in Liverpool could be forgiven for thinking they’ve entered a parallel universe.
Everywhere there are banners, posters, slogans, publicising fringe events and meetings, proclaiming messages around renewal, unity, togetherness, strength.
While the newspapers are full of articles about discord, the knives out for so and so in the Cabinet, the challenge posed to Prime Minister Keir Starmer by Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, officially inside the secure zone it is all sweetness and light. Same with the economy, where Chancellor Rachel Reeves and her team are said to be doing a fine job.
Driving the mood, alongside the high-command propagandists, are the think tanks. The names of Labour Together, IPPR, Resolution Foundation, Fabian Society and like-minded others are displayed in abundance – advertising receptions, panel sessions, talks – contributing to a collective mood of buoyancy and confidence. Nigel Farage may be topping the polls but not here. Jeremy Corbyn has launched his own splinter body that promises to split the left vote, good luck to him. In the US, their kindred spirits, the Democrats, received a drubbing, but there is nothing to be learnt in the UK from that humiliation. It’s never ending, this festival of delusion.
It reaches a conclusion, of course, with the leader’s speech. Starmer's central themes are patriotism or "fighting for the soul of the country", fairness, encouraging enterprise, attracting foreign investment, boosting infrastructure, meeting Britain’s energy needs. Strange, but similar messages will also be repeated at next week’s Conservative gathering, along the motorway in Manchester.
They could be linked, joined in a political form of Northern Powerhouse. Again, think tanks will be to the fore. There, the likes of Centre for Policy Studies, Onward, Adam Smith, Institute of Economic Affairs, Bright Blue and the rest will be the hosts. Some, such as Demos and ResPublica, that are less parti pris, will pop up at both.
It is easy to be dismissive of these bodies, believing them to be nothing more than talking shops, devoted to policy wonkery and purveyors of free canapes and drinks. In fact, their influence is deep and far-reaching.
Take this week. Two of the most recently formed are Labour Together, created in 2015, and Resolution, founded in 2005. They sound innocuous enough. But Labour Together is the brainchild of Morgan McSweeney, Starmer’s chief of staff and arguably the second-most powerful person in government after the Prime Minister. He started it, with the sole aim of replacing Corbyn as leader and reducing the left-wing’s grip. Starmer’s elevation was the result.
The slightly older Resolution was established to improve the standard of living of Britain’s low to middle-income families. Again, little there, except that Resolution was headed for nine years by Torsten Bell, who serves as both a Pensions and Treasury minister in the Starmer administration and is a key aide to Reeves, said to be masterminding her crucial upcoming Autumn Budget.
While cameras inevitably are pointed at Starmer and his wife Victoria, and Cabinet heavy-hitters Reeves, Yvette Cooper, Shabana Mahmood, Ed Miliband, David Lammy and Wes Streeting, as they glide around the halls, it is the movements away from the spotlights, of McSweeney and Bell, that draw closer attention and speculation. If you want to know who really calls the shots, watch them, see who they are talking to, who merits a friendly greeting and who does not. Some of it is deliberately played out in public, in the lobby of the main Pullman Hotel; some occurs in the corridors and up the stairs, in private rooms, invisible to what they hope are prying eyes.
In its short history, as well as Bell, Resolution has produced: Vidhya Alakeson, Deputy Chief of Staff, Downing Street, in charge of policy and former deputy chief executive of the think tank; Minouche Shafik, economic adviser to the Prime Minister and ex-co-chairwoman of Resolution’s ‘The Economy 2030 Inquiry’; Dan Tomlinson, Treasury Minister and former Resolution economist; Matthew Pennycook, Housing Minister and in charge of planning reform, former Resolution researcher; David Willetts, chairman, Regulatory Innovation Office and Resolution president and former executive chairman; Richard Hughes, chairman, Office for Budget Responsibility and ex-Resolution research associate.
It's remarkable, propelling Resolution to the top of Britain’s most influential pile, certainly where the economy is concerned. Its headquarters may be an anonymous building at 2 Queen Anne’s Gate, a 19th-century townhouse, near the Houses of Parliament, but make no mistake, Resolution exerts considerable power and reach.
Resolution for a while appeared to be politically neutral. Indeed, Willetts was a Tory minister and George Osborne cited Resolution as he pushed to raise the minimum wage to 60 per cent of the median wage. In the pandemic, Resolution’s suggestion of ‘retention pay’ was adopted by prime minister at then time, Boris Johnson, to form the furlough scheme. His then chancellor, Rishi Sunak, was a Resolution admirer.
With Bell and Labour, that guard has all but dropped. Resolution is now seen as being firmly of the left, calling for redistribution of wealth. If Reeves does move against the rich, individual and companies, in her Budget, it will be attributed to the hand of Bell and his erstwhile employer.
That is where the smart money is this week, not following the heavily spun proceedings on the platform but scrutinising McSweeney and Bell. If you want to know how Britain is run, follow them and the think tanks.
