
[ad_1]
Author: Bagehot
Midway through Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster Jaws, Sheriff Brody (Roy Scheider) finally sees a giant shark wreaking havoc in the high seas off the coast of New England. Terrified but still clutching his cigarette, he rushes into the cabin and tells his shipmate (Robert Shaw) “You need a bigger boat” You only need to spend a few hours at Labour’s annual conference in Brighton to realise that if the Conservatives are to avoid being swallowed up by Jeremy Corbyn’s resurgent Labour, they will need a bigger ship.
I haven’t seen such positive political energy since Barack Obama fired up the Democratic field in 2008 with slogans like “hope and change” and “yes we can”, which now seem bland. The Labour conference was bigger than ever before: 13,000 delegates signed up, and hundreds had to be turned away. The main hotel for the conference, Brighton’s Metropolitan Hotel, was packed. The atmosphere was jubilant: Labour activists marched along the seafront, seemingly walking on air. Everyone knew who the real winners of last June’s general election were. Everyone knew it was only a matter of time before Labour took Downing Street again – and this time it would be the real Labour Party, not Tony Blair’s watered-down compromise.
[ad_2]
Source link