Starmer's stabilty pitch has found favour with voters. But he will eventually havr to set out his policy stall.

Can Labour once again build a winning coalition of voters?

That is the question that is at the heart of everything the Labour Party does at the moment even if – oddly – it isn’t the one dominating their virtual conference. And it’s a tricky one. The membership is vastly overstocked with metropolitan liberals who share little in common with voters in the seats Labour has been losing over many years.

It wasn’t simply Corbyn that lost them. That’s a nice fairy story that some like to tell themselves to reassure them that everything will go back to normal now. But Labour has been losing these voters for years. Under Corbyn, under Miliband, under Brown and yes, under Blair. They have long felt that Labour had nothing to say to them about their lives and passions.

This isn’t new. Labour was formed as an alliance between the Fabian middle class dreamers and the pragamatic working class unions. It’s long been a complicated and difficult balancing act.

As a contrast with Boris Johnson’s chaotic government, at the moment, the stance of competence without policy seems to be enough. But it may not be enough to keep the Labour Party together. as one former PPC put it to me:

“Keir projects an image of competence and assuredness that we are not used to. However, as things stand we still don’t know what he thinks. The crisis has allowed managerial competence to be enough. At some point he will have to take more meaningful stands, that will likely cause genuine anxiety to his left and his right. Current not being Jeremy is enough for the less reasonable on the left to hate him and the right to love him.”

Managerial competence is a good start but it is only a start. The crisis of the pandemic is showing how necessary competence is and how much it is missing from the current government. But we are in need of big ideas and boldness. And it isn’t simply Corbyn’s unreconciled supporters who are a bit worried these are lacking. As one party member said to me “if you haven’t got anything to offer a soft leftie who voted Owen then what’s the actual point of you?”

Keir has done well in turning around the reputation of a party that was at rock bottom only a year ago. But he will need some meat on the bones.

This doesn’t mean reverting to the kind of issues that divide the metropolitan liberals from the voters they claim to champion, but finding areas of common ground – particularly economically – and making big policy announcements there.

Right now it is only those weirdos like me who are actually missing politics that have noticed or minded the gap. The current focus of the leadership of the Labour Party on getting their house in order before they start setting out their policy stall is probably the right one. But eventually, Starmer is going to have to set out where he stands. The fact is that no one really knows. As yet, few care. That won’t last.

Emma Burnell is a freelance journalist and political consultant.

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