Hello and welcome to Inside Briefing, the podcast from the Institute for Government.

I'm Hannah White.

Conference season is nearly over.

We've still got the SMP gathering to come and the IFG team are back in Westminster after running a record-breaking number of fringe events in Liverpool and Manchester.

There are some tired faces in the office, including my own.

But which politicians will be returning to Parliament with new headaches to deal with?

Has Ritchie Sunak done enough to shake off the Conservatives post-truss era hangover?

And did Kirstama give Labour reason to believe that a new dawn might be about to break?

We're going to take stock of the post-conference landscape,

pick apart Stama's speech, and look ahead to the renewal of parliamentary hostilities.

Joining me in the studio, fresh-ish from the train back from Liverpool are my RFG colleagues, Kath Haddon and Emma Norris.

How are you doing, Emma? Are you feeling rejuvenated after a good night's sleep?

I think it's going to take me a few more days to feel rejuvenated after five days out of ten at party conferences.

How about you, Kath?

My throat feels a bit sore, but I think it's not conference lurgy. I think it is that shouting in very loud rooms to try and get yourself heard

and have a conversation has affected my voice. All those receptions and discos. And I'm delighted

to be joined on today's podcast by The Guardian's political correspondent, Kieran Stacey, also back

from Liverpool. How are you doing, Kieran? I feel completely fresh. I feel...

And you look it to. I've got young children. I was only woken up once in the night,

and that's, you know, better than the four-hour sleep I've been surviving on for the last

couple of weeks. So, yeah, not too bad. And you're back on the conference circuit having been away from Westminster and so on for the last

couple of years in Washington and Delhi. Is it good to be back? It is good to be back. It's nice

...