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Hello and welcome to Political Thinking, the programme in which I have a conversation

with and not an interrogation of someone who shaped our thinking about what shapes theirs.

My guess this week is the chief of the Defence Staff, General Sinek Carter, who's not

just the nation's top soldier, he is the Prime Minister's key strategic advisor.

We'll turn to him in just a moment, but I am just back from Brighton and the Labour Party

conference and I was struck once again by the difference of watching political events

from inside the Goldfish Bowl and outside.

There is no doubt that that speech by the Labour leader felt like something of a triumph

to those of us watching on the conference floor.

Keir Starmer had finally decided to confront many of the people that had helped him get

the job in the first place.

He decided to rip up the Corbin inheritance, not naming him of course, but making clear

that he regarded the Corbin manifesto as an unaffordable list of promises that was

nowhere near a serious programme of government.

And yet leave that hall and what became really clear is that the country are not listening

to the Labour Party at all.

The speech though it made broadcast headlines barely made it onto newspaper front pages.

The nation has other things to worry about, gas prices, the absence of fuel, the threat

to women and girls and the terrible murder of Sarah Everard.

The challenge for Sinek Starmer now is having worn his battles inside the Labour Party

to convince the country that he has something to say about what they care about.

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