Hi, I'm Anouche. I'm Alfa. And I'm Steven. And on today's New Statesman podcast,

we discuss Labour Party Conference and how Keir Starmer's speech was and you ask us.

Other Conservatives really less divided than the other parties.

So we were crawled into the office after a few days at Labour Party Conference,

so you're lucky to be listening to us at all. But we thought we'd talk a little bit about how

we found the conference this year, given there wasn't one last year. Alfa, how was it for you?

You know, I had a lovely time. I wasn't really, I mean, whisper it. I wasn't really looking

forward to it. What? I just thought it was going to be exhausting. But then the second we arrived,

Steven, I had a noticeable spring in our steps after seeing how nice the conference hotel was.

The New Statesman kindly put us up in. So after that, it started on a good note. And then it was

actually just lovely to bump into so many New Statesman readers and listeners. I've only had one

conference at the New Statesman that was years ago, two years ago. So it was really, really nice to

meet our listeners and readers in person. And then also to do the live podcast was fun too.

Yeah, I mean, the hotel was a revelation, I think, in all my seven years at the New Statesman,

it was definitely the nicest one. Although having said that, it was a low bar, because when I used

to work for Total Politics, which is my job before coming to the New Statesman, they once put me

up in a 12-bed dorm. So my little blazer was hanging at the edge of this, like, bunk bed.

I would never do that with you soon, no matter how much I love you.

I realized not having lived-em conferences are kind of like warming up,

getting into the conference mood. It was just, oh, this one's so much, so much more hard work.

But actually, I know this reflects poorly on me, but on Friday, when they kind of started to do

the kind of behind-the-scenes arm-twisting over Chulo, which is the Meeting of the Affiliated

...