What is the big difference between Starmer and Sunak?

The terrible events in Israel, and the probable consequences, mean pretty much all British politicians may struggle to be heard this week.

But Labour's conference in Liverpool, almost certainly the last before a general election expected a year from now, is a big deal.

The reason is that Labour is so far ahead in the polls that Sir Keir Starmer and his party have to prove they are competent to run the country and address most voters' revealed priorities.

This is not about demonstrating continuity with the Tory led governments of the past 13 years. These have been characterised by extreme and economically unhealthy volatility, from the Brexit negotiating chaos of the May years, to the Partygate scandals and policy confusion under Johnson, to Liz Truss's fiscal debacle. The combination of that volatility and the preceding austerity have left core public services creaking and crumbling.

Starmer has to offer and betoken change. But it is a different kind of change from that volunteered by the prime minister at the Tory conference last week.

Rishi Sunak's three proposed abolitions - A-levels, midlands-to-north high speed rail, smoking - were designed to shock voters into believing he really is different from Cameron, May, Johnson and Truss.

The imperative for Starmer is to reassure rather than shock. He needs to convince that he can raise living standards, mend the NHS and give more hope to young people by providing more and more affordable housing, a lesser student-debt burden and better funded schools.

And he needs to do all this without opening himself to the charge that the public finances - which have become dangerously ropey under the recent Tory administrations, with an interest burden that is too high and rising - would deteriorate significantly.

In other words, he has to generate excitement that better times lie ahead while exercising public-spending caution. It is not easy to do.

It explains why he bangs on about the imperative of ending 15 years of low economic growth, which has deteriorated uncomfortably close to stagnation. In this morning's formulation, it is that his "single defining mission" is to increase the underlying growth rate from the current circa 1% to "the fastest" of all the world's big rich economies.

The truism is that if growth were faster - though he has avoided saying precisely how much faster - then tax revenues would rise to finance schools, hospitals and the alleviation of poverty, and a Labour government would not have to do anything as uncouth as increasing tax rates.

The problem is that wishing for faster growth is something all politicians do - Johnson did it, Truss did is, Sunak does it - but wishing can't deliver it.

So there is a good deal of Starmer having his cake and eating it, in his "all will be fine when Britain is growing again".

It is not that he lacks assorted policies that should stimulate economic activity, from the staggered £28bn a year of green investment, to planning reform, to fiscal devolution, to more emphasis on re-skilling throughout working lives.

There is a ton of common-sense industrial reform in the vast policy document this conference will debate this week - though many business leaders and investors will be wary of the promised restoration of trade union powers.

The important point is that if Labour delivers stability, and if it pursues its industrial plan, any increase in the UK's productivity will occur over years not weeks.

Here is Starmer's challenge: He has to make the prospect of possible jam - in 2026 or 2027 - something to set the juices flowing and the pulse racing.

Because of the perceived incompetence of the last few years of Conservative government, he may win big even without that. But history would suggest he'd be foolish to bank votes predicated on the idea that surely he can't be worse than the last lot.

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