Will the slogan ‘A New Leadership’ really deliver for Labour?

It is not quite “New Labour” or even, as Keir Starmer memorably put it earlier this year, that the party is “under new management”.

With the opening of Labour’s conference, online only this year, the party has unveiled its new slogan: “A New Leadership”.

The phrase points to a deeper problem for Labour.

It may be under new leadership, but has that really made a lasting impression on voters, less than a year on from the party’s worst election defeat in decades?

The polls would suggest that it has. One poll this weekend put Starmer and Boris Johnson neck and neck.  

But some senior figures within Labour are concerned. 

They say that when you talk to former Labour voters, there are some positive signs. There is an awareness that Starmer’s predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, is no longer in charge.

However, some are not necessarily convinced that the party is “under new management” when it comes to important issues such as the economy.

Johnson attempted to play on these fears earlier this month when he accused Starmer of previously supporting an “IRA-condoning politician”, a charge never before levelled at the lawyer, and lifted wholesale from attacks on Corbyn.  

In part, of course, the timing of Starmer’s election as leader could not have been worse for a party hoping to win over disgruntled voters.

The former shadow Brexit secretary campaigned for his party’s leadership as stories were starting to emerge of a deadly virus in China.

Ballots were cast as the country was transfixed by the runaway speed at which cases in the UK multiplied. And he was forced to make his first speech as Labour leader online after lockdown was announced.

Unlike “under new management”, the strapline “A New Leadership” looks forward, past the Corbyn era.

It also attempts to contrast Starmer’s leadership with the leadership that his party argues has been lacking from Johnson.

But it will also look to present a united front within Labour, under Starmer, something that has been missing in recent years in a party dogged by infighting.    

His most immediate electoral test will be in next year’s Scottish parliament elections, where the party is struggling in what for many years was seen as one of its heartlands.

With coronavirus set to dominate the headlines for months to come, whether voters are paying attention, regardless of the slogan, remains to be seen.