What Jeremy Corbyn said in his conference speech – and what he really meant

What Jeremy Corbyn said: Conference, thank you for that.

And what he meant: No, stop it. Cut out the chanting. I hate it. It’s embarrassing. I’m nobody special. Don’t really know how I got here. Settle down. Stop being silly.

What he said: Against all predictions in June we won the largest increase in the Labour vote since 1945 and achieved Labour’s best vote for a generation. It’s a result which has put the Tories on notice and Labour on the threshold of power.

What he meant: Just five years to go. I’ll be 73.

What he said: Conference, your efforts in the election campaign stopped the Tories in their tracks. The election result has already delivered one Tory U-turn after another over some of their most damaging policies.

What he meant: Ideal outcome, really. We won the election, we’re dictating policy, but we’re not burdened with the responsibility of government.

What he said: It is Labour that is now setting the agenda and winning the arguments for a new common sense about the direction our country should take.

What he meant: And nobody is more surprised than me.

What he said: Never have so many trees died in vain. The British people saw right through it. So this is a message to the Daily Mail’s editor: next time, please could you make it 28 pages?

What he meant: I bet that’s what Tony Blair wished he could have said all along. I did, and I got away with it. Funny old business, politics.

What he said: My principles come from my mum and dad.

What he meant: And from all those Marxist tracts that we used to produce in the good old days when Ken Livingstone and Diane Abbott and I used to run London Labour Briefing in the 1980s.

What he said: Faced with such an overwhelmingly hostile press and an army of social media trolls, it’s even more important that we stand firm.

What he meant: I’m going to condemn all abuse in a moment, but let me make clear which side I blame.

What he said: I am not having it. There can never be any excuse for any abuse of anybody by anybody. We settle our differences with democratic votes and we unite around those decisions and then go forward.

What he meant: I know the right-wing press want me to condemn abuse by my supporters. They can go whistle. I didn’t get where I am today without learning to condemn all bad stuff by all sides without ever being specific.

What he said: I have a simple message for the Cabinet: for Britain’s sake pull yourself together or make way.

What he meant: Pull yourself together: they are not calling me a geography supply teacher now, are they?

What he said: With our Brexit team of Keir Starmer, Emily Thornberry and Barry Gardiner we stand ready to take over whenever this government fails to negotiate a new relationship with Europe that works for us all. Keir, Emily, Barry: thank you for all you do.

What he meant: Not sure what you do, but it all made perfect sense the last time Keir explained it to me. Keep up the good work.

What he said: There is a new common sense emerging about how the country should be run. That’s what we fought for in the election and that’s what’s needed to replace the broken model forged by Margaret Thatcher many years ago.

What he meant: The Jabberwock, my young friends, was a real beast, with the head of a Thatcher and the body of a Blair and it wrought manxome horrors upon the land. And for all those years a small band of heroes, not that I wish to encourage hero-worship, kept the vorpal sword sharp. Where was I?

What he said: And ten years after the global financial crash the Tories still believe in the same dogmatic mantra – deregulate, privatise, cut taxes for the wealthy, weaken rights at work, delivering profits for a few and debt for the many. Nothing has changed.

What he meant: “Nothing has changed” – get it?

What he said: It’s as if we’re stuck in a political and economic time-warp.

What he meant: We are taking the country forward to 1945 at warp speed.

What he said: As the Financial Times put it last month our “financial system still looks a lot like the pre-crisis one” and the capitalist system still faces a “crisis of legitimacy”, stemming from the crash.

What he meant: I wanted to say the capitalist system is in crisis, but Seumas did that old trick of quoting the old top-hatted cigar-chomping baddies themselves.

What he said: Now is the time that we developed a new model of economic management to replace the failed dogmas of neoliberalism.

What he meant: I wasn’t sure what neoliberalism meant but Paul Mason explained it was Greek for New Labour so I put it in.

What he said: We also need to tax undeveloped land held by developers and have the power to compulsorily purchase. As Ed Miliband said, “Use it or lose it.”

What he meant: The true Labour leadership succession goes: Keir Hardie, Clement Attlee, John Smith, Ed Miliband. And then me, although I don’t like a fuss being made about it. Ed was round at Momentum HQ last night and we had a good chat about how the only thing wrong with his leadership was that he wasn’t brave enough to be more like me.

What he said: Our public servants make the difference every day, between a decent and a threadbare society. Everyone praises them. But it is Labour that values them and is prepared to give them the pay rise they deserve and protect the services they provide.

What he meant: I’m not saying we are morally better than the Tories, but we are morally better than the Tories.

What he said: Britain’s voice needs to be heard independently in the world. We must be a candid friend to the United States, now more than ever.

What he meant: That is “candid friend” in the sense of “committed opponent”. We must never have anything to do with American foreign policy ever again.

What he said: Conference, it is often said that elections can only be won from the centre ground. And in a way that’s not wrong – so long as it’s clear that the political centre of gravity isn’t fixed or immovable, nor is it where the establishment pundits like to think it is.

What he meant: I thought the establishment pundits were right until the exit poll came out. Wrong to gloat. Mustn’t gloat. But ha bloody ha.