The appearance of New York’s Mayor Bill de Blasio, who gave a rousing 40-minute performance, with notes, roused what has been a rather subdued Labour conference from its slumbers. He was the first speaker at this conference to lay out the philosophy of progressive politics with passion and real power, and his message on income inequality drew a standing ovation in the hall. Tanned and smiling, de Blasio, 53, sauntered on to the stage to loud cheers, blowing kisses to the crowd “I don’t know why they say the Brits are unemotional,” he drawled.
If the Democrat was tired from his 24 hour round trip (he reportedly landed at 7am this morning and will fly back tonight), he didn’t show it. Although he may not have had time to catch up on Mr Miliband’s lacklustre leader’s speech. In contrast to the widespread criticism of Mr Miliband in today’s newspapers (even The Guardian couldn’t pretend he looked like a winner), de Blasio was full of praise for the Labour leader: "Ed, your agenda is a blueprint of what a fairer, more prosperous, stronger United Kingdom will look like. That is not only why you must win, that is why you will win," he said.
The Mayor appears to see the Labour leader as a kindred spirit in the fight against global inequality, although his speech was thankfully free of any references to the fashionable French economist Thomas Piketty. His criticism of the Conservatives's “top down policies” drew applause from the crowd: "Instead of giving working families the leg up they deserve, guess what: they give huge tax cuts to the wealthiest, in the vague hope the money would magically trickle down to everyone else. We are familiar with this approach in our country—it's called typically voodoo economics."
Radiating positivity, de Blasio shared his own recipe for electoral success, describing how he came from far behind in the primary contest to end two decades of Republican rule in New York. In a rousing call to arms, he said that he won by refusing to “nibble around the edges” and by taking “dead aim at the crisis of our time” with “bold progressive action.”
Despite the stirring rhetoric—and trust me the standing ovation was deserved—the key question which remains unanswered was why was Bill de Blasio here? He clearly wasn’t a big enough name to persuade hungover delegates to delay their trains home, because the conference hall was only half full. I was among those asked to move forward to make the vast space look less empty. One suggestion is that Labour’s superstar election strategist, David Axlerod, called in a favour. But was it the right one? This was de Blasio’s first major policy speech overseas since he took office in January, and while he is certainly pitching himself as an activist voice within the Democratic Party, his star is still very much in the ascendant. With the roll call of guest speakers at previous Labour conferences including Nelson Mandela (2000) and Bill Clinton (2002/06), de Blasio's presence offered little in the way of star quality, and his speech, like Miliband’s, will have little resonance with voters beyond the Labour grassroots.
