Bookings for "Starmer Year One" conference now open

The Labour History Research Unit is delighted to announce that bookings for its conference 'Starmer Year One' are now open on the ARU store. (NB Booking in advance is essential).

The conference will take place in LAB 002 and LAB 003 on ARU's Cambridge campus on Saturday 14 June 2025.

Confirmed speakers currently include Tim Bale, Patrick Diamond, Jonathan Portes, Jovan Owusu-Nepaul, Kevin Hickson, and Emily Stacey, among others.

This will be the first conference (and hopefully a book too, down the line) to evaluate the record of the Starmer government. By the time of the conference, Labour will have been in power for almost a year and politics might be a little different. The results of the May 2025 local elections show that that the political landscape of Britain is changing.

We have assembled a fabulous panel of experts who will probe the government's record to date and analyse the challenges of governing Britain in the mid-2020s, in both domestic and foreign policy. The conference will be a great day of political discussion, hopefully leading to policy recommendations and further political initiatives.

All members of the public are welcome (including those who don't support the government!).

Download the conference abstracts (pdf)

Timetable

General timings

9.45 Welcome
10-11.30 Opening plenary: Starmer and Ideology
11.30-13.00 Strand 1
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-15.30 Strand 2
15.30-15.45 Tea
15.45-17.00 Plenary panel
17.00-18.00 Final plenary

 

Full timetable

9.45 Welcome

10-11.30 Opening plenary panel: The Ideology of Starmerism (LAB 002)
Chair: Rohan McWilliam
Jovan Owusu-Nepaul (Social Enterprise UK): The Ideology of Starmerism
Kevin Hickson (Liverpool): Starmer and Ideology
Jasper Miles (Nottingham University) and Danny Rye (Liverpool Hope): Blue on Red: Starmer and Labour’s conservativism in context

Parallel strands

11.30-13.00 Strand 1

Foreign affairs (LAB 002)
Chair: Richard Carr
Jonathan Davis (ARU): Russia: Labour's perennial problem
James Pearce (ARU): A Hollow Gesture Foreign Policy: why Labour’s Ukraine and Russia policies do not add up
Richard Johnson (QMUL): Learning to Love Lexit: Brexit and Labour's Political Economy

Governing (LAB 003)
Chair: Paul Bloomfield
Patrick Diamond (QMUL): Public services under the Starmer Government: the reversal or revival of New Public Management?
Imko Metyenburg (ARU): Privatisation and Outsourcing in Hearing Healthcare
Tony Taylor (Sheffield Hallam): On the Co Operative Party and Labour in government

13.00-14.00 Lunch

14.00-15.30 Strand 2

Politics and Economy (LAB 002)
Chair: Jonathan Davis
Tim Bale (QMUL): Labour members: who they are, what they think, and what they do
Adrian Williamson (Cambridge/UCL): The Chimera of Economic Growth
Emily Stacey (Senior Executive at Chelgate): Governing the Energy Shift: Labour’s Approach to Sustainable Energy Since Taking Office

Politics and Society (LAB 003)
Chair: Lucy Bland
Malcolm Petrie (St Andrews): The Starmer Government and the Scottish Question
Neil Pye (Liverpool): Local Government and Metro Mayors
Mary Joannou (ARU): "Say Their Names" - Jess Phillips and Labour’s Record on Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls in Starmer’s First Year

15.30-15.45 Tea

15.45-17.00 Plenary Panel (LAB 002)
Chair: Emily Stacey
Karl Pike (QMUL): Labour and Liberalism
Jonathan Portes (King’s London): Immigration: a turning point
Beth Gardiner-Smith (Cambridge Councillor/Future Governance Forum): The Politics of Asylum

17.00-18.00 Final Panel: How has the Political landscape Changed? (LAB 002)
Chair: Rohan McWilliam
Martin Farr (Newcastle): Starmer and Trump
Alan Finlayson (UEA): "A Kodak Party in an Instagram world”: Starmer’s Rhetorical Performance and Digital Political Culture

 

For more information, please contact [email protected].

 

Photo by Chris McAndrew, used under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license