It's party time - Cautious show of jollity despite tight control of cabinet

It was a running joke at the Labour conference that no other party could hold its first gathering for 15 years as the government and still find reasons to be gloomy.

- Peter Walker Jessica Elgot Aletha Adu

But while there were undeniable tensions, there was plenty of reason to celebrate - and many did.

The joy and relief of coming back from the disaster of the 2019 election to a 174-seat majority on 4 July was clear in every part of the gathering in Liverpool.

One minister combined fringe meetings and broadcast rounds with nightly appearances in the main conference hotel bar which lasted until the early hours. At Keir Starmer's speech on Tuesday, members cheered each time he referred to his work as prime minister. By the final night of the conference, on Tuesday, delegates at a UK Music event were treated to the sight of Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, and Emily Thornberry, the former shadow attorney general, dancing vigorously onstage to Mark Ronson's Uptown Funk.

Later that night was an annual karaoke party hosted by the Mirror, where cabinet ministers including Angela Rayner, Rachel Reeves, Yvette Cooper, Wes Streeting and Lisa Nandy joined a posse of new Labour MPs in what felt like a delayed and very sweaty victory party.

Even here, however, there was some reflection. The loudest roars were for Jonathan Ashworth, central to Labour's pre-election planning, who lost his Leicester South seat to an independent candidate by fewer than 1,000 votes. Introduced by the MC as "Jonny Sparkles", Ashworth joined Streeting, the health secretary, to belt out Don't Look Back in Anger by Oasis before being pulled from the stage by Labour officials who embraced him.