Chris Mason: Labour grapples with threat from Reform UK at party conference

It is just 14 months since the general election. Not yet 500 days. Labour has a working majority of 161.

But here on the banks of the Mersey, it really doesn't feel like that.

I am reminded of Conservative conferences of old, where a circus would accompany Boris Johnson from the railway station to each and every event he attended, in the years when it was transparently clear he was rather keen on becoming prime minister.

Swop a former mayor of London and subsequent prime minister for the current mayor of Greater Manchester and aspiring prime minister Andy Burnham, and you have a sense of the vibe here.

There is no shortage of acidic views about what is seen as the rather thrusting nature of Burnham's ambition, or near hagiographic accounts of his governance of Greater Manchester as its mayor – with the clear implication he should stay there.

But there is one big reason why all this is happening, so early in this parliament: it is symptomatic of a party wrestling publicly and privately with how it confronts Reform UK.

There is broad and deep reflection from plenty here – from the cabinet to councillors – that the pitch right now from Labour to the country isn't good enough.

This is why we are seeing a sharpening in the language and the policies being presented now.

No fewer than 10 cabinet ministers are addressing this conference from the main stage on Monday.

The centrepiece address will be from Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who will argue that Reform presents a threat to the British economy with the potential, she will argue, for more borrowing and rising barriers to international trade.

But perhaps more striking is the speech from the new Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood.

She has been dubbed 'the Terminator' by the tabloids.

She gives every impression she might regard that nickname as a bit wishy-washy, a bit namby-pamby.

"You won't always like what I'll do," she will say, addressing Labour activists in front of her directly.

In other words, her instincts and approach in the Home Office might make some within the party squeamish.

But she sees it as absolutely essential – and the clue is in the candid observations she has already shared here at an event on the conference fringe.

"We can reclaim the mantle that was once ours and can be again: we will be the party of the working class," she said – an acknowledgement that, right now at least, they are not.

It is a reflection, in a sentence, of how this party perceives its predicament and what it is trying to do about it.