"Country before party" said new PM, Keir Starmer, on day 2 of the Labour Party conference standing under the slogan "Change begins". He was wearing an expensive dark suit and a Tory-blue tie.
But it is the context of his posturing as a leader representing "all working people" which makes his self-serving fraud on the working class so crass.
As if - as Rachel Reeves, his equally-well-clad Chancellor claims - Labour can be both the party of British business and the party of the working class, when there's a fundamental opposition of interests between the two!
But never mind. It seems quite possible for politicians to hold - or to seem to hold - totally contradictory views at the same time these days. That, indeed, is the case for Labour's views on the increasingly horrific, escalating war in the Middle East.
So, for instance, while supporting the Israeli government - i.e., its right to invade Palestine and slaughter a population under the pretext of self-defence, Starmer and Lammy can also now appear opposed to this invasion, and call for an "immediate cease-fire". Especially when it makes not the slightest difference, since it is the US which is puppet master.
The real terrorists
On Monday, that is day 1 of the Israeli escalation against southern Lebanon, the BBC chose to invite the Israeli ambassador into its studio to allow her to explain her point of view.
The ultra-right, dippy "Tzipi" Hotovely, known for her hysterical support for Netanyahu's line, claimed, unchallenged, that the IDF escalation (by now more than 500 Lebanese civilians are already dead) was "absolutely" justified since "No country in the world could tolerate what Israel has faced from Hezbollah".
This, when less than a week ago, Mossad - the Israeli secret service - had staged a premeditated terror-attack against Hezbollah party-workers - and anyone who happened to be near them - by exploding their pagers, walkie talkies, radios, and even some solar panels... An attack consciously designed to gouge out eyes, shred hands, eviscerate, while the victim remained alive. What level of depravity on the part of the perpetrator does that imply? But of course similar depravity has already been on display for almost 12 months in Gaza.
And surprise, surprise, not one prominent western politician (certainly not the proto-Zionist, Keir Starmer!) has condemned the Israeli forces for this terrorism. Hotovely was allowed, without any contradiction, to thus turn the world on its head and get away with her own psychopathic apology for Netanyahu's psychopathic regime.
What does that say about the British media, its political class; the ruling class, and the capitalist class behind them, in power over the rest of us?
No return to austerity?
So yes, this bloody Middle East escalation is the international context of Labour's conference this week. It made the posturing and preening of Rayner, Reeves and Starmer (et al), looking like cats who got the cream, particularly unpleasant to watch.
And it's not just their commitment to supporting war abroad, that's the problem. It's the commitment to wage the class war at home on behalf of British business, that's at issue!
Yes, while at the same time, claiming to be workers' true political voice and enumerating all the things which they will "begin" to change! They have got union leaders on board, of course: ever an easy task, since all these top bureaucrats really want is to be treated as if they are "somebody"!
Reeves, with her plastic smiley-face told the conference what it wanted to hear: that there was "no austerity" to come. Just you wait, said she, "her" (personal!) ambition was going to grow the economy (cheers!) AKA private profit, which would apparently somehow (not explained) result in "change".
But as the Unite union leader Sharon Graham commented, "austerity" has already started... Labour leaders might have pushed the resolution to reverse the cut in winter fuel allowance to the end of the conference agenda, but they haven't pushed this cut out of anyone's consciousness!
So no, this government, with its huge parliamentary majority (and minority electoral support) may feel confident that it can rule with ease at Westminster. But there's a reason why Starmer and Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, both called out "criminal" rioters, and claimed the summer unrest had nothing to do with poverty and social discontent.
They have the sense to know that their promised tweaks to the economy can only come at the expense of public services and workers' wages and conditions - and thus cause more poverty. And they know too, therefore, that their undoing might come from the "street". That is, from a working class that has learnt the lesson of the unco-ordinated, half-hearted "fight" waged in 2022 and which next time, will know how to organise its collective force, to win.