Was this one of the great Labour conference speeches?

So where does Sir Keir Starmer’s ferocious attack on Nigel Farage rank among the great party conference speeches by Labour leaders?

One former minister told Sky News Sir Keir’s claim that Mr Farage “hates Britain” was right up there with Neil Kinnock’s blistering assault on the Militant Tendency almost exactly 40 years ago.

In Bournemouth, on 1 October 1985, denouncing Derek Hatton’s Liverpool Militants, Mr Kinnock famously declared: “I’ll tell you what happens with impossible promises.

“You start with far-fetched resolutions. They are then pickled into a rigid dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, outdated, misplaced, irrelevant to the real needs.

“And you end up in the grotesque chaos of a Labour council – a Labour council – hiring taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers.”

Sir Keir is not the first Labour leader to face the possible threat of a leadership challenge, of course. Gordon Brown’s admirers point to his 2008 speech ridiculing would-be challenger David Miliband.

“I’m all in favour of apprenticeships,” he quipped. “But this is no time for a novice.” Brown’s allies claimed he was referring to the youthful Tory leader David Cameron. But no one was convinced.

Another good party conference quip came from Tony Blair in a dig at his rival Brown in his 2006 conference swansong, in a joke about his wife Cherie.

“At least I don’t have to worry about her running off with the bloke next door,” said the soon-to-depart three-times election winner.