With a wry smile on his way into the Labour conference exhibition hall last Sunday, the British government's Work and Pensions Secretary, Pat McFadden, told us that his party was in "fight back" mode.
It was a line that senior party members would use again and again over the following days, as they sought to reset the narrative after a bruising few weeks for the government.
Mr McFadden, whose parents were fluent Irish speakers originally from Co Donegal, is viewed as a central figure in the Starmer government.
He was campaign co-ordinator during the last general election, when Labour won a stomping majority of 174 seats.
"Labour victories don't fall from the sky," he added, a warning to those circling the wagons to challenge Keir Starmer's leadership that their actions are not appreciated by the party's top brass.
It also spoke to a fear that such "introspection" could further damage the party.
The Labour government was elected with a mandate to return to a "government of service".
After a tumultuous period in British politics, with four prime minister's in the space of eight years, Mr Starmer promised a more stable administration.
However, after just 15 months in power, the Labour party gathering was dominated by questions around his own leadership.
The broad consensus is that Mr Starmer emerges from the conference stronger than he was going into it. However, scepticism remains around whether he is the right man to be prime minister.
Looming elections in Scotland, Wales and local elections in parts of England, could be the undoing of the Labour leader.
Politicians who are desperate do desperate things
There have been countless opinion polls in recent months, indicating that Labour is now several points behind Reform UK, led by Nigel Farage.
A major poll by YouGov, ahead of the Labour conference, indicated that if an election were to happen now, Reform would win 311 seats, with Labour knocked back to 144, after winning 411 last year.
The Conservative party would sink to 45 seats, according to the study.
While opinion polls may cause jitters, it can be elections that seal the fate of leaders.
Theresa May resigned after poor European election results in 2019, alongside failed attempts to get her Brexit deal approved. In Ireland, Labour leader Eamon Gilmore stood down after poor local and European election results for the party in 2014. There are countless other examples.
"When politicians see their area turning to Reform, they'll feel they have to do something", one source explains.
It's a concern that was also articulated by Labour MP John McDonnell.
He was recently brought back into the party after losing the whip when he voted to scrap the two-child benefit cap.
Mr McDonnell was the Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer when Jeremy Corbyn led the party.
On the day of Mr Starmer's address to conference, Mr McDonnell expressed hope that the leader would be able to bring the party back to "Labour values", which he believed would address poor polling numbers.
However, he also warned that should the Prime Minister fail to do this, his days in Number 10 are numbered.
"I’ve worked with him over the years. I believe that if we’re in the same situation next year, he knows his responsibility. He’ll do what’s best for the party and the country and I think he’ll contemplate his own future we well," he said.
"I’m hoping that we can turn it around, because it’s serious", Mr McDonnell told RTÉ News.
It’s a point of view that many other Labour MPs express privately.
Changing leader may not change party’s fortunes
Having contested leadership elections himself and served for the best part of 14 years in a Tory government, Michael Gove knows the jeopardy that leadership challenges can bring.
Speaking to RTÉ News at the Labour party conference, he struck a note of caution to Labour MPs who might be agitating for a change of leadership.
"As a general rule, leadership challenges don’t work to the advantage of incumbent governments," he said.
"And in particular, many voters will be thinking, we voted for Keir Starmer to deliver change and we want to see Starmer, even if we’re exasperated with him at the moment, to do that," he explained.
Mr Gove noted that there can be exceptions to that rule, most recently in Ireland, where Fine Gael experienced a temporary boost in popularity after the resignation of Leo Varadkar as Taoiseach.
"Leo Varadkar stood down before the last election. He felt that he’d given enough, and sometimes it can be the case that a leader feels the need to step down, but that was after two terms as Taoiseach," he said.
"That was after delivering a series of reforms, some of them controversial. That was after stewarding Ireland through the Brexit process.
"Keir Starmer is only 15 months into this leadership so from Labour’s point of view, any leadership change I suspect, would actually harm, not bolster confidence in Labour’s strength and capacity to govern," Mr Gove said.
It’s a point of view shared by a sizeable cohort of the Labour party.
During their addresses to fringe events this week, cabinet members stressed the achievements of Keir Starmer in securing a Labour victory in the last election, and the need to stick with him.
The message was simple: People are watching and we, the Labour party, risk making a show of ourselves.
Taking the fight to Reform
Much of the criticism of Mr Starmer centres around a feeling that he hasn’t explained what he, or his government, is about.
His speech to the party conference was an opportunity to address that and he chose to do it by taking the fight to Reform.
He made it clear that he saw the Nigel Farage led party as Labour’s main competition ahead of the next election.
His language towards Reform, both in the run-up to his speech and during it, was much harsher and more personal.
In reference to Reform UK’s policy to revoke indefinite leave to remain, something which would impact hundreds of thousands of people currently living legally in the UK, Mr Starmer described it as a "racist" and "immoral" policy.
It was a description met with relief by many Labour members, who felt incredibly frustrated that the Prime Minister wasn’t stronger in his criticism of Reform up to this point. An indication that the government’s senior team was finally listening to disaffected members.
However, some in Labour red-wall seats were more uneasy about the description.
And it wasn’t long before Mr Farage and others accused Mr Starmer of branding all Reform UK supporters as racist.
In a rousing leader’s address on Tuesday, Keir Starmer upped the rhetoric.
He told delegates that Nigel Farage "doesn’t like Britain, doesn’t believe in Britain" and cannot say anything positive about it.
The Prime Minister called on people to reject the "snake oil merchants" on the right and left of the political spectrum.
This language carried through into the post-speech interviews by senior government members.
Deputy Prime Minister David Lammy even went as far as to accuse Nigel Farage of flirting with the Hitler Youth when he was younger, only to retract his claim hours later when it was pointed out that Mr Farage had denied it.
Reform UK’s Zia Yusuf accused Labour of inciting violence.
The gamble
The message from Keir Starmer’s address was that voters had a choice, between his government or Reform UK.
By drawing clear lines of division between Labour and Reform, the Prime Minister has arguably helped to better define his party and what it stands for.
The speech was also damning of the Conservative Party, simply because the Tories were hardly mentioned at all, apart from the question, "The Tory Party, who remembers them"?
By using such strong language against Reform UK, Mr Starmer risks alienating voters who are sympathetic to Reform’s views, which is currently the most popular party in Britain.
However, he also stands to win back those who feel that Labour has acquiesced to the "populist right" for too long.
Mr Starmer’s speech was arguably a gamble, designed to rally the Labour troops ahead of May’s elections.
It fired up Mr Farage too, who quickly warned the Labour leader that he would "teach him a lesson" at the next election.
The stakes are high for Keir Starmer. May’s elections look set to be a defining moment.
Should Labour’s fight-back fail, his time in Number 10 could soon come to an end.
