Tim Bale

Well, let's now bring in our guests.

In Eastbourne in the UK, Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London.

He specializes in political parties and elections.

In Tel Aviv, Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli justice minister.

So my job is much easier now than it was a year ago and the party is united behind her and I'm very pleased about that.

Also with us is Tim Bale, Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London.

Tim's research specialises in political parties and elections, and he's written two essential books on recent Conservative Party history.

One of his other books was about the Labour Party under Ed Miliband.

They need to be very careful in the inner cities.

And reform is still a big problem for the Conservatives.

You're listening to The Westminster Hour with me, Ben Wright, and our panel this evening, the Labour MP, Joe Powell, the Conservative MP, John Glenn, and the political scientist and historian, Tim Bale.

Gerry Scott from The Times is with us too.

That's not so much the case for the right wing parties like the Conservatives and Reform UK, but it very much is the case particularly for the Greens, but also for the Liberal Democrats and the Labour Party.

That's Tim Bale, Professor of Politics at Queen Mary University of London.

We'll be hearing more from him later on in the show.

What it basically boils down to, though, is this: UK party conferences are both a shop front and a closed shop.

For the moment, though, the Labour Party is able to celebrate the five-point lead that it's taken over the far right Reform UK party and to relax in the knowledge that for many of its faithful, this year's party conference has been a caesura, a moment of catharsis after years of bitter infighting and a seemingly ever-widening gulf between the Parliamentary Labour Party and many of its rank and file members.

Much of this has to do with the return to traditional Labour themes: public control over core utilities, electoral reform, investment in the care sector.

But as politics professor Tim Bale told me, there was one issue in particular which had left wounds that Andy Burnham and his team have consciously set out to heal

I think you would have to go back to Keir Starmer's leadership and some statements he made at a previous conference, or just after a previous conference in a radio interview about Gaza, which really upset a lot of Labour activists

Well, let's now bring in our guests.

In Eastbourne in the UK, Tim Bale, a professor of politics at Queen Mary University of London.

He specialises in political parties and elections.

In Tel Aviv, Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli justice minister.

There will be a by-election in which the Green Party are up against the Labour Party.

Let's see exactly what voters think in that vote in North London there.

For the time being, though, many thanks to all three of you, Tim Bale, Jonathan Liss and Yossi Benen.

Pleasure having you on Inside Story.