This Autumn will decide Starmer’s grip on power, writes Andrew Marr

Lined up, we have the Donald Trump state visit to the UK, further desperate attempts to bring peace in Ukraine, the party conferences and beyond that, one of the most difficult Budgets in living memory. What’s genuinely tricky is to separate the set-piece diary moments from the bigger, less predictable themes.

Take the party conferences. Traditionally, they were at the absolute heart of autumn politics in Britain – hundreds of journalists, business people and party activists would pour into seaside towns to debate and argue about the greatest issues of the day. Votes were taken which could change the course of a national party or its leadership. There was genuine jeopardy and excitement.

Well, we know when and where they will be this year. Beginning with Reform, on Friday, September 5 in Birmingham, we have the Lib Dems (from September 20, Bournemouth), Labour (September 28, Liverpool), the Greens open (October 3, Bournemouth), the Conservatives (October 5, Manchester) and the SNP (October 11, Aberdeen).

And from Aberdeen to Bournemouth, the jeopardy hasn’t gone away. Leaders, including the prime minister, are under different kinds of threat. With terrible polling for both Labour and the Tories, we will be looking to see how much dissent and unhappiness manifest themselves at their conferences – although nobody expects a really serious move against either Starmer or Kemi Badenoch until after next year’s May elections, if then.

It will also be a month of policy announcements. I would not be at all surprised to see a big announcement on digital ID cards for the UK at the heart of the Starmer speech, as he confronts the continuing failure to stop the small boats migration. It’s an open secret that Badenoch will come out swinging against both the ECHR and Farage, on the same theme.

It’ll be an interesting moment in November when the new Jeremy Corbyn, Zara Sultana breakaway party launches; the relationship and rivalry between that and Zach Polinski’s Greens will affect the whole centre-left of British politics.

But the truth is that party conferences have become so neutered and controlled that much of the old excitement has been lost, and newsrooms across the UK are cutting back their coverage this year. It’s a lot of money to be fed party propaganda and predictability.

There is jeopardy as well, in the Trump visit, as there is in any event involving him. We will be watching to see whether the process of disillusion with Vladimir Putin continues, and what exactly he says about Ukraine. Will there be the slightest pushback against the Netanyahu government over Gaza and further incursions on the West Bank? Because there is clear daylight between Washington and London on these issues, and because the American president is so mercurial, every syllable and image will be closely scrutinised.

For most British people, however, the Budget, in late October or early November, will be the most important political moment. With a huge hole in the public finances, fast-rising borrowing costs and persistent inflation, the Chancellor Rachel Reeves is facing a near-impossible situation. Will she break her election promises on raising any of the big taxes? Or will, with her former number two, Darren Jones, now appointed as the prime minister’s chief secretary, begin the bloody and brutal business of reining in public spending further?

The choices made then will affect every family in Britain. This autumn, in many ways, Keir Starmer‘s administration revives and achieves new focus and authority – or it begins to die. We know the landmark moments ahead. We know the difficult choices. We don’t, of course, know about the unexpected, perhaps shocking, events still to come that will derail most of what we have in the diary. But if prediction was sure, we wouldn’t need journalism.

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