Mr Neil Kinnock yesterday established his authority as Labour leader with a speech which thrilled his friends, dismayed his enemies and gave his party conference a vision of electoral victory at the expense of the militant left.
His assault caused fury among the left and prompted a melodramatic march from the party's annual conference platform by Mr Eric Heffer, who said Mr Kinnock's attack on the Militant-led Liverpool City Council had shocked him.
But the speech was hailed as a triumph. The praise heaped upon Mr Kinnock was the sort of adulation for a leader which had not been heard for decades. Mr Roy Hattersley, his deputy, said the speech was historic because it had changed British politics.
He had deliberately ignored today's expected confrontation over fines with Mr Arthur Scargill, the miners' president, to concentrate on the need for Labour to win the next election by rejecting doctrinal argument and on appealing to what he called the instinct of the Labour movement for victory. The speech had some trade union delegates and party officials in tears with its passion.
Mr Derek Hatton, the deputy leader of Liverpool City Council, denounced what he called "the rantings and ravings of Kinnock". But Mr Kinnock prompted an ecstatic ovation by telling his party that electoral victory could not be achieved by "pious faith or by dreams" but by "working for it, planning for it, organising for it." He confronted head-on the criticism that he is sacrificing party policy and socialist principle. Power and principle to democratic socialists had to go together, he said. "We know that power without principles is ruthless, sour, empty, vicious," he said. "We also know that principle without power is idle sterility."
Mr Kinnock chose as one of his targets Liverpool, which he accused of "hiring taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers." It was this reference which brought Mr Heffer to his feet and off the platform.
The boos failed to stop Mr Kinnock: some members of the party, he said, had became latter-day public schoolboys who believed that it was more important to play than win.
"And then," he said, "they talk of victory." The last third of the speech was devoted to a straightforward attack on the hard left forces who have focused their sights on him. Up in the galleries there was cheering and even some delegates of the Transport and General Workers' Union stood, clapping their hands above their heads.