Philip Webster, Times Political Editor, watched Gordon Brown deliver his maiden conference speech as Labour leader and said that he was trying his best to rise above the fray:

"It was a very serious speech, a deliberately serious speech, and there was a clear lack of Blairite rhetorical flourishes. It was as though he was saying, 'I'm your new leader and I'm different to the last one.'

"But in the hall there was amazing warmth in the reception delegates gave him. People in the party really do like Gordon Brown for what he has done for them.

"It was a long speech, probably a bit over-long, and full of announcmeents and re-announcements, some of them big and some of them quite micro. There were four or five new ones, including extra matrons in hospitals, more cancer-screening, automatic health check-ups for adults, and the promise of new eco-towns.

"If you had to make any criticism of the speech it would be that it was too detailed and perhaps a bit lacking in inspiration. But there was a lot of stuff about his own upbringing the influence of his father and then quite a moving passage at the end about how the health service allowed him to keep the sight in one eye after an accident playing rugby at 16.

"Chatting to delegates as they came out, they absolutely loved it. But my guess is that the commentariat won't be so keen. He'll be criticised for a lack of inspirational substance.

"From Brown's point of view, though, it will have done the job: he didn't mention the election, he didn't mention the Conservatives, he didn't mention Cameron. This was Gordon Brown trying to rise above the fray, to portray himself as Prime Minister. He didn't get involved, as he used to when he was Chancellor, in knocking the opposition. So it was Brown the statesman.

"He also pressed all the party buttons, with the announcements on maternity leave, breast cancer screening and so on.

"It didn't tell us anything about the timing of the next election, which he left completely open. But he said, without any doubt, here is my stall for when the election does come. I have little doubt, however, that the speculation will start again very soon."

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