Sue Gray’s departure as Keir Starmer’s Chief of Staff yesterday caps a party conference season like no other.

The Liberal Democrats basked in the Brighton sunshine and the glow of an MP total that grew ninefold in July. A week later, Labour in the Liverpool drizzle struggled to overcome a series of political difficulties and only fleetingly enjoyed their first conference in power in 15 years.  Then last week the much reduced Conservatives were wooed by the four leadership contenders and seemed cheered by Labour's 'teething problems' despite their election thrashing - 'like getting the giggles at a funeral' as one attendee put it to the Sun's Harry Cole.

So as Parliament returns today, what is the state of British politics?

Senior Labour figures concede that while there have been successes on planning, energy, and on dealing with the riots, they have made a series of political mis-steps: Winter Fuel, 'passes for glasses' and leaked No10 rows. Negative stories have not been closed down quickly, a function of inexperience after so long in Opposition and ex-journalist James Lyons arrival to head up strategic comms at No10 is significant. But also due to a vacuum of Government news in the long summer gap before the Budget on 30 October – fuelling pre-budget uncertainty, and a sense that too much economic gloom is affecting business and consumer confidence.

Rachel Reeves' Conference speech addressed some of these concerns with talk of 'the prize' after the fiscal pain,  a clear strategy: 'Growth is the challenge and investment is the solution', and a dig at Treasury orthodoxy: 'It is time that the Treasury moved on from just counting the costs of investments, to recognising the benefits too.'  Expect more of this investment rhetoric from Reeves and Starmer in the run-up to the Investment Summit on 14 October, and tweaked fiscal rules in the Budget - to exclude losses from the Bank of England’s QE programme and adjusting the debt rule to account for state assets such as the student loan book.

The Government can afford to make early mistakes with a huge majority and a four or five-year Parliament, as long as they learn from them and can demonstrate over the longer term that the pain was worth it.  The return of Morgan McSweeney as Chief of Staff heralds a more political No10 just before Starmer’s first 100 days in power, and ahead of the Conservatives finally choosing their leader after an interminable leadership contest.

Their Conference was essentially an extended hustings with all four contenders making their pitches to the faithful.  Post-Birmingham, Robert Jenrick remains the favourite and Tom Tugendhat the most likely to fall in the MP ballot next week when the field narrows to the two from whom party members must choose. But the 'Big Mo' is with James Cleverly after Kemi Badenoch had a difficult Conference. No matter who wins, the strategic dilemma for the party remains: do they go right to deal with the threat of Reform UK, or left to take on Labour and the Lib Dems?  Though no contender would admit it, it feels like a two-election reconstruction task, so perhaps Team Jenrick is right to argue that there is time to deal with Reform this term and then turn to the centre ground after the next election...

A pivotal five days starts with the Budget on 30 October, the Conservative leadership result on 2 November and the US Presidential Election three days later. How Pennsylvania votes may end up having a greater bearing on British politics than anything that happened in Brighton, Liverpool or Birmingham.