Delegates dutifully gave Gordon Brown the usual standing ovation yesterday as he attempted to make the speech of his career and miraculously revive Labour’s fortunes.

But for party activists in Sussex it wasn’t the first motivational address from their leader. Earlier in the week Brown insisted to a gathering of delegates from across the south east that the next general election was within Labour’s grasp.

Telling delegates they should be “proud” of what Labour had achieved in government over the past 12 years, he said: “We can never allow the Conservative Party back in to wreck the recovery and damage the lives of so many people. We are up against, in some cases, a hostile media [but] if we are united, disciplined and determined about the future we will win whatever the odds.”

That would be the “glass half full” approach, then.