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It has long been a convention that political parties give each other space during conference season.

That is particularly true on the day the leader takes to the podium.

In normal circumstances you would not expect to hear a peep from Boris Johnson on the day Sir Keir Starmer addressed the Labour Party conference. But convention has been swept away by COVID-19.

What should have been one of the key speeches in the political calendar was instead delivered without a crowd and had to be shifted forward by a few hours in order for it to take place at all.

It may not even be the most important statement Sir Keir makes today.

As soon as he had finished speaking he had to dash back to Westminster in order to respond to a major statement by the prime minister in parliament on new measures to combat the rise of coronavirus infections.

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This evening will be dominated by a televised address Mr Johnson will make to the nation. To get noticed at all, the Labour leader didn't have the time or space for subtlety.

"A new leadership" was the blunt slogan repeated throughout the speech and emblazoned on the podium, and it was theme he returned to in several contexts.

The most obvious was a message to voters, with the intention of putting clear distance between himself and Jeremy Corbyn. A point that was reinforced with Sir Keir's emphasis on patriotism and security - two issues on which his predecessor had lost the confidence of many former Labour voters.

His promise: "Never again will Labour take you or the things you care about for granted. And I ask you: Take another look at Labour."

New leadership was also used to frame the message to the left of his party, who may have been unnerved and perhaps angered by the reproach he has shown for the performance of his predecessor.

Opposition was failure, he argued. "Let's be brutally honest with ourselves," he said. "When you lose an election in a democracy, you deserve to...Until we come out of the shadows, this party can't change anything".

But the theme of "new leadership" was also used to hone his attack on Boris Johnson.

Sir Keir did not dwell on the differences between Labour and the Conservatives. Instead, the focus was entirely on how he would be a more effective prime minister and offer better leadership and better government than Mr Johnson.

"Crisis reveals character like nothing else," said Sir Keir. "I think we've learnt a lot about this prime minister. Tory backbenchers know it. His cabinet knows it. We all know it. He's just not serious. He's just not up to the job."

Given the unusual circumstances, it will be hard to judge how far this particular speech cuts through to voters.

But the idea of "new leadership" is one that Keir Starmer can, and will, keep coming back to in the weeks and months ahead.