TUC Congress: Excitement and nerves at Corbyn's rise

Political reporting is rich in moments of absurdity.

They often revolve around standing outside a building, for ages, and waiting for a bloke to arrive and walk through the door. And yes, it usually is a bloke.

Today, the venue was a backstreet in Brighton. Fifty plus reporters caged behind metal barricades, with security guards demanding we stay on the pavement.

Opposite us, a multi-storey car park. Just along the way, the hulking, green industrial wheelie bins from the conference centre.

Then, up rolled a black people carrier, the leader of the Labour Party inside.

It has become almost a tradition that Labour leaders will be greeted by protesters as they arrive at the TUC Congress; angry at the compromises of government or opposition.

But traditions are changing rapidly within the Labour movement.

"Jez we can! Jez we can!" chanted supporters of the self styled People's Republic of Brighton and Hove who had gathered outside too.

"Finally we have someone who truly represents us!" one of the supporters, Libby, told me excitedly. But that moment at lunchtime wasn't the first illustration of how things are very different under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of Labour.

What usually happens with big political speeches is political reporters like me can sound all pompous in advance, going on the radio and TV and saying such and such a leader is expected to say... yadda, yadda and yadda.

We know, because we've been given extracts of the speech in advance, usually the night before. Well, how things seem to have changed.

We actually had to listen to this one as it was delivered.

In the conference hall, a string quartet played 'Hey Big Spender' as we waited for Mr Corbyn. His arrival, like the speech itself, wasn't slick or polished. As union activists got to their feet to welcome him, he was nowhere to be seen. But once he did walk in, they lapped up what they heard.

This was an ardent left-winger giving an ardently left-wing speech to an ardently left-wing audience. What's changed is he is the leader of the Labour Party.

What we heard was Jeremy Corbyn re-binding his party to the union movement; a relationship strained in the past, embraced in a bear hug today. He was received very warmly, if not with the ecstasy of his fans outside.

"He talks in the type of language we understand," Dave Prentis, the leader of Unison told me afterwards.

"There are going to be far more people who are interested in politics. Politics has become exciting!" gushed Marz Colombini from the train drivers' union Aslef. But others were more cautious.

Hilary Salt, an actuary, and a member of Unite told me: "I do think there is a bit of tendency within the trade union movement to be a bit giddy about where we are. The Labour Party is still in opposition and there is a lot of bridges to cross before we are in a position where real change might happen."

In short, the reaction here was a cocktail of excitement and enthusiasm, with a shot of nerves stirred in.

Oh, and with a large dollop of 'can you believe this has happened?' on the side.

This congress, like so many other people around the country, is still taking in this new Labour leader, who is anything but New Labour.