Sir Keir Starmer will have felt buoyed by the support of those in the room today as he gave a make-or-break speech to save his premiership after a dire set of election results last week.
There were whoops and cries of “Come on Keir!” as well as heckling of journalists asking awkward questions.
But the Labour loyalists crammed into the room in central London were not the audience that this besieged prime minister needed to persuade.
And soon after his speech, he got his reply. Catherine West, the former minister, withdrew her threat to stand against Sir Keir as a leadership candidate, but announced she would start collecting signatures of Labour MPs in order to initiate a contest in September.
She said: “I have listened to the prime minister’s speech this morning. I welcome the renewed energy and ideas. However, I have reluctantly concluded that this morning’s speech was too little too late.
“The results last Thursday show that the prime minister has failed to inspire hope. What is best for the party and country now is for an orderly transition.”
Other MPs who had remained silent at the weekend also came out calling for Sir Keir to go.
So while it was good news that there would be no stalking horse candidate, the threat of a challenge has not gone away.
The question will be whether the rivals who have been circling for months – health secretary Wes Streeting, former deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, energy secretary Ed Miliband – will have the bottle to take the plunge.
But in some ways, the speech summed up everything about the prime minister and what has gone wrong.
While he certainly had more vigour and energy about him in his presentation the lack of a new direction was evident.
There was no lurch to the left as Ms Rayner had pressed for in her statement on Sunday and many other MPs had pleaded with him to do.
There was a promise to renationalise British Steel, a vow to put Britain “back at the heart of Europe” and a reminder that “I got the big decisions right”.
The problem is that the last embattled prime minister to rely on “I got the big decisions right” as a defence was Boris Johnson, and we all know what happened to him.
But it was another former Tory prime minister who Sir Keir seemed to be channeling in his speech – rather bizarrely, he decided to channel his inner John Major to win over his critics.
For those with a distant memory, Sir John found himself in a similar situation in the 1990s as he tried to unite an increasingly divided Tory Party.
Major’s response was to take off his jacket and tie and roll up his sleeves when he gave a keynote speech and let people know he was getting to work.
Starmer did exactly the same today. He even used Major’s “putting Britain at the heart of Europe” line.
In fairness, Sir John managed to see off the Eurosceptic wing of the Conservative Party – or “the bastards”, as he put it – and maybe Sir Keir hopes he can now do the same with his Labour rivals.
He certainly did not seem to be ready to welcome Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham back into Westminster in a move which would almost certainly spell a change of leader and prime minister.
However, while Sir John did not get ousted by his MPs, there is a warning from history. In 1997, having survived the plotters, he led the Conservatives to the worst defeat in their history at that point.
For those worried about the prospect of Nigel Farage in No 10, that is a lesson from history to send a shiver down their spines.
