IT must have taken an awful lot of persuading to get the prime minister to board the plane to come back from Florence after her big Brexit speech last week.

She must have wished she could just hide amid the statues or find a quiet Renaissance church where she could pretend to be a tourist and never have to face the mountain of problems waiting for her back at home.

Most of all, she must be wishing she didn’t have to go to the Conservative conference in Manchester next week. Normally when a prime minister who has just won an election goes to their own party conference they can expect a rapturous reception, but these are not normal times. The Tory government is in a complete mess, the Cabinet is at war and Theresa May has lost all of her authority. In fact, just about the only thing her party can agree on is that she isn’t up to the job, they just can’t decide when she should go or who should replace her.

In normal times, as a Labour MP, I would quite enjoy the sight of the Tories ripping themselves apart, but there is nothing funny about the current situation. Britain has just embarked on the biggest and most complicated task since the Second World War, this is a time for strong leadership and grown-up debate, instead we have a weak prime minister and a cabinet squabbling like children. The European negotiating team must not know what to make of it all.

When Boris Johnson, who is supposed to be the foreign secretary, writes a long article about Brexit in the Telegraph, is that the government's policy or just his personal view? When the chancellor contradicts the Brexit secretary, who do they believe? The EU is waiting for serious negotiations about the future after Brexit but instead, six months after triggering Article 50, they have found that the Tories are still negotiating with themselves.

I suppose that one positive of having a weak prime minister is that she has finally been forced to accept reality. Her acceptance in her Florence speech that we will need a transition period after leaving the EU may have provoked outrage from Nigel Farage and the right wing Tories, but it will have made businesses in Furness and across the country breathe a huge sigh of relief.

It is just common sense that we will not be able to negotiate the trade deal we need in the time we have left after the Tories wasted time by holding a pointless election. The prime minister’s old slogan that ‘no deal is better than a bad deal’ was never true and I am glad she has finally accepted that. No deal would have been a total disaster for our economy, a sensible transition is just common sense.

It is not just on Brexit that the government have had to change policy in recent weeks. If - and this is a big if - it translates into a genuine fair deal, it will good news for teachers, nurses police and other vital workers in public services that their punishing pay cap will finally be scrapped. Thousands of workers in Furness have suffered under seven years of relentless pay cuts. I have long argued that people like the brilliant nurses at Furness General Hospital, who give so much to our society, deserved a fairer deal on pay. The deal currently on offer is imply not good enough. It is still a pay cut and won’t even cover most public sector workers, I will keep fighting in parliament for a better deal for workers in Furness.

On both public sector pay and on Brexit it has been Labour who have been setting the agenda and forcing the government to change. There were plenty more good ideas on show this week at the Labour Party conference in Brighton, alongside a real anger at the damage that this rudderless Tory government is doing to our country and to places like Furness. People have had enough of them underfunding our services, mismanaging our economy and making a mess of Brexit. For her sake I hope that Theresa May has come back from Florence full of fresh ideas, because people want change and it is up to her to prove she can deliver it.

Finally, I am pleased to be convening the first formal meeting of the GSK Ulverston taskforce today. There is a long road ahead but the whole community is determined to come together to ensure a continued bright future for the magnificent local workforce. I will keep you posted.