The last time I stood in the airy atrium of One Angel Square, the headquarters of The Co-operative Group in Manchester, was a year ago in February.
This is a stylish modern tower steeped in the special history of the North West England labour movement.
Rochdale Pioneers was the first successful co-operative, set up in the 1840s to help the poor in the town just around the corner from here.
And the Co-operative Party is the political sister party to the Labour Party.
Now the party has ventured back here to complete its political construction, or so it hopes.
The Labour Party aspires to be a paragon of predictability: bells and whistles, bunnies and hats are completely outdated.
When a manifesto is published it is always worth considering what the party wants as the governing ideology for the tome it distributes.
Here in Manchester, the idea of providing reassurance dominated the Labour Party.
So Labour people have tried hard to make a virtue out of the lack of surprises.
For people who want a party they can get excited about rather than support on election day, rock-solid stability isn’t exactly rocket fuel for the soul.
This has led Labour’s critics to say the party is vague, even boring.
But Sir Keir believes people are tired of the fireworks and political circuses.
He wants to make the boring stuff interesting again, or at least appealing compared to other things.
This reflects his character, his seriousness of purpose, and his disdain for the theatrical tendencies of politics.
But it is also a warning, born out of an overwhelming lead in the opinion polls and a determination that dreamy promises are neither realistic nor believable.
Whatever the analysis of this overview, and the steady trajectory of the assemblage that began with this building and returns to it, there is one remarkable fact worth pondering.
The Labour Party was in a difficult position five years ago but now has the discipline, focus and determination it has not had in almost two decades.
This can sometimes lean into an attention to detail that borders on absurd paranoia.
When I was invited onto the Labour battle bus to interview Keir Starmer, the whole thing was postponed because aides worried that the “emergency exit” sticker on the window next to us would be an embarrassing gaffe.
And so began an intense debate among spokespeople about whether we should all move to different seats on Labour buses, or whether we should duct tape the offending signs.
Eventually the tape was put up but it was decided that it would just draw further attention to what they were trying to hide, so the tape was removed.
For a deadline-driven reporter, like me, it’s maddening.
But it’s a rather silly illustration of a larger point, which is that this party has attention to detail and leaves nothing to chance – not even the duct tape.
And now, with just three weeks to go until the general election, Labour has broken with tradition and is the overwhelming favourite to actually win.
