Labour conference: flat as your hat
Oh I do like to be beside the sea…well normally anyway and this Labour Party Conference is very far from “normal”. For a start it is flat, flat as yer hat.
Secondly all those luvvies, or most of them, have evaporated back whence they came. We are down to the formidable rump of Trades Unionists (mainly well past fifty-year-olds) some MPs (those who don’t feel totally broken by the expenses scandal), some ministers and a bemused collection of hacks.
Curiously most of the latter to whom I’ve spoken seem to feel Gordon Brown did rather well on the Andrew Marr show. The eyes and drugs were a bit part player in which the PM appeared to make a very coherent argument for another term in the job – ranging accessibly and relaxed from the macro (I saved the world economy) to the micro (this is why we can see serious green shoots etc).
Should he have been asked about the drugs? Well he gave a perfectly good answer. Labour’s problem here in Brighton is that the election remains theirs to lose, and they are working overtime to achieve that – they don’t need to.
Too many senior Labour pols are talking about what they will do “next”. And by the way, a US journo friend who was on Obama’s “bus” at the UN and at the G20 expressed total disbelief at the antics of the UK press lobby. She’d never seen such pack performance outside the USSR. American hacks, she tells me, regarded the Obama/Brown snub story simply absurd.
Here in Brighton the atmosphere at the Conference hotel, the Hilton, is as if much beloved Aunt Gladys has died on the sixth floor. Voices are lowered, movement is slow and respectful for fear of waking the dead.
So I took an hour out this morning to see how Brighton is and pick up a couple of my favourite pens. Half way up the street I am approached by an unshaven ruddy faced man who looks as if he may have fallen on hard times.
“Yer trousers is ripped,” he tells me confidentially. I look down and he’s right. Cycling has taken a toll on my seat and I have suffered a serious wardrobe malfunction. I turn into Duke Street carrying my Rymans plastic bag with my pens as protective outer wear.
The second clothing shop I pass bids me a cheery “Good morning Mr Snow”. I confide in the manageress that I am need of a tailor. “Just missed him,” says her assistant. She directs me through assorted twists and turns past M&S, Top Shop and more.
I find Agnews up one of Brighton’s many hills. “We don’t make suits,” says the loan man at the ironing board. “We mend and alter them.”
I lay my problem bare, he springs into action and within three minutes he has ironed a “supportive gusset” into the offending zone, within three minutes he’s added a machine stitch and within five I’m out.
He wanted no money but I inflicted twenty quid on him. When a man stands between a catastrophic wardrobe malfunction and the Labour party conference somehow money becomes the least of ones problems.
Related posts:
- Pontignano conference: the final messages
- Merging interests of Europe at the Pontignano conference
- On G20 day, we had nothing better to do
- Pontignano conference continued: after the crash
- Purnell goes – and rolls back the political sardine tin lid
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Jon,
Have you considered standing for Parliament along with Martin Bell and Terry Waite, as an independent ?
We need people like YOU in parliament rather than the appallingly corrupt Oinks that currently infest the place.
Please say you will consider it.
)
Take yourself out of there, Jon – it’s no place to be celebrating one’s birthday.
Have a good one!
Loved the remark: “it’s theirs to lose & they don’t need to work over time”.
Excellent.
BTW. Wouldn’t worry about the trousers, it’s the ties & socks we look at!
Not so flat. more like sensible. Less of the hype and more conservative.
Gordon is sounding sincere (without the Hughie Green touch)
Still proffering the need to proliferate social justice. Explaining the reason to try and Afghnistise Aghanistan to his proselytes.
Cousin Harriet in fine form and mumsy -like, supporting this man who really after all comes from a background where social justice/ injustice made him the man he is.
One would have to hope that Andrew Marr will ask Cameron about his own rumoured drug-taking the next time his interviews him in the interest of fairness. Very embarrassing wardrobe malfunction there, Jon! Maybe Labour are in need of some ‘supportive gusset’ of some description this week?
I’M MANDY FLY ME
I can’t wait for the celebratory funeral of this bunch of corrupt economic terrorists. Only trouble is, they’ll be replaced with another load of liars, thieves, spin doctors, excuse makers, war mongers.
The UK has gone from a respected country in the world, to the beacon of corruption, lies and social divide.
There is always those who jump on the bandwaggon of others failure.. It takes a whole generation of people working in an honest and open way and taking responsibility for their own actions to get it right. Gordon Brown is a marvellous man who unfortunately cannot reason with the greedy hotheaded who want everything their way.
Look at our own management and the ones they picked for the jobs.15 years ago. The bossy, greedy , mouthy ones..who it may be good to know.
So 24 hour drinking was a ‘mistake’? Nonsense! Take yourself 10 minutes up the road from the Brighton Centre, Mr. Snow, to ‘Fitzherberts’ by the Theatre Royal. I was there the other night listening to live music until 11 p.m. then had a few beers until after 12. In that time people drifted over from the theatre for a quiet after-show drink and others sat out on a balmy evening. There was no drunkeness, fighting, vomiting etc. It was very pleasant and civilised in a way it never was under the old repressive regime of people drinking against the clock and being thrown out onto the street (often after ugly scenes) at 11 p.m. Do you really want to go back to that?
Fraser Harris
Public Services Cutbacks.
Can someone please ask the Prime Minister, Chancellor of the Exchequer and the opposition parties why, at this time of cutbacks to our essential services expenditure (schools. hospitals etc) the public expenditure on the Royal Family is not being cut, but is likely to get an increase???
Surely the Royal family cannot be seen as so much more important than our other Public expenditures that it is not only not being cut but seems likely to be given even more money!
How can any party even consider giving MORE money to the Royals when all other areas of taxpayers expenditure are to get CUTS?
Surely the taxpayers expenditure on the Royals should be cut in preference to cutting our Health, Education, Highways etc expenditure?
Or do all the Political parties want a society of poor Public services presided over by a evermore rich Royal family and their entourages?
Sir or Madam:
Labour on Europe – Stay at the Heart !
CONservatives on Europe – Not sure !
Margaret Thatcher ASSET STRIPPED GB Plc – e.g. Sold the Railways but left the Taxpayer paying the GravyTrain Companies to provide us with third rate (yet very expensive) service.
Isn’t it Dodgy Dave Cameron’s intention to Asset Strip our country even more?
Unless the Country wakes up, I fear we will end up with yet another CONservative Nightmare!
Garry Howes