|
|
A tethered hot-air balloon hovers over the conference (it is not, just to deal with the sniggerers at the back of the class, directly fuelled by New Labour emissions). It is one of the few genuinely jolly sights at this festival of earnestness. Through the week, we will be told at roughly hourly intervals that the Party is flourishing, dynamic, vigorous, seizing the high ground, bursting with ideas, seething with talent, blah blah blah. Only the evidence is missing. Conference has become a leaden, glum, corrosively tedious exhibition of control-freakery. Delegates queue dolefully to get into the rambling International Centre, where they are directed by Orwellian recorded messages on hidden loudspeakers. Inside the soulless main chamber, their faces seem waxily empty of expression as the love-fest gets under way. Tony Blair, on Sunday afternoon, gambolled around the stage waving his arms and grinning, as he gave his much loved Man O' The People impersonation, during Yes, Prime Minis? whoops, sorry, Question Time. It had all the spontaneity of a Bob Monkhouse gig. Interestingly, quite a few delegates wandered out of the hall in the middle of the PM's performance. They weren't making a point.
|
