What do you get if you take a bunch of people who frankly don’t get out much, and add rivers of booze and a karaoke mic? Answer: a side of party conference that most people sadly never used to see. But then along came the cameraphone, and now the whole world can share in the joy of Andy Burnham rocking out in shirtsleeves to the Beatles’ I Saw Her Standing There. What a time to be alive, indeed.
It may surprise and possibly even alarm some that the Lib Dems now stage an annual DJ wars – where Jo Swinson took the crown this year from Alistair Carmichael – or that Yvette Cooper can never resist a dancefloor. (Nor could her husband Ed Balls: the two of them have long been a fixture at the Diversity Night disco, and there was something oddly poignant about the sight of a lone Cooper getting on down with Keith Vaz instead – at least until the latter started cavorting with the belly dancers and whirling his tie above his head.)
But the party conference rave – conferences being one of the few places on the planet where the word “rave” remains in unironic use – actually serves a critical function in politics. Stress levels are so high, friction between hacks and spinners so intense, and the desire for a stiff drink after having had the 33rd draft of your minister’s speech thrown across the room so overwhelming, that the only way things can not end in murder is via some grand unifying gesture.
Some naively imagine this to be the job of the leader’s speech. But within Labour, it’s actually the job of the Mirror Group conference bash, which roughly resembles a superannuated wedding disco, only with more chancers lying to the bouncers about being shadow cabinet staffers; for the Lib Dems, it’s the otherwise inexplicable Glee Club night at which they gather to sing rude things about Simon Hughes. With a whole summer’s worth of frustration to shake off and nothing much to lose any more, no wonder Cooper and Burnham were out partying this year.
For this isn’t just dad dancing. This is a healing process, somewhere Tory bloggers and Corbynistas can duet at Usdaw-sponsored karaoke while the day’s grudges dissolve in a soup of sweat, nasty white wine and 90s club tunes. You couldn’t have a row even if you wanted to at these parties, because the music is too loud and everyone is hoarse after secretly taking up smoking again. Besides, it would feel silly to go at it hammer and tongs over TTIP while you’re queueing up behind Caroline Flint to have your picture taken sitting in the actual Game of Thrones throne (the hot prop at this year’s Sky party). The dancefloor is Westminster’s safe space, the place it goes when everything gets too much. If it looks messy, the alternatives are almost certainly worse.
