The big tent that is Corbynite new politics was graced on the Brighton fringe on Monday by no less than Robert Gascoyne–Cecil, 7th Marquess of Salisbury, grandest of former Tory cabinet ministers. A self-confessed “entryist” (he didn’t even pay £3), Salisbury (then merely Viscount Cranborne) was the man who put together the 1999 deal with Tony Blair to leave 92 hereditary peers in the Lords. William Hague sacked him for it.
He is now touring party conferences in equally dodgy company: Labour’s Peter Hain and John Denham. Their mission? To agitate for a constitutional convention to create a new Act of Union (possibly federalist) to prevent the UK falling apart in young David Cameron’s hands.
Fudge, fudge, glorious fudge
The GMB’s chief, Paul (“Don’t call me Sir”) Kenny, was thrilled that he had helped keep the Trident missile controversy off the conference agenda. He told his delegation: “Good news – fudge is back on the menu.”
JC to the rescue
Candy Atherton, former MP for Falmouth (“I’m the woman who beat Seb Coe”), made a lively conference attack on extended Sunday shopping hours. But when she tried to leave the rostrum her wheelchair wouldn’t move.
“I’m stuck,” cried Candy, giggling at her own plight. Guess which nearby party bigwig dashed to unstick her? Clue: he has a beard and wants no publicity.
Selective targets
Labour activists were quick to denounce the Redcar steel plant closure when it was tactlessly announced on day two of their conference. With George Osborne just back from playing footsie with Chinese dumpers of cheap steel, why not?
But the Brighton posse has been strangely slow to hammer VW for fiddling its NOx emission tests. It smacks of banker-style crony capitalism. For Ukip, whose conference also ignored the scandal, VW is an even better target: it’s the EU’s fault.
An education
You don’t have to believe this, but it’s a new version of an old tale doing the Brighton rounds. The leftwing MP Lisa Nandy was rung and offered the job of shadow education secretary by Team Jez. She was minded to say yes.
But while she was pondering the offer, a fellow MP phoned to warn Lisa how tough it would be with a new baby. Nandy took the advice of her Milibandista friend Lucy Powell. Hours later, Powell got the job.
Charm personified
John McDonnell’s sombre conference debut as shadow chancellor impressed all sorts of people determined not to be impressed. He was arguably more lucid than Osborne, Alastair Darling and Gordon Brown put together. Says a top McDonnell watcher: “For once, John’s idea of a charm offensive was all charm and no offence.”
Even Peter Mandelson was impressed by the new moderation. “Why are the speakers so rightwing? I love it,” he told friends.
The invisible hand
Only last week the former tax exile Lord Ashcroft and his co-author, Isabel Oakeshott, were protesting that their self-published hatchet job on our PM was not being published to embarrass Downing Street during next week’s Tory conference. Alas, public demand has forced a change of plan, so Call Me Dave will be out on Monday. That’s market forces for you.
