Fights that haven't happened
Far from being the brawl or split predicted, this is turning into a conference so calm and united it must rank as the dullest in recent memory.
Journalists are openly complaining that they cannot find anyone off-message to do vox pops - though the BBC Daily Politics camera crew yesterday that chose to interview me and Catherine Stihler MEP without asking who we were was probably always on a hiding to nothing if they expected a juicy attack on the government.
A lot of the credit for the mature and reasonable way debate is being conducted on conference floor goes to the unions, who are being admirably supportive of the PM. Today's debate on a windfall tax on energy could have been a real flashpoint but instead the unions presented their policy differences with ministers on this in a calm and constructive way.
Alastair Darling's speech today set exactly the right tone of reassurance after the turmoil on the financial markets and was greeted with a warmth that gives some hint of how well the PM's speech will be received tomorrow.
posted by Luke Akehurst at 2:31 pm
10 Comments:
Good.Brown has no hope whatsoever of winning the next election.From my point of view no change is good news ,I doubt it will stay that way though
4:34 pm, September 22, 2008
Maybe they were hoping for another gem along the lines of "let's exploit a terrorist victim to win support for crushing civil liberties" that a certain Labour genius came up with a while back. Just the sort of radical thinking to inspire the voters!
5:29 pm, September 22, 2008
Great. The Government is finally moving. Still way way way way short of me rejoining the Labour Party. Remeber there are huge numbers of people like me who are former Party loyalists. Not to mention the millions of angry and frustrated electors.
Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling do not listen and live in their own fantasy land.THEY MUST GO NOW!!
For as long as this astonishing self denial continues, the longer Labour will remain a spent force in British politics.
6:05 pm, September 22, 2008
The problem is that won't be good enough for those who want some very specific answers - calmness and complacency can so easily be viewed as the same thing. Of course,l disunity is always damaging, but its important that am impression of not being bothered isn't given either.
I think a lot of people do feel the same way as me and RATM, and we don't feel that the current leadership is really getting to grips with the issues - which will mean admitting that NL's faith in market mechanisms moved away from the social democratic traditio9n of pragmatic accommodation, towards actual admiration and faith in market economics
6:23 pm, September 22, 2008
The press are trying to encourage a revolt in this conference to give them some stuff to say. The journalists are often just a biased and often just attention seekers, trying to justify their wages.
The right wing press are desperate to encourage the plotters.
Why can't the journalists be more imaginative in looking for a story, rather than just falling back on looking for secret codes and hidden messagers from plots.
We need a serious man for serious times not some bimbo tories.
10:52 pm, September 22, 2008
Good to hear Luke and I hope the rest of the conference passes without incident.
Though I have to say that i'm wary of Miliband after his manouverings in the summer.
I'm pretty sure he's a carefully disguised trot out to ruin and split the party. Lets not forget that his father was a high priest of the loony left
11:15 pm, September 22, 2008
You got your 15 seconds of fame on the Daily Politics at about 11.55pm on Tuesday night.
You've obviously got a very big future in the blogosphere.
Wot a moron.
12:14 am, September 23, 2008
REASSURANCE? What?!!?! Darling didn't say anything about what he will actually do to help the UK sink further into despair. He just said he'll do 'whatever it takes' without explaining what that will or might entail.
Honestly, talk about selective hearing.
9:36 am, September 23, 2008
12:14 am are you a time traveller ? It is tuesday night tonight. What are you on about. Don't you mean last tuesday night.
10:58 am, September 23, 2008
Bring back the militant tendency, they had common sense?
12:44 am, September 25, 2008
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