Monday
The organisers were often at pains to suggest that the Labour party conference wasn’t all about Jeremy Corbyn, but sometimes it did rather look that way. In the main exhibition hall, there were two stands devoted solely to selling JC merchandise. On the second to last day, a colleague went along to buy a £20 JC T-shirt for his son only to be told that the only ones left were in size XS. He was then told it was his own fault for not coming along to buy one sooner. In desperation, he tried to buy a Corbyn mug, but they were sold out too. It also proved nearly impossible to get through any of the speeches without a chorus of “Oh Jeremy Corbyn” breaking out when the leader’s name was mentioned. Indeed the highest accolade for any speaker was to have their name chanted to the “Oh Jeremy Corbyn” tune. That’s if people knew who they were. Barry Gardiner, the shadow international trade minister, at first appeared delighted when he was stopped and asked to pose for a selfie. “Of course,” he said. “That’s great, thank you Harry,” they replied.
Tuesday
My personal highlight of the conference was the pub quiz night, hosted by Ed Miliband. “This is exactly what I imagined I would be doing two years ago,” he opened, sounding a tad sheepish, though he certainly looks to be a great deal happier now than he was when party leader. A career in standup is a genuine possibility as some of his repartee was quite sharp. There were still a few signs of the old Ed, though. Most notably in the questions he had set, as he had made it his mission to educate the crowd – mostly made up of young Momentum supporters who had been attending The World Transformed fringe festival – in the detailed history of the Labour party, rather than entertain them. Those of us, the Guardian team included, who didn’t know the names of the first three female Labour MPs or were unable to identify obscure quotes from Eleanor Marx or Herbert Morrison were in trouble. There were also meant to be prizes for the top three teams, only Ed managed to screw up by giving them all to the overall winners from Calderdale constituency Labour party. Still, he has agreed to host another quiz at next year’s conference and it’s already in the diary.
Wednesday
On returning home from Brighton, I found that Wandsworth council have completed their own act of vandalism by cutting down a row of more than 50 chestnut trees that lined a footpath on Tooting Bec Common so that they can replace them with lime trees that are easier to maintain. This despite almost unanimous protests from everyone in the community – including the local MP, Dr Rosena Allin-Khan, and the London mayor, Sadiq Khan – and an independent report from a tree expert that concluded the most cost-effective option would have been to retain the avenue, trim the older trees, remove a couple, and replant with other species. Instead, the council has chosen to waste £45,000 of Heritage Lottery money on a scheme that no one wants and is bad for the environment. And that was before the council had to shell out extra cash to surround the site with a metal fence and provide a security presence to keep out protesters.
Thursday
I’m still not entirely sure I’ve got the hang of Twitter. I tweet from time to time because I’ve been told it’s the right thing for a journalist to do and it can be quite addictive when someone actually bothers to retweet or like something. But even so, the first thoughts that go through my head before I post something are “Why the hell am I bothering with this?” and “Does anyone really care?” All too often, my own Twitter feed reads like several reasonably well-known people having conversations in public that they could just as easily be having by email or text. So I can’t quite understand why Twitter has doubled its character allowance to 280 for some of its users since it’s not as if many people are likely to have anything more interesting to say. Rather they are just going to use up more space being a bit dull and self-referential. If Donald Trump can just about manage to start a nuclear war in 140 characters and still find room for several exclamation marks, then the rest of us should also be able to keep it brief.
Friday
Barack Obama says his secret service guards pretended not to notice when he had a quick cry after dropping his daughter, Malia, at university. Thank God there was only my wife to watch me sob the whole way back from Manchester and Brighton after taking my children to university for the first time some years back. There was something quite final about both journeys. Not so much in a physical sense as I always knew that the children would be coming back home from time to time – if only because they wanted to borrow either the car or money. But more in an emotional sense. Although both had been away for holidays on their own before, I had been able to kid myself they weren’t as independent as they thought they were. University changed that. It was the moment I realised that never again would either of my children love me quite as much as I loved them.
Digested week digested: “Oh Je-re-my Cor-byn”
Picture of the week
