And so to the Hotel Metropole, Leeds, one of the handsomest buildings in the city, tucked away in a side street a short step from the railway station (emphatically not the train station). “The Met”, as it is now modishly known, as if it had something to do with the police, has had a revamp and is now as comfortable inside as it is striking outside.
The hotel, built in 1899 at the height of Victorian prosperity on the site of a White Cloth Hall – the fourth such on this spot – has a decorated terracotta façade topped off by the stone cupola from the old (well, dating from only 1868 – terrible tearers down, the city’s merchants) hall.
Where else but here for the annual conference of the Yorkshire and Humber Labour Party? If you want to make a statement of confidence about the future, this is the place to do it.
And I have to say there was a positive atmosphere among the 150 or so delegates. To hear the brothers and sisters talk, you wouldn’t think Gordon Brown was nine points behind in the opinion polls. They have taken heart from the Tories’ recent travails, which pushed David Cameron’s candidate into fourth place in a recent local council election.
There aren’t many more loyal parts of the country – 45 of the region’s 57 MPs being Labour with the Conservatives on nine and the Lib Dems three. If Yorkshire and the Humber doesn’t stick with Brown he will be political history in three months – whatever he says now about staying on as party leader even if he loses.
The welcoming signs and the stage backdrop all say “new Labour”, but the mood was defiantly traditional. David Blunkett, the keynote speaker, got applause for bashing the bankers and unashamedly espousing a class-based message of “democracy against wealth and finance and globalisation”.
Noting the warnings against engaging in class war, he raged: “Actually, it’s our class, our people who are always being asked to pay the price of whatever happens and are then accused of being the cause. We have that at the moment in the case of the global meltdown and the banking crisis.”
Warming to his theme, the former Home Secretary, who seems to have rediscovered some of his old socialist republic of South Yorkshire fervour, insisted: “We didn’t save the banks because we love the bankers. We saved the banks because we were saving our people from the consequences of the actions of the bankers.”
He went on: “We’ve been a little bit soft on the bankers. We’ve been too reluctant to spell out precisely what their part has been and to make sure they don’t profit from the disaster that has happened to the people we represent.”
He flayed the “wealth and privilege of the globalisers”. This went down well, as did hit assertion that “we have something to fight for because we believe in something”.
At his best, Blunkett reminds me of George Brown on form. For all his failings, Brown was a spellbinding orator. I followed him for three weeks in the 1970 election and saw him hold audiences of 1,000 people in the palm of his hand for an hour or more, bashing out the message of Christian socialism like a hellfire preacher.
It was exhausting to watch, much less perform. Blunkett actually mentioned George Brown, so maybe he was inviting the comparison, but on this occasion there was some substance in the likeness. How they clapped and cheered when he proclaimed: “We can win this election”.
They must be keen, my fellow Tykes, to spend £60 a head for a dinner of unyielding lamb steak and a £20 raffle for a bottle of whisky signed by Hilary Benn. But there
was serious business. There must have
been, to get Harriet Harman up there,
with Ed Milband, Yvette Cooper and
Labour general secretary Ray Collins. Rosie Winterton, minister for Yorkshire, was pressing the merits of a dedicated manifesto for the region.
For crimes presumably committed in a previous life, I was there for the first time as ex officio, sitting on the platform. Coveted status, this ex officio business. Gets you the VIP treatment: drinking water, ballpoint pens, a sense of having arrived. Don’t hold your breath – it was only to chair an hour-long “regional question time” with Benn, housing minister John Healey, Education Secretary Ed Balls and his junior minister Diana Johnson.
Uppermost among the questions were Sir Thomas Legg’s verdict on MPs’ expenses, the role of the dastardly media and the impact of Tony Blair Iraq war inquiry evidence on Labour’s electoral chances, co-operative ventures, local procurement and crime.
Benn and Balls both came out in favour of the war, and everybody talked quite a lot of sense, but because most people agreed with each other there was none of the studio confrontation that invigorates the real Any Questions.
Perhaps there’s a case for hiring a couple of Tories to act the nasty and liven things up a bit.
An abuse of my position, I know, but I threw in my own question at the end, asking the panellists which politician they would like to have been, of today or yesteryear. Diana Johnson chose Barbara Castle, while Benn had a paean of praise for Clement Attlee – both fairly predictable choices. Ed Balls picked Ellen Wilkinson, Labour’s first women Cabinet minister – but she did meet rather a sticky end. And John Healey opted for Harold Macmillan “only because he built so many houses”. I shall have to buy that man a Bayko set.
My choice? Lawrence Daly, the finest miners’ leader of his generation.
