The incompetent Independent newspaper wrongly identified the 16-year-old star of the opening session of Labour conference as Rory Stewart, rather than by his proper name of Rory Weal.
You would have thought that someone at the paper – anyone, but preferably the political staff – would have spotted that howler. On a very misty day, the real Rory Stewart has a fleeting resemblance to the boy hero from Maidstone, but he is the 38-year-old Conservative MP for Penrith and The Border, and so an unlikely candidate to speak in a Labour conference debate on the economy.
The Indy reported (September 27 page 7, I’m not making this up) that: “We can expect to hear more from Mr Stewart of Maidstone.” Er… or not, as the case may be. Had it been possible, I would have liked to send young Master Weal to this week’s Tory Party conference, as an ambassador in embarrassment to the bastards who took away his Educational Maintenance Allowance and will charge him £27,000 for the privilege of a university education, which they had for nothing after attending fee-paying schools that masquerade as charities to get tax breaks.
Young Rory was an inspiration. No wonder the delegates gave him a standing ovation. He gave them an impassioned attack on the “vicious, right wing Tory-led Government” tearing up the welfare state responsible for his well-being and that of his family. This was the stuff to give the troops – red meat instead of the pap handed to delegates by party staffers for them to read out in the listless way that betrays the vacuity of today’s machine politics. He could give Ed Miliband a few lessons in the constructive use of emotion. More anger mismanagement and less anger management. A glittering political career is predicted for Master Weal. Such a waste.
I won’t say that my 42nd Labour conference was a pointless journey, but it does seem that the politburo has not yet accepted that we are in opposition. Shadow ministers stepped up to the rostrum one after another to announce a raft of new policies as if they were still in government and could actually do something about things. Which obviously they can’t. But they can kick lumps out of the Conservatives and their Clevercleggs fellow travellers. I didn’t hear as much Tory-bashing as I would have liked.
And I did hear too many apologies. It’s time to stop saying “sorry” for practically everything that the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown years achieved. Perpetual grovelling, as demanded by the Tory-led commentariat, will get Labour nowhere except into a cul de sac of mea culpa, if I can mix my French with my Latin.
Do voters really want a carnival of apologies, or a well-organised, sustained opposition to the coalition Government’s failing economic and social strategy? Eventually, surely, the latter, and no matter how many times Ed Miliband rings the bell of atonement, it won’t be enough for the Rupert Murdoch press. So while it’s good that Labour leaders should call on Cameron, Osborne and Clegg (they sound like a firm of dodgy City accountants) to change course, it might be wise to do the same themselves and get off the ducking stool.
This week in Manchester – and I’m writing en route – the Tories will no doubt have had the plaudits of virtually the entire media by the time you read this. And I don’t just mean the newspapers and scabby Sky. It’s amazing how the BBC has simply caved in to the political blackmail of the Con-Dems.
Alastair Campbell must be frothing at the mouth. Someone should count the number of times that Beeb presenters and correspondents begin a sentence with the giveaway words “But the Government would say…” Very possibly it would. But let the bloody Government say what it wants to say and you tell the world what’s really going on, say I.
The BBC has swallowed whole the big lie about the budget deficit and is now singing from the same lie sheet as the Treasury. There is a settled orthodoxy of opinion that masquerades as fact, which makes it even harder for Labour spokespeople to challenge, although that’s no excuse for not trying.
Having gained a free hand in choosing his shadow ministers, Ed Miliband is about to reshuffle the top team. He can stop being the nice guy and pick some street fighters such as Chris Bryant, who isn’t afraid to mix it with the Tories. l
Speaking of useful scrappers, the local media up ’ere is full of stories that David Blunkett might be persuaded to run for the Tory-instituted post of South Yorkshire Police Commissioner in November next year.
As a former Home Secretary, he would surely start as front-runner for the £120,000-a-year job. There was always a frustrated chief constable trying to get out of old Blunkers and this would be a good second best.
Becoming HM Commissioner would also obviate the need for him to stand again for Westminster in 2015 – a not inconsiderable matter, since his Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough constituency is being split between three new ones under the Tory gerrymandering strategy. Blunkett won’t reveal his plans, but we can have a jolly good guess.
