Labour party Conference Diary - Day 1

Deputy Leadership pageants, lefties for scrapping the triple lock and the Elephant -Andy Burnham- in the room

I only have two enemies in the Labour Party:

• those obsessed with identity politics

• those obsessed with factions

If you start any sentence with “as an xyz” or “when we finally got rid of Blair/Corbyn” and you spot a Mediterranean woman looking at you, furious, betrayed, gorgeous. It’s me: I hate you, you are the problem.

Saturday evening - Labour conference Day 0,5

The Party releases a dystopian video of our leader and his wife walking into a conference with handpicked NEC members and Labour staffers applauding as they enter. Xitter is making fun of us for not having enough genuine supporters to shoot an entry video with. They are right, we are putting lipstick on a pig.

Saturday is always the unofficial first day of Labour Conference when we host all our regional party receptions, the Women’s Conference, and the LGBTQ+ Disco. Because we fucked around with the trans issue, we had to cancel the women’s party conference. No matter which side of the debate you are on, you must surely recognise this is a shameful conclusion, and the thorny issues far from solved.

I make my way to the LGBTQ+ disco, which is a bit of a disappointment this year. Doesn’t feel very gay. It’s as if Reform has stolen our camp energy, and I am dancing in a Clapham basement surrounded by straight consultants.

Bridget Phillipson clearly didn’t get the memo that leadership candidates need to be constantly followed by a small army of courtiers (See, for example, Wes Streeting in the Regional receptions). I spot her with her lone bag carrier on the dance floor.

My secondhand embarrassment is heightened when I realise she is here to DJ. She’s called on stage and transforms into a block of wood. I appreciate her effort. I do not take political leaders showing their faces at pro-gay parties for granted.

Hardly anybody cheers. The only ones genuinely having fun are the usual holy trinity: the GBNews twink, the post-Oz chadified Tabloid Hack, and the ripped paper of record poker face.

I drag my flatmate under my arm as I attempt to dodge the gaze of The Most Boring People In The World.

Somebody brings shots to the DJ set. The guy babysitting Bridget on stage hands her one and says, “NECK IT”. As usual, she does as she is told. The man shouts, “We are from the Northeast, wohoo!!!” His attempt to manufacture joy falls faster than Starmer’s approval ratings. For the love of penis, where you come from is not a replacement for a personality. Let identity politics go.

Lucy Powell comes up next, and she has learned from her colleague’s mistakes. She smiles- the simplest trick Labour politicians stubbornly avoid. She puts on another song that straight people think sounds gay and makes a genuine attempt at fluid movement guided by the beat. She grabs the trans flag left behind and waves it at the crowd. The wounded spirit of Labour’s Gay soul awakens. We cheer.

I pirouette around the dance floor, not a day older than my Zoomers, till my flatmate taps me on the shoulder. It’s time to go.

On our way out, a couple of young men stop us, “OMG, are you Stella?!” “She is a massive deal!”.

My flatmate grunts. “Don’t encourage her”.

Sunday - 1st Day of Conference

AM

On my way to the venue, two Liverpudlian lads spot me walking like a top model. “If you are from the Labour party, then I am voting for them too”, says one. You are welcome, Keir Starmer.

I am speaking on a panel with the former Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, Paula Barker MP (one of the soft left/working-class Deputy Leadership Candidates) and Barry Gardiner MP, another former Shadow Cabinet MP I know from the Corbyn years. The topic is “an alternative budget”. I have warned Barry, who invited me, that I will be suggesting we replace the triple lock with a double lock, and we need to do it now, and he has waved it in.

I like addressing homogeneous audiences. If I know I am only speaking to left-wingers, I can take a carrot-and-stick approach.

First, I batter the troops with what they need to hear:

1. The triple lock is insane. It needs to be replaced with a double lock now. If we drop the random 2.5% increase component of the triple lock, pensions will continue to rise above the incomes of working people for the next three years. As inflation is higher, the Treasury will not cash in until 2029. Why, if it doesn’t save any money, is it important that it happens now?

   1. Three years is enough time for pensioners to realise they are not worse off at all.

   2. It will calm down our bond markets overlords, who take a longer-term approach than the OBR.

2. The number of people receiving unemployment benefits needs to go down.

Then I tell them what they want to hear:

1. Every time George Osborne opens his mouth, we should throw tomatoes at him. When he walks around Holborn, hordes of LSE Keynesian economics grads should shout “SHAME, SHAME” and “TRAITOR”. For every £1 the state spent on the Sure Start centres Osborne closed down, we got £2 back in growth. For every breath we use to shame benefit scroungers, we should spend twice as many reminding the austerity psychopaths that, at a time of zero interest rates, they not only didn’t save for a rainy day but let the roof rot and fall over our heads.

2. We can and should save single-digit billions by reforming the welfare state. We can save tens of billions by telling the Bank of England to reform interest payments on government bonds. The taxpayer is paying £40 billion a year so that the commercial banks we bailed out ourselves less than two decades ago can earn near-Bank Rate on hundreds of billions in deposits. If you say immigrants who don’t love Britain are ungrateful, then what are the Banks?

3. The worst benefit scrounger can steal is a few thousand pounds he didn’t earn. The worst tax haven tax dodger steals billions from an economy built on public services, infrastructure, judicial system, education, reputation, and culture that he refuses to contribute to. Britain’s traitors, the lot of them.