Party Conference Diary - Sept 2024

The 3 Michaels, Fear and Loathing in Liverpool and Alcoholism Now

I wore a pre-loved wedding dress - just in case

The three Michaels

Politico Glastonbury passed like a dream this year. One moment, I am on the train to Labour Party conference, reading Micahel Gove’s biography of Portillo from the 1980s, which was given to me by Michael Brown. The next I am back home typing this, nursing a Conference flu I picked from the Tories.

All of the three above Michaels are Tories I have a soft spot for.

Portillo, because he reminds me of my favourite men in my family, who are now dead. Galant, elegant, with old-world charm and spartan grace. On top of that, he is half Spanish but still quintessentially English.

I wasn’t around, or alive even, when he was most active in politics and at his most right-wing. I met him year, as a guest on his show to spread my Labour Party propaganda. Since losing his seat the first time in ‘97, I understand that he has been on a journey of softening his public image with travel documentaries, culture shows and tailored suits in primary colours. It is likely what has allowed him to occupy ‘national treasure’ status comfortably.

Brown because he is a delightful gay Tory (the first one to get outed as such in the UK) who is perfectly comfortable in his skin, owns up to his vices, and displays a zest for life that many of his contemporaries have long lost.

Gove because I am obsessed with hard-working boys from humble/middle-class backgrounds who are eloquent, intelligent and disgustingly, heart-wrenchingly, I-will-drown-that-rabbit-with-my-bare-hands ambitious. Gove was an adopted orphan raised in Scotland by a lower-middle-class family. He wrote this biography at the age of 27 (!) while working as a journalist for the BBC. A former adviser to Boris told me Gove decided to knife him in the back when he found out that Boris was playing golf on the day of the deadline for the leadership nominations. The unseriousness incensed him. I love a man with a pulse.

I am reading Portillo’s biography and imagining a young Gove waking up at 5:00 am before his BBC shift to transcribe his taped interviews with Portillo’s contemporaries. How did people even do research before the internet era? The amount of detail in this book is astonishing, and the way Gove weaves contextual elements about Franco’s Spain, Cambridge Peterhouse intellectuals (my god they make our modern fascists sound tame), Thatcherites, ‘wets’, along with insights into Portillo’s personality, obsession with loyalty, love for performance, etc.

On the train to Liverpool for the Labour Party conference, I read about the night Thatcher was convinced to resign as Prime Minister. Portillo visited her with other Thatcher loyalists and she told him she was being advised she did not have enough allies left. Portillo, sincere, warm, and enraged at the hurt bestowed on his iron maiden, shot back, ‘They are wrong; there are troops ready to fight for you if only you would lead them’. It would be funny if one of my comrades from the train realised I was crying and asked what got me down, and I said, ‘ Thatcher’s resignation.

Alas, I care little about the old bird. What I always found utterly irresistible is English people getting emotional. Proof they are made from the same cloth as me, after all. They are such hard-to-reach onions most of the time. I despised Theresa May for her entire Premiership, but my ear pricked when I heard her voice crack during her resignation speech. Similarly with the 3 Michaels, Portillo’s grandness, Gove’s impulsiveness, and Brown’s flamboyancy are all characteristics I find that much more intriguing given they are British Tories.

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Fear and Loathing in Liverpool

Apart from the ones I organised, I attended zero events during conferences and only few drinks receptions/parties. I spend most of my time frolicking in the lobby- the bit that makes your pass worth its price in my seasoned experience.

I went into conference season with a crisis of self-worth- a quarterly phenomenon, as we have explored in this substack before, which I use to fuel my work ethic.

This year was the first conference season I went to after a year of doing media, and people were very polite in acknowledging they’d been watching me when they saw me in person. A few asked for photos, and a couple asked for an autograph. I thanked them all for flattering my fragile ego. Someone professionally printed photos of me from my social media and sent them to my work with an envelope, return address and postage paid for me to sign and send back. My colleagues were incredibly restrained in their reaction - another reason I am not keen to move on; they are all better people than me. I have previously received handwritten letters- all polite, none lecherous. I do not know how other people respond to attention from strangers. I have decided to assume good intentions and will start answering- at the risk of incentivising malignant characters.

Being ambitious can be such a burden. Labour party conference was full of new MPs trying to make their mark. It is hard; Labour in goverment is a crowded space. There are only so many PPS positions, Select Committees and APPGs, and just five mission boards (though the made-up titles are pilling high). On the non-elected side of the equation, there is ambient anxiety emanating from those who thought they had bagged a spot in No10 but didn’t.

Parliamentary staffers were complaining about the drastic diminishment of their importance in their boss’s life, now that they have civil servants at their disposal. There was a lot of bitterness about people becoming snobbish now that they are working for the government. I did not see a difference now that I could not spot previously. Those who were cold with me before are cold still. Those who looked at me like deer in the headlight last year still looked at me like their mom didn’t hug them enough. Those who were nice and friendly are still open to chats despite their new fashionable titles. Beyond that, I am not sure the coldness is self-importance as much as it is insecurity about being found out, and boy, do I have sympathy for that.

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Alcoholism Now

I am always on alcoholics watch at party conferences. There is always a man or woman who needs to be pulled from the hacks’ claws, handed a bottle of Evian and shoved into a tracked uber, with an alarm set on their iPhone.

That person is often me because I am almost never drunk- I am high on life, my natural hormones produced by my highly healthy body, but never incapacitated. I did not have to work overtime this year. I seemed to influence people to pick Diet Coke between their Proseccos.

Nonetheless, I observed with great interest men bingeing on alcohol. Politics attracts people with addictive personalities. I am one of them, but my addictions have always been men, food, and maybe attention? Dare I say, power?

I am disciplined around alcohol. I believe where I, and many other women, use lifestyle and fitness obsession to calm our nerves; men use alcohol and substances. At the hotel lobby at conferences late at night, you will see men who, during the day, seem serious and dignified, wobbling over armchairs, slurring their words, and embarrassing their colleagues.

I had cornered a former colleague late one night, asking him when he would stop drinking for good, when I received a text from an ex who I had distanced myself from because I freaked out at how erratic he was and incapable of seeing he had a drug problem.

His text was eloquent and elaborate. He has a way with words, as do all men who have ever lured me in. He said he woke up one morning and saw me on TV. He expressed his admiration for my career and how I have managed to be on TV discussing UK politics despite being a foreigner. He said he regretted treating me unseriously. I acknowledged his charm but also told him he needed to go sober.

I was always a confrontational person but decided never to tiptoe around people’s weaknesses when I read Damian McBride’s memoir, Power Trip, where he describes how he had an alcohol problem throughout his time at No10 but not once did one of his colleagues who respected and cared for him ask him about it.

I sympathise with these ambitious, brilliant men and their chosen crutches. Where I weigh my protein powder and wake up at 5:00 a.m. to get shouted by a lycra clad homosexual while I tear my hamstrings, they convince their peers to stay for one more round. Arguably, at least in the short term, their coping mechanism can bring more professional rewards. Spending six months a year sober and being a lightweight the rest of it never helped me lubricate many relationships that I could help with keeping strong.

But then I remember why I had started training. It wasn’t because of physical vanity at first (though I luxuriate in it now). It was when I was a 21-year-old organiser of Bernie Sanders’ first campaign, and I realised the stamina it took to run for president in your 70s. I was constantly exhausted from pulling 15-hour days with no days off. Fuelled with burgers, doughnuts and pizza, I would lie in bed at night, upset at how tired and wired I felt, a slave to my physical limitations. If I felt so broken at 21 in a lowly organiser position, how would I pull off leading the revolution in my 60s and 70s when I will arguably be wiser but still as ambitious? I read that Bernie was a marathon runner in his youth, and this was how he found the stamina to fly from state to state in a single day and perform at rallies like a rockstar. I resolved to get my body battle-ready, and here we are today 8 years later. I haven’t missed a workout since.

I still train every day. What for, I don’t know yet, but I'd best be prepared anyway.