Matt Forde guides Labour party conference delegates through the sights they can expect to see in Brighton
So this is it. Party conference. You’ve got off the train, wandered through town with your bags and your suit-holder and found the venue. Then you’ve walked another five miles to your hotel, a box room in some shared student accommodation. For the next few days this is your home. Even in this rather bleak time of opposition there’s always a tingling excitement about what might happen. Will the leader be heckled? Will there be protesters? How much free wine is there? Every conference is different but some things never change. See how many of the following you spot over the week.
Familiar faces
You’ll almost certainly spot someone you recognise from somewhere. Take a second to think before launching towards them, though, as it can be embarrassing. You don’t want to have a conversation like this:
‘Hello, we know each other, don’t we?’
‘Do we?’
‘Yes, I’m sorry, I can’t remember where from.’
‘Maybe a Labour event?’
‘Must be. I’m Matt, pleasure to meet you.’
‘I’m Ed Miliband, welcome to conference.’
Come wine with me
An otherwise boring event can get packed out for adding three simple words onto the invite: ‘Free wine provided.’ The amount of dreadful fringe meetings I’ve sat through over the years just for the free buffet at the back is uncountable. Scoff at this now, but when you’re sitting at the back of ‘Binary Choices in Insecticide Management’ chomping on a dry chicken sandwich, swilling free wine at three in the afternoon, you’ll remember this. At least wine is a good way to get people in. Some fringe events try desperately to capture the zeitgeist, so keep your peepers open for titles like The X Factor: How To Get Britain Voting, Coronation Street: The Great Monarchy Debate, and Recycling’s Got Talent.
Protesters
The adrenaline-rushing days of the anti-war protesters flanked by rows of police and choppers in the sky are sadly over but you might get a bit of abuse hurled at you by some badger cull protesters who, ironically, look like they’ve had too much skunk. There’s always a fundamentalist Christian with a homemade placard ranting about the end of the world, so you can at least tell him that he was definitely wrong last year.
Badge of honour
I don’t know his name but I used to shake his hand every year, and that’s the legend who has the hat covered in Tony Blair badges. Whenever things got difficult, tiresome or stressful I’d see him and would instantly feel recharged. He’s loving politics and he’s loving the Labour party. Every football club has a superfan and the Tony Blair Badge Hat Man is ours.
Unions
You can’t miss them. Either they’ll be sitting on one side of the conference hall looking grumpy and tough or you’ll see them on their massive great stands in the exhibition hall, usually with a new free gift. Sometimes it’s a stick of rock with their branding on. Once I got a keyring with a detachable pound-sized disc on it for supermarket trollies. One can only imagine what will be on offer this year. Maybe there’ll be a Unite version of Angry Birds? You could call it Angry Words, seeing as that’s all it ever amounts to. You could fire Len McCluskey at copies of Progress and see how many points you score.
Free water
Lots of exhibition stands give it away. Take it gladly, it’s your friend, especially if you want to avoid …
The Hangover Part Three
By the fourth day some people at conference will have been overdoing it. They’re walking slower, they’re talking slower and they’re drinking Lucozade faster. They take longer to recognise your face when you wave at them across the exhibition hall. Breakfast outlets in the city will be doing a roaring trade and they’re often a good place for a morning meeting. But think carefully about where to meet if you’re a politician, as tucking into a full English while meeting representatives of the British Heart Foundation probably isn’t the best idea. Some visitors will still reek of booze. I remember a breakfast we laid on when I worked in public affairs and three of the men who turned up smelt like they’d not only been drinking whisky all night but had drunk more at breakfast and then used the rest of the bottle as aftershave.
Mick Swagger
Some funny people populate politics and none funnier than those with imaginary power. I don’t mean deluded souls who think they can fly, read minds or be invisible. I’m talking about those weird hangers-on who really would be better off being invisible. They’ve learned to look serious as they parade through the hall, BlackBerry jammed to the ear, a furtive glance in either direction to give the impression of a power call being made. I’ve seen some spectacular errors made by such people. In Brighton one year a lad in his early 20s was talking loudly into his phone going ‘sure, sure, get me a briefing on that and I’ll send you the line … Look, this needs to happen … Well send them my way and see what they say’, at which point the phone in his hand started ringing. He left pretty sharpish. With a bit of loo roll stuck to the bottom of his shoe. Classic.
Sleepers
Happens every year. The heat of the hall gets to some people and they slip into a blissful sleep. Either that or the discussion has sent them off. Most of the time it’s during some awful afternoon plenary on sharing best practice in parish councils, where half of the panel has struggled to stay awake. Conference halls are great places to get some kip. If you fancy a quick snooze, get in there when the hall is largely deserted. Like during the keynote speech by a member of the shadow cabinet.
Eight (minute) mile
For some, conference will be their one shot, their one opportunity, to capture the moment and make a name for themselves. A prospective parliamentary candidate, a wannabe council candidate, a young member with a head full of dreams will have a few minutes to captivate the crowd or blend into the background of white noise. I’ve never spoken at conference but I can imagine that it’s quite nerve-racking for individuals who aren’t used to public speaking. Which is why it’s so great when someone gets up and really smashes it. A mate of mine gave a great one in 2007 when he asked conference to look forward to 2017 when ‘Gordon Brown and the Labour party will be celebrating 20 years in government.’ That got a good laugh and a strong round of applause. His follow-up line, ‘Leeds United, top of the Premiership’, got a far bigger laugh than he expected.
Conference rumours
There’s always something doing the rounds, a bit of tittle-tattle, whether it’s about a policy announcement or personal gossip. If you’re more interested in the policy stuff, go to plenty of fringe meetings and try and overhear conversations with senior politicians. If personal gossip is your thing, simply hang around the hotel bar until 5am and you’ll either hear some gossip or end up being it.
Regional receptions
If you want to meet the leader then go to as many of the regional receptions as you can blag your way into. During the Blair years you would know when the prime minister was about to come to your particular reception as there’d be a scrum of people no one recognised bolting in at the back of the room, having seen him at the previous reception and run ahead to clap eyes on him again. It sounds desperately sad but loads of people used to do this. Had I not been a member of staff I would probably have been one of them. But not for a sight of a politician, oh no. Regional receptions also have a pretty deep supply of booze. Chin, chin!
The real world
Who am I kidding? Do not expect to encounter this for the entire week.
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Matt Forde is a stand-up comedian and talkSPORT presenter. He used to work for the Labour party www.mattforde.com
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