A Brighton view: Observing Labour party conference is a bit like being at a family wedding. You know what’s going to happen during the ceremony, you recognise all the familiar faces, and you don’t need a detailed programme to be able to predict the notable events.
This isn’t the good old-fashioned working class knees-up it used to be, with a common purpose and sense of decency. No, they have been overtaken by the professional wedding planners, who claim to understand not only how the wedding should be organised but that they also need to be run the show according to their own rules that no one else can understand. Some of them still prefer even now that it should try to be the kind of event that the Daily Mail will cover generously.
The wedding planners are running the show but can’t cover up the fact that the preferred dress code of Armani and Primark don’t mix well and that too many relatives who would like to be at the wedding can still only afford the latter. Try getting that mix into the same photo.
The events will play out according to the order of service. You know, the anticipated speech from Uncle Gordon that everyone wants to cheer but somehow just doesn’t quite hit the spot the way it was expected it to.
Uncle Alistair will be counting the cost of every drink and moaning about how we will all pay for it later. We will all be waiting with the cringe coming over, as Aunt Harriet gets to the stage of belting out “Sisters are doing it for themselves”, as she always does when she gets in front of a microphone.
Great Uncle Roy will be hanging around in the background, telling everyone who will listen “This isn’t the way we did it in my day, oh no!”, but avoiding Great Uncle Neil, since they haven’t really spoken since 1992 and would not want to end a good feud now.
Meanwhile the younger relatives mill around, nudging each other and giggling as they mutter, “You should tell him,“ to get the reply ”no you do it!” It’s a family celebration by numbers, everyone playing the part expected of them, but with little in the way of sincerity or even enjoyment.
And the ghost in the corner is always Uncle Tony whose spectral presence makes some yearn for the old days when Tony was the pater familias and everything in their garden was rosy. While for others, his self-belief that he was always right and his willingness to settle everything with a punch up left them queasy then and aware that his sticky fingers are pulling some strings now.
Who would want an invitation to a wedding like this?
