Labour Live and Kicking.


There’s been a lot of mockery of the festival Labour Live in the media lately, but imagine what the Tory equivalent would be like, with music from James Blunt, comedy from Jim Davidson - and lectures on keeping your hair as soft as goose-down from Boris Johnson, how to form all opinions from a point of utter ignorance from Katie Hopkins and how not to change a nappy from Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Not everything has to be an instant landslide success to be valid; at least the Labour Party are trying to connect with younger supporters, and while it’s not had the massive interest they might have hoped, even the most lackadaisical Labour arts event would cack all over a Conservative one; and if the Tories need a social gathering, wasn’t Thatcher’s funeral enough?

I just find the Tories so out-of-step. Take my local MP Bim Afolami for example, who’s on Twitter and Facebook, but practically in a broadcast only sense. He also manages to smile identically in every photo with an Etonian joylessness. It probably doesn’t help that he’s younger than me, as being this and Conservative makes me deeply suspicious. I know I’m biased, but I can never get on board with a politician who regularly praises a prime minister who made repeated references to not having a magic money tree she could shake to give NHS staff a pay rise that takes into account the rise in the cost of living, as if speaking like this would bring them on side. The Tories are a party of gimps, and the day Michael Gove runs a face-painting stall next to George Osborne’s acoustic stage is the day I seek Dutch citizenship.

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