Embattled Starmerite pressure group Labour Together and Downing Street-embedded think tank IPPR had a glitzy speaker list for their flagship event at Labour Conference. Not that anyone cared…
The microphones failed to work for the main stage at Labour Together’s Liverpool venue. After a 15-minute delay speakers Steve Reed, Ed Miliband, and Bridget Phillipson were put up in a corner with one functioning speaker system. No one could hear them…
After a time the organisers asked attendees to “shut up.” To no avail…
Reed was shouting so loudly into his microphone that “the Tories literally covered the country in sh*t and we’re the disinfectant” that no-one apart from the organisers could hear what he was saying through the garbled system. Once it got to nervous Ed Miliband practically every guest had lost interest and were happily chatting among themselves as the Energy Secretary complained about Nigel Farage…
Bridget Phillipson gave a short speech which was also heard by no-one. Maybe Labour Together could do a small donations round for its next party conference event…
Andy Haldane, Burnham’s recent adviser on the economy who has not taken up a No10 job, told Andrew Marr on LBC:
“The market now suspects that this is a traditional tax-and-spend socialist government with better TikTok videos…
imposing windfall taxes on oil & gas or on banks or upping capital gains tax would […] repeat the mistake that Rachel made […] The Achilles heel, the fiscal Achilles heel of this government thus far has been its unwillingness and/or inability to cut public spending.”