How do you combine in a single blog post something about Lib Dem conference photo ops, my cookery plans and Gordon Brown's speech to the Labour war zone? Well, here goes.
Brown's speech was pitched today at Labour members, rather than the country as a whole. It pressed all the right buttons in that respect. Other than some soothing prose suggesting Brown was an ordinary guy who recognised the economic problems, and a bit of kite flying about talks in the US about regulating the financial markets, the speech did not have much about the economy. And it is the economy - jobs, cost of liiving, housing and so on - that are now up there at the top of people's concerns. In other words, the bread and butter issues.
So whilst Labour members may be pleased that at last their own leader has given them words they can applaud, my guess is that it will leave many voters cold. It does of course make a change in Labour leader even less likely in the near future, though regular readers will know I have argued that the removal of Brown is unlikely at least this side of the general election. Mind you, it will take far more than one speech to the Labour conference to revive Labour's fortunes.
Talking about bread and butter issues, at our conference last week, I ran a photo op with Vince Cable about the cost of living. In it, we had two supermarket baskets containing identical food items, but with one priced at last year's prices, the other at the much higher costs for this year. We have, for the past week, gradually been eating these photo op props. I am, however left with a large amount of bread and butter. So tomight I am going to make a large bread and butter pudding and take it to Cowley St for undernourished colleague to eat tomorrw. However, since my older brother Andrew turned up unexpectedly in London today, and I have been out for dinner with him, the pudding making will be taking place later than I intended.
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