Labour Conference Blogging

Via Antonia Bance we get this:

A further speaker was delayed in the neverending queue for pass pickup - a subject running the deputy leadership race a close second in delegate conversations.

And then from Don Paskini, this:

For reasons beyond your or the Labour Party's control, there are lots of people waiting for their passes to be able to get into conference. There is a very long queue of people, and all but one of the printers that you are using has broken, so you have to choose one of the following people to get their pass on time, and disappoint the rest. The question is, whose pass do you print first out of the following people:

1. The Delegate, who will not be able to vote on behalf of their constituency to decide which issues get discussed at conference unless they get their pass now.

2. The Senior Journalist on a national newspaper, who is up against a tight deadline to write their story and who has been queueing for several hours and who is looking extremely fed up.

There's more there, of course. But let us not forget that these are the people who wish to inflict a National ID card upon us. Yes, really, they can't manage a few thousand people who have voluntarily applied, months ago, to come to their own party conference and yet they think that doling them out to 60 million will be possible?

Whelk stalls, breweries......

And what's this about beyond the Labour Party's control? The pixies steal the applications? Or some idiot design an unworkable system perhaps?

Personably I think it's all actually deliberate. Clear evidence, not that the apparatchiki are gormless prats, as it seems on the face of it, rather, that the Labour Party in 'underresourced' and thus Squirrel Nutkin should have more tax money to prop it up.

I mean, really, they can't actually be so incompetent can they?

Bob Piper on the same subject:

Another hike up the road, and starving hungry, bloody thirsty, and a bit too sweaty for comfort... I passed through the security checks and metal detectors, just in time to hear Hazel Blears making sweet noises about encouraging the voluntary sector and engaging with Labour supporters, not just members. She then went on to talk about efficiency and renewal under Labour.

Not now, Hazel, not now.