Jon Cruddas's conference diary: part 3

Monday lunchtime.  Forget Sarah Palin, Boo Weekley is the guy. As anticipated, Poulter won.  But no one else did. A bad golf night. Personally I saw very little- but my staff excelled themselves in their hole-by-hole commentary provided through the Blackberry.

The highlight of a long night was a teenager taking a swing at me in the gents at the Radisson. At least I think that was what he was doing as he bounced off the walls talking about ‘no return to old labour’, ‘cannot go back to the 70s’ ‘I’m nuts for Hazel’ etc, etc. Poor bloke reminded me of the guys who used to sell Militant; I bet his dad did.

It turns out he had been to the ‘Progress Rally’- no wonder he was speaking in tongues. The one mistake made by ‘Old Miliband’- in what otherwise has been a brilliant conference for him- is the speech to the Progress tribe; a not very subtle green light to the extremists. He now appears as a puppet in the hands of the hardliners. This ‘general without an army’ has now found one: the wrong one. ‘Never thought a British Foreign Secretary would be held captive by the Taliban.’ is how it was described to me by a Guardian hack.

Main event last night was a Fabian/Observer question time in the town hall. It turned into a 10 rounder, in front of hundreds, between the Spectator Political Editor (‘Flat Tax Fraser’) and Ed Balls. I would have paid for a seat. Everyone else on the platform- me, Gaby (Observer), Sunder (Fabians) and Zoe  (Guardian) shrunk away as they went for it. Tax, fairness, markets and equality are the currency of the conference. It creates debate and disagreement. Good. The Tory roadblock to discussing economics – the phrase: ‘sharing the proceeds of growth’- looks ridiculous. How will they handle it next week?

No one is disagreeing with our ‘middle class tax cut’- I am going to have to repackage it as ‘The Spectator middle class tax cut’ as pushed by those ‘flat taxers’ Nelson and Forsyth.

Earlier I chaired a Refugee Council discussion around the plight of failed asylum seekers. Good chat although never discussed in the party- half expected some of the ‘Hazel militia’ to storm the platform, rule us out of order etc. Went out for a late curry with some union anti-fascists and Eddie Izzard- again Blears was quite brilliant. Couple of beers with aussie Labour guys and on to the Fabian drinkathon – 10 deep at the bar. A quiet beer back at the hotel with the wife and deputy leader before one of ‘Old Milibands’ provisional wing started throwing haymakers.