The wine was flowing last night at Labour conference as delegates toasted the fall of Boris Johnson. And before Mr S staggered off to Dawn Butler’s Jamaica night – where ‘Beijing Barry’ Gardiner enlivened the crowd with his dancing on the DJ decks – it was time to go behind enemy lines at the New Statesman annual party.
This year’s star attraction at the Museum of Liverpool was the shadow levelling up secretary Lisa Nandy, a woman who has never been shy at making her feelings known. And it was in that spirit that the former Labour foreign affairs spokesman poked fun at herself and new Prime Minister Liz Truss by telling a room of hacks, bag-carriers and assorted hangers-on:
If you’d told me two years ago that a woman could emerge from a very divided party, take on the foreign brief, and rise to become leader, I wouldn’t have believed you. All I can say is, and I think I speak for the whole labour movement on this, thank fuck it was them and not us!
But the highlight came when Nandy turned her gun on the Statesman’s sponsors for the night: BT whose staff walked out last month over an offer the firm said was worth 5 per cent on average. To the general chagrin of the evening’s organisers, Nandy said:
I would like to thank the sponsors for tonight’s event, but I would just gently say to BT that if you can afford to pay for a drinks reception and to give your CEO a 32 per cent pay rise, you can afford to pay your staff properly.
So much for that famous message discipline.
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