Dispatch: Discos and despair at the Labour Party Conference
Labour conference parties, the Guinness revolution and the DWP response to the triple lock kibosh; catch up on the latest gossip in this week’s The Capitalist
LABOUR PARTY PARTIES
Labour supporters want you to know they had a good time in Liverpool. Potential London mayoral candidate Dawn Butler once again threw a Jamaican-themed bash at a local nightclub where MPs including Sarah Sackman, a top barrister, and others were spotted getting in the groove.
Ex-Prime Minister hopeful Al Carns was spotted both leading a warm-up at a Labour MP football match against journalists and getting his SAS-built rigs out after a swim off the Mersey. Emily Thornberry also sang at Irish Labour’s party while Angela Rayner spun DJ decks at Labour List’s party.
But between the laughs, sports and songs at the Labour Party conference, there were glimpses of despair.
Burnham donors and businessmen Sacha Lord and Lord Waheed Alli enjoyed a private lunch together on the first day. It’s impossible not to put that against the context of Reform UK’s mega £72m donation declarations. Relationships with the media are also in the spotlight. A journalist from The Sun was banned from playing against MPs in a football match at Everton FC’s Goodison Park. Remember, The Sun has never backed the wrong horse at general elections. And you can sniff bosses’ unease just a month from a “challenging” Budget.
HSBC UK’s chief executive David Lindberg shared a panel with the Treasury minister Emma Reynolds amid swirling rumours that banks could be targeted with higher levies. Zoë Yujnovich, chief executive of National Grid, was on the same panel, a day before the Prime Minister announced he would create a state-owned company for grid connections.
Andy Burnham has made an effort to keep his political honeymoon alive but for how much longer can things hold together before fragile relationships – with donors, the media, business and eventually voters – start crumbling?
TRIPLE LOCK ROCK
After the Prime Minister announced on Tuesday that Labour was planning to scrap the triple lock, many questions quickly arose. Apparently for the Department for Work and Pensions too. Shortly after the end of the speech in which the policy was pitched (around 15:00), the DWP emailed press (15:47) to arrange a briefing (for 4:30pm) to “answer any technical questions”. Unfortunately (come 16:07), the DWP promptly emailed again to announce the briefing was now cancelled. We guess some questions are easier left unanswered…
GUINNESS COMES FOR TEATIME
The Irish aren’t famous for their love of British traditions, but one Irish bar is trying to change that with a rather radical proposition. As of this week, Londoners can enjoy a ‘Guinness Afternoon Tea’ every Saturday at Homeboy in Islington, an offering the Irish bar is calling a “world first”. Featuring smoked salmon on Guinness soda bread, beef and Guinness stew, Guinness cake and, of course, a pint of the black stuff itself, the bar hopes to “reimagine the classic afternoon tea through an Irish lens”.
For a £20 premium, punters can also enjoy a “drinks pairing” (Guinness, we assume). It’s pinkies down for this one.
PSA!
City AM is a firm champion of WFW (working from work), but a power outage on Lower Thames Street yesterday meant this newsroom was forced to get with the times. After an hour of struggling through on iPhone hotspots (and turned-down suggestions to Work From Pub), the team were sent back to whence they came from to cobble together this very edition of the newspaper from home. Any mistakes, do show us grace!