UPDATE: #CPC #cpc09

If you hate Twitter look away now.

As Labour's swan song in Brighton draws to a close attention inevitably shifts toward the Tories. People have tentatively begun tweeting with a different combination of hash tags for Dave's rave in Manchester. Hash tags should be obvious and short - Conservative Party Conference?

#CPC

anyone?

UPDATE 23:45: Apologies for the continued techiness, however, after much discussion with the Tory twitterati a compromise of #cpc09 has been drawn. CPC was getting confused with the Conservative Party of Canada, apparently. TB didn't know what all the fuss was aboot.

Having been an absolute loser for the last hour he is now going to finish the video he has been trying to work on all day. All sorts of things have cropped up though.

Watch this space.

News in Blue Briefs

This has to be TB's fav News in Briefs in a while:

The honour of welcoming the Conservatives in from the cold, in a pair of blue lacy knickers, was bestowed to Keeley, 22, from Bromley who said:

"David Cameron is the man. Looking at his background, he needs to prove he's in touch with hard-working Britons. However this is his time. Everyone will expect him to make things better. He can't possibly do this instantly as he will inherit huge, long-term, deep rooted problems. WE need to allow him time to implement fresh ideas and polices that will get the country off its knees."

Smirk.

Clone Wars

Tickets are selling nicely so take advantage of the £5 price tag while you can. You'll also have an opportunity to get your hands on one of these little fellas:

Only at TB's events though.

Harman Smears Osborne

It seems that

Paul Waugh

did a double take too when listening to Harriet Harman's sexist rantings this lunchtime. As TB

said at the time

, it seems Ms. Harman has been attending evening classes at the Damian McBride School of Political Studies. Paul goes into

more detail

:

Contrasting Labour's record on equalities and feminism with that of the Tories, she said that David Cameron would extend foxhunting rights to everyone, while George Osborne would replace a SureStart in every community with "a lapdancing club in every community".

I immediately thought this was odd. Why single out Osborne and lapdancing? There is no Shadow Treasury policy on the issue, as far as I am aware. Could this have been a sly reference to something about Osborne's private life? After all the News of the World had snaps of him in his youth next to a prostitute - snaps that were referred to in the "smeargate" affair.

Anyway, I've just been told by sources close to Harman that no smear was intended. It was simply meant to be a jokey reference to lapdancing club tickets distributed during last year's Tory conference in Birmingham.

Yeah right.

If looks could kill...

G

ordon isn't having a good day with front pages. He can protest about the media as much as he wants, but they can smell the stench of decay coming from his government and won't ignore it. It's all very well whining, but it's not as if he helps matters by being rude, obnoxious and arrogant in a

live TV interview

.

The overbearing message from Labour Conference?

Go back to your constituencies and prepare for opposition.

Score

Gulags for slags, huts for sluts, camps for tramps, jail for tail, the list is goes on, but Labour's terrifying attempts at social engineering have given

Big Brother Watch

their first front page hit. This mornings metro had their headline and a quote from them rolled out across every bus and train in the country.

Not bad for an operation that has only just set up!

Ed Miliband Owned by Paxman

The wunderkid Ed Miliband just got a vintage Paxman creaming

on Newsnight

. Imagine Blinky Balls crossed with the guy out of the South Park film. He kept saying "If you'd just let me finish, if you'd just let me finish.. errr let's not turn this into one of those interviews, can I finish?"

Eventually Paxman lost it and in exasperation said "yes yes I'm trying to let you finish, I want you to finish."

Popcorn worthy.

UPDATE 00.01: As

Alex Massie

pointed out to TB, the similarities to this are uncanny:



"This is like watching Bambi's mother be punched by John Leslie..."

The Sun Shines for Dave

Didn't see this one coming, but tonight the Sun has cocked up the entire post GB speech narrative by announcing their endorsment for Dave. It may have been obvious it would happen eventually but the timing is spectacular.

Shares in Nokia will be through the roof tomorrow.

The Tony and Gordon Show 2.0

It seems our Tone is set to make

a bit of a comeback

:

"Mr Blair’s absence from British politics since his departure from No 10 is understood to have been largely due to Mr Brown’s desire to have a “clear run” without interference. He is also thought to have been bruised both by the way that his 2005 election campaign was overshadowed by the Iraq war and the trauma of his final months in office, which were dominated by the cash-for-honours scandal.

Supporters believe that, after two years of Mr Brown, the public are ready to regard the former Prime Minister in a more sympathetic light. One party figure, in a reference to the last general election campaign, when Mr Blair bought his successor a treat, said: “Gordon owes him an ice cream.”

TB's heart bleeds. Never forget Mr Blair, your last months were tough because of the whole world of shit that your brought down upon yourself with you hunger for power and lust of the high life. You have not been forgiven, the British people will never forget the damage you did. They just never thought it could get any worse.

How wrong they were.

She's No Jackie O

So once again Sarah Brown introduced Gordon today, given her recent meteoric rise in popularity TB is surprised it wasn't the other way round. The ever plugged in Allegra Stratton is reporting that opinion amongst the party is pretty evenly split on this issue. Even scarier than the amount of Twitter followers that Sarah's well orchestrated PR campaign in women's magazines has bought her, is the fact that this unelected spinner is allegedly sitting in on meetings with cabinet members. TB doesn't particularly care about what she wears, or what apparent profound effect she has on London Fashion Week but she has sure as hell pissed off

Alix Mortimer

:

"Hm. Since when was it a good thing that unelected people got to wield power in government? I thought we were all supposed to hate Peter Mandelson, Labour supporters included, for precisely that reason. Did I miss a memo, or is it just because Mandelson doesn’t look like he’d chat to you in the greengrocers (does he need real food anyway?)?

But all that is nothing to the emetic we’re presented with the following weekend, Friday 25th:

Can Sarah Brown rescue Labour?

Say what?

She has transformed from a near-silent political wife to arguably the most admired and powerful woman in Britain…

Bu- Fn- Wh- What in the name of gibbering incomprehension are you talking about? “Arguably”? Ya think? Sarah Beeny has more traction, never mind Lily Allen (of whom more anon). Seriously, I am a wizened political punter and I know absolutely nothing about this woman that wouldn’t fit comfortably on a postage stamp and be about as interesting. Have I just been deposited here from a parallel dimension? More to the point, has the Observer?

How did she do it? And can her extraordinary reinvention help save the Labour party?

Yes, they have definitely, definitely lost it"

Ms Mortimer has been somewhat quiet in recent months but she's on cracking form with

this post

.

Who is Sarah Brown, and what does she want?

Gordon's Farewell Speech

So TB has fled the scene of Gordon's desperate attempt to sound exciting and new. Seems a lot of hacks have had the same idea and have packed out the London train. The speech started well enough, it was a powerful eulogy for New Labour, but very quickly Brown crumbled and slipped back into lies, washed out old ideas, stolen policy and weak attacks on the Conservatives.

It seems Brown has, in his delusional state of mind, dreamt up an image of a Conservative Party he would like to be fighting rather than the one he actually faces. By the end of it he was fluffing his soundbites (probably on account of only being given the speech to read through after draft after draft this morning.) The wording of the ending had the potential to be quiet rousing, but in reality its delivery fell flat.

The speech will no doubt be remembered for the only real new idea in it - Gulags for Slags. Social engineering in the extreme by locking up single mothers in to state funded borstals. A sad day for personal responsibility.

The AV+ stuff and House of Lords announcements are hardly new. It's fine for Gordon to go at the constitution with an word axe, knowing full well he will be out of power before he promised to implement them. As for the ID card "announcement"? Well Alan Johnson announced this months ago and it not a mention of the database, the truly terrifying prospect. Guess that's staying then.

That's the only real relieve about today, whatever Gordon said was meaningless, he could promise the earth, and almost did. None of this ideas will see the light of day though.

Bring on Manchester, bring on DC, let's show the Lib Dems and Labour how a conference is done properly.

Who would have thought...

...Sunny Hundal

and

Will Straw

were such big fans of the bear?

TB wasn't exactly subtle behind enemy lines.

The Party's Over

So TB ended up staying over night in Brighton and it's another shockingly sunny day on the seafront. He isn't sure if there is an opposite to pathetic fallacy, but it would be highly fitting. He

tweeted

yesterday afternoon that the mood here was somewhat akin to a terminal patient having their last birthday party. Things lightened up a bit in the evening once the booze got flowing, but it would be hard to suggest people are happy. Achingly on-message PPCs will regurgitate the party line and ambitious Labour Students won't stray, but take the camera out of peoples' faces and it's a different story.

Obviously there was guarded caution around the bear, however the only plotting that TB sniffed out was plans for the post election days. It seems the party has, surprisingly gracefully, accepted defeat. Who will take over the party in May is already dominating conversation. Mandy's speech yesterday was discussed but with very little enthusiasm. It may have put fire in some bellies but outside of the bubble would it really have made that much difference? It was a good speech, an excellent conference speech, but a game-changer? No.

There is no energy, no buzz here. TB went along to the

Labourlist

drinks last night which were a good laugh and he is very grateful to them for having him. While he was there he was asked how Labour conference compared to the tories. In terms of activity it was identical, the fringe meetings, old friends meeting each other, chatting at the bar, however the air of eager anticipation that have defined the last two tory conferences, and will no doubt dominate Manchester, is severely lacking here. In it's place is silent agreement that it's easier not to talk about the Prime Minister or how it could have been if the attempts to bring him down in the last year had played out differently.

Update: Gone Rogue

So TB has landed in Brighton and set up mobile field unit on the beach. Simon Heffer cuts a lonely figure strolling the promenard alone. Charlie Wheelan's brown brogue, dark suit combo was truely special and had to chuckle at "your the problem" George Howarth MP attempting to skip the queue by waving his green members pass only to be promptly put in his place and sent to the back.

Though TB's favourite moment so far has to be hiding from Red Ken:

His camera man has finally arrived so off to have some fun...

UPDATE 20.30: Listening to Miliband speak about foreign policy. Interesting, however he pitched the mood just right with his opening gambit - "sorry to anyone here who was under the impression they would be hearing from my brother."

Been a surreal but interesting afternoon. TB will report in depth upon his return but lets just say Labour are plotting.

But not in the way you might think.

And the Oscar goes to...

Congratulations to John Moorcraft who won last week's caption contest with this entry:

"Is this really the way I should introduce myself to Pope Benedict?"

Mr Moorcraft wins a copy of "

Fleeced

" a fantastic new book by David Craig and the TPA's Matthew Elliot.

TB thought his own suggestion of "John didn't quite get that he wasn't meant to make his own Downfall video" was pretty funny.

But then he would wouldn't he.

Monday Morning Cartoon

How do GoogleAds do it?

They are so wise:

They know exactly what readers of

Lib Dem blogs

are like...

Buy TB Karaoke Tickets Now!

After some slight problems TB's PayPal is now up and running. Tickets £5 pre-booked or a tenner on the door. Email to reserve your song. Details of TB's other events and speaking calender will be published this week. There will also be a small number of blue bears on sale at conference. Get in touch with TB if you want to reserve one.

He has it on good, female, authority that they are adorable and a bargain at a fiver!

UPDATE - Labour on Suicide Watch

Gordon has hit back at Darling's claims that Labour has lost the will to live. However it seems that the Party's

own website

doesn't agree with the leader. It shows hoards of young activists throwing themselves off the end of Brighton Pier in desperation:

Joking apart, though you wouldn't know it from the telly, TB is hearing the mood isn't quite as upbeat as the spin doctors would like us to believe.Hence why he will be heading down to Brighton tomorrow in search of a more accurate picture of

#Lab09

.

Armed with a camera.


UPDATE: 22.24: This

hilarious spot

came via the comments

Update - "Fill My Little World Right Up....

...show some love."

The Feeling song they are playing is highly appropriate for the Brighton Centre this afternoon. Moments before their leader takes to the stage:

They can't even fill the hall up.

UPDATE 17.15: People are apparently just milling around talking amongst themselves or packing out Cruddas fringe events. Ed Balls, Tom Watson and Kerry McCarthy, as well as other Labour members of the Twitterati, can't be bothered to go to Gordon's speech. They are propping up the bar instead:

Tom Watson's new beard is err different.

THAT question

Of all the lazy Sundays to sleep until high noon and miss Marr and Boulton, today clearly wasn't the one. So Marr, of sycophantic 2007 cancelled election interview fame, actually plucked up the courage to give the sweating Prime Minister a platform to quell the speculation about his health and pill popping tendencies. Well Gordon technically denied it in words. He was referring to reguarly taking painkillers not anti-depressant though and looked extremely uncomfortable about the unexpected question.

It's not like he's never lied before is it.

Exclusive - Footage of the Treasury Mole

The Mail

reports

:

The row over the so-called ‘Treasury mole’ flared again last night after one of Chancellor Alistair Darling’s staff resigned to take a job in the private office of Shadow Chancellor George Osborne.

Yesterday, the mandarin’s defection prompted a war of words between Labour and the Tories, amid suggestions that the official could have been linked to a series of damaging leaks about the Government’s economic plans.

The sense of intrigue surrounding the move then deepened after both sides refused to name the man.

Well TB has managed to get hold of some exclusive footage of the man:



Ok so maybe not.

Japes

It seems the Go Fourth tweetup/shindig had some infiltrators tonight. These pictures of prominent tory activists via

KeepRightOnline

made the bear laugh:

TB was tempted to go along tonight but was taken down by some dodgy sushi. Better than being taken down by one of the Four Horseman of the Twapocalypse:

Left to further left:

@BevaniteEllie

@KerryMP

@JohnPrescott

@MsGraceFH

Two of them have history of thumping people after all.

Congratulations are in order...

...to friend of the bear Julian Smith who was today

adopted to fight Skipton and Ripon

. Julian will make a fantastic MP. Come to think of it TB still owes him dinner from conference a few years ago.

Well there is another seat TB will dropping by to campaign in soon.