LABOUR CONFERENCE – Ed finally signs up for victorious Sally army
Published: September 29, 2011
• ED Miliband gave a celebratory shout out at the start of conference to Sally Gimson for winning the Highgate by-election. First we’ve heard from him on the subject. In weeks of campaigning – literally on the doorstep in Dartmouth Park – he couldn’t spare two minutes for endorsements or Press work. Did the possibility of defeat put him off?
• MEMBERS had trucked off to Liverpool high after the Highgate victory. On Friday night, they supped wine to toast Cllr Gimson’s win. She was also given a special prize by her hilarious campaign team... a copy of Alexis Rowell’s book on getting local authorities to reduce carbon. Alexis, of course, was the Green Party’s runner-up in the poll.
• LUCIANA Berger – fanciability 90/100 according to Sky News’s conference Top Trumps cards – was walking around the conference zone like the big-I-am, everybody agreed.
Big shoulder pads, pink power coat thing. She quit a council election campaign in Somers Town to parachute jump straight into the House of Commons as MP in safe Liverpool Wavertree last year. From the heavens, you could almost hear Camden heckler Ellen Luby screeching: “She got there quick, didn’t she?”
Locals up here haven’t forgotten the manoeuvre. With boundary changes threatening to squeeze two constituencies into one, “a source close to Maria Eagle” – the MP next door – reminded the Liverpool Echo: “Maria is from Liverpool.”
• GLENDA Jackson doesn’t do a lot of tweeting, but when Ed Miliband started up his speech on Tuesday with some switcharoo jokes about his “nose job”, she couldn’t resist getting involved.
Twitter was lit up with this kernel from the 75-year-old: “Ed Miliband is bringing the funny.”
• MWAH! Mwah! Camden’s Labour leisure surpremo Tulip Siddiq gets a kiss from the drummer in Blur (right). Dave Rowntree has been beating his sticks for Labour for a few years now.