I had to come home from Greece in time for the Labour Conference, it was important. Not for me, so much, but they couldn’t have had such a meaningful and wonderful time if they thought I was out of the country. And our new government excelled themselves. They’ve put behind them all that horrible, nasty shit which happened for the last 14 weeks… Oh, 14 years, that was the last government, this new one has had a fantastic, condensed, annus horibilis since it was elected. It’s been a disaster. We had the race riots/midnight shopping sprees, followed by seeing if we can overfill the overflowing prisons with a few grannies from Rochdale and schoolteachers from Preston who jumped up and down on a few police cars. Then they signed the death warrant of about three quarters of all the nation’s pensioners by taking away their heating allowance. Of 250 quid each. So they could enrich the overpaid train drivers by about 20 grand a year each in their totally uncontested pay rise. Then they gave the Doctors 22%, no arguments from me there, and to ‘finalise this round of pay negotiations’, they offered the nurses… 5%. I thought that seemed very fair indeed. Nurses just aren’t as valuable as anyone else, we all know that, plus, most are women so simply aren’t entitled to any kind of ‘equal pay’ considerations. Anyway that was rejected, so its not over. Til the fat Matron sings.

Sir Kier made a speech which would have warmed the heart of a vampire. Well, if it was a Labour vampire who bought into that bullshit. Any decent vampire would know better. And Kier said the words which will become immortalised: “we’ll demand an immediate ceasefire for Gaza and release of all sausages”. He actually said that. Oddly, despite the spawning of a million memes, it’s actually the first of those claims which is the most ridiculous, the ‘demanding a ceasefire’, but we won’t go into that today.

And this speech followed Chancellor Rachel Reeves on Monday telling us how fab it felt to be the first ever woman chancellor, oh the honour of it. Yeah. Great. Then she told us, as did Kier later, how they were re-building Britain. Great, I thought, I hope they start with the fucking pot-holes. But no, this was a metaphor. And we all know, government metaphors don’t mean shit, but cost a fortune. At least 2/3rds of a black hole. And it’s a long-term project. And to get to this ‘holy land’ flowing with milk and honey, in time for Lila and Joey’s great-grandchildren to enjoy, we’re all going to die as slaves to the national economy. Because, as they keep telling us: ‘it’s going to hurt’. Yeah, whips always do.

But at least they made the effort to sound a bit up-beat, relative to the funereal words of doom and deprivation they’ve been banging on about ever since they took power. Ok, it wasn’t a great effort but they’re trying. Kier Starmer’s chances of lifting my spirits are about on a par with those of Son Heung Min lifting the Premiership Trophy. But that says more about what Kier does for me, which is so much more than mere ‘nothing’, than it does about my football team.

But it’s over now. Conference is done. The karaoke’s finished, the hangovers in place and Kier’s in New York speaking placatory nonsense at the UN.

Happy Thursday

A xxxx