Britannia Radio

Having told the Tories to wake up a moment ago I must now turn to the 
world's most soporific speech from the Labour Party's apology for a 
Chancellor of the Exchequer.  I expect he went home grateful for 
having escaped a lynching!

But WHY do we have to sit at the bedside of this slowly dying party 
and also be expected to hold Brown's hand?  The people are looking 
forward glumly to the Wake afterwards.  Why this endless delay?

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DAILY MAIL   10.9.08
Drained of joy, he stood limp as a sweetpea in the rain

Alistair Darling's appearance at the TUC was a peculiar non-event

Talk about catatonic depression is best avoided. But Alistair 
Darling's appearance at the TUC yesterday was such a peculiar non-
event that one has to ask if the Chancellor is feeling quite himself.

This was the speech of a man drained of joy. There is no turbo to his 
purpose. He just phutted along, fuel tank close to empty. They heard 
him in sullen silence.

If this was part of the fightback it will not have frightened many of 
the Miliband groupies planning to undo Gordon Brown's regime.
Mr Darling's text contained not a single applause line. There was not 
one moment of levity or even gloopy sycophancy.

He could have paid lavish praise to recent departed TUC stalwarts or 
to the history of the congress in bettering its members' work 
conditions over the decades. But no. Not a sausage.

He could even have turned defiant and thwacked his lectern and 
pointed them in the eye and told them what's what in the real world 
of politics. But that would have taken political bombast and that is 
not in the Chancellor's book of shots.

Instead he just stood, as limp as a rain- soaked sweetpea, sounding 
sorry for himself. Three times he told the hall that we live in 
'tough times'. Three times we heard not a pin drop. The vast hall was 
completely mute.

The audience's frustration became clear immediately after his speech 
when a ten-minute session of questions from the floor was permitted. 
The first two questioners were greeted by instant cheers when Mr 
Darling was told that the Government's policy on public sector pay 
was 'totally unacceptable'.

Delegates were clearly desperate to have something to clap.

They needed a hit of morale-raising enthusiasm. Mr Darling's deadly 
Edinburgh monotone had nearly made them snap.

For his labours he was rewarded, at the end of his turgid speech, 
with four or maybe four and a half seconds of applause (as recorded 
by my new wristwatch, acquired yesterday on London's Oxford Street 
for the inflationbusting sum of £;9.99).

The TUC's president, Dave Prentis, was first and last to clap, the 
noise of his smacking palms being caught by the microphones.

Later, when the TUC's general secretary Brendan Barber said that he 
hoped delegates had found the session a useful encounter, there were 
a few shouts of 'no!'.

In his speech Mr Darling had said 'we have good reason to be 
confident', but he said this with such despairing lack of oomph that 
he could have been Eeyore saying he didn't suppose anyone would 
remember his birthday. 'Times are tough but we will get through 
them,' he said wearily, voice groggy. It put me in mind of a man 
coming round after dental surgery.

His glasses slowly slid down his nose and had to be pushed up from 
time to time.

He said that it was wrong for people to 'get money for failing and 
not succeeding - that's got to change'.

Let it be noted, however, that failed Cabinet ministers nowadays 
receive payoffs when they are sacked.

Delegates sat in a slump. Some had their arms crossed. A bookish 
fellow near me did the crossword. The crowd from Unison were wearing 
yellow t-shirts saying 'Cut My Pay? No Way'.

Bob Crow and Tony Woodley left the hall early in order to speak to 
Sky News on the east balcony.

The noise of their interview sounded a lot more fun than Mr Darling's 
question session.

Earlier, at the Morning Star fringe meeting, Derek Simpson had called 
David Miliband 'a smug a***hole'. With Labour in such disarray, 
surely Mr Darling could have done better than this?

Could his aides not stir themselves to produce the 'speech of a 
lifetime', or at least a better than average oration?

After hearing him serve up such a lacklustre, lazy speech, you have 
to ask: Is this undoubtedly kindly, civilised man in a suitable state 
to be in charge of our public finances?

Is Alistair Darling close to breaking point?