At the TUC conference, earlier today. On stage behind Labour
leader Ed Miliband, even the hand-picked phalanx of ‘ordinary people’ found it
hard to focus on his speech. Young woman of colour, top-right, wore the same
expression as my students: I’d-rather-be-texting. White man, front row, gurning
on camera. Really! Meanwhile Mr Miliband said his set piece, reciting lines rehearsed
too often; making robust gestures – hey, look at my robust gesture – which were
mannered and effete.
Westminster, a day earlier. Margaret Hodge MP, chair of the
public accounts committee, grilled BBC Trusties and ex-executives about excessive
redundancy payments. Already in the pink (living well at public expense must be
patterned on Lord Patten), they wriggled and turned red-in-the-face. Hodge herself seemed to be tinted yellow: her skin toned in with her purple top for maximum day glow
effect.
On different days in different places, it varies from lacklustre to lurid; but
the slow liquidation of British institutions is everywhere irreversible.
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