Man of the people pays his respects
Tony Blair was in Brighton today, making an announcement about the 40 newly unveiled ‘Respect Zones‘ of which Brighton is one. It was a top secret public appearance.
Did he make his speech from one of Brighton’s many benighted housing estates? Whitehawk, for instance? Or Mile Oak just up the road from where I live?
No. The nice shiny PFI-built Jubilee Library was the venue. Modern, you see. There was a small press gathering from which the Prime Minister would not take questions. The photographers would not tell passers-by what all the fuss was about nor would the police officers charged with sweeping the Great Unwashed off the surrounding streets.
According to the Number 10 website, while in Brighton the Prime Minister took part in a ‘Face the People’ session. Stop laughing at the back.
Posted on January 22nd, 2007 at 12:58 pm
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Still, at least you can now sleep soundly at night, safe in the knowledge that there will be a whole lot more respect going down in your neighbourhood. You have the PM to thank for that, you ingrate.
My neck of the woods, whilst not exactly salubrious, is a paragon of respect, thank you very much. Never seen an ounce of bother all the time I’ve lived here. I think all the dogshit keeps the trouble-makers off the streets which is probably why the council are so loathe to clear it up.
No, the only thing to fear round here late at night is the absolutely enormous fox that forages in the park just down the road. Shit me right up the other night, it did, as I tottered home from the pub.
Just because he was facing the people doesn’t necessarily mean the people were facing him.
Has anyone seen a list of the 48 ’super-marginals’ mentioned recently? Curious how it matches up to these 40 ‘respect zones’. After the whole ‘heat map’ hospital closure thing it wouldn’t surprise me…
You read my mind, Niels. Harriet Harman was in super-marginal Harlow today launching a Respect Zone there. I’ve been trying to hunt down a list of marginal seats this afternoon.
The way this lot are going on, Labour will have about 400m marginals come the election and fewer still come the Revolution.
Hush hush and whisper who dares, folks - I was there.
Yes, as one of the underpaid servants of Brighton Library I was forced to spend an hour in one of two rooms overlooking the ground floor of the library while the rest of the building was filled with security guards and TV crews. Clearly they were concerned we would either get in the way of a decent camera angle or somebody would mention the word “socialism” and create all kinds of panic. Strangely, this strategy meant that I was placed at a perfect sniper’s angle. If only I’d learned how to snipe.
Security was such that the staff - while informed that a minister was coming to make a show-visit - were unaware as to the identity of our guest until the day itself. Cue much speculation that we would have to widen the aisles if it was Prescott or be forced to piss on Ruth Kelly if she was on fire.
As for Tony meeting the public: as a matter of fact, he wasn’t addressing the gathered hand-picked throng. Instead, he sat two rows back, listening to the Kilroy-style complaints (radio-mikes being handed round the 25 or so people in a secluded - and very quiet - library seemed a little excessive) about how nobody’s got no respect for nuffin’ nor nuffin’ else neither. However, he did make a brief speech towards the end. Whether this counts as meeting the people, I don’t know, but - to be fair, for once - it wasn’t the hit and run exercise that some have described it as.
Strangely, we minions were invited to have our photo taken with the great man. Seeing as I couldn’t find an ironic enough reason to justify doing so, I had to decline. A pity, really, as I wanted to know whether he smelled of almonds. Or death.