Back in the real world after the heady political junkie-ism of Manchester. My appearance on BBC News 24 got bounced to much later in the evening due to Gordon’s speech running over time, so I first went to the reception given by the Irish Ambassador. Met some interesting people there. That was really the point of being in Manchester – all the people I met from all sorts of areas – media, industry, lobbying, academia. I think we’re coming back with some better ideas of how to get our message across. And of course it’s always nice to spend time with the people you work with in a non-office context.
We were sitting in the bar of the main conference hotel last night (I was having a G&T to recover from doing a live interview on national TV!) when the Brown cavalcade swept into the lobby, Gordon glad-handing and Sarah wearing a very nice red dress (much better thank what she had worn that afternoon in the conference hall, if I can be Trinny and Susannah about her for a moment). Then they swept out again with lots of acolytes swarming around them. You might have thought that the conference-ites would have been less star-struck, but everyone was clearly very excited to see him. I saw several people wearing “I heart GB” badges, which I thought was some sort of jingoistic statement, until I realised who rather than what GB was!
So, as I said, back down to earth with a bump. I’ve got a crazy day tomorrow, with wall-to-wall meetings, including the Double Club, interviewing the propective new admin assistant and meeting what seems to be the only other UK Eisenhower fellow!
Talking about the EU 