Labour go home!

My fair city of Manchester is currently playing host to the Labour party conference. Everybody seems to think that this is a great honour for the city and generally a Good Thing. Everybody, that is, apart from those of us who actually live here.

For the last two nights, a helicopter has hovered over my flat for much of the night. I presume that this is somehow to protect Tony Blair, who is staying in a hotel a couple of hundred metres from my flat. It’s bloody irritating, let me tell you. I also can’t help but wonder if it’s just to make the whole thing seem more important: sort of making the Prime Minister more prime ministerial.

The city is absolutely swarming with police in luminous jackets; major streets are blocked off with large metal barriers that are designed to allow people to walk or cycle through, but would be heavy enough to stop a truck packed with explosives in its tracks. There’s something a tad uncomfortable about living just outside the perimeter of a probable terrorist target.

Yesterday along with many others, I had my photograph taken on the street by several policemen with large cameras. There’s something menacing about being photographed by a policeman wearing a jacket marked “evidence gathering” in big bold letters. The evidence they were gathering was that I was walking from A to B as best I could. My suspicious behaviour was to be near the protected zone without seemingly good reason (living next door presumably not being good enough reason). I have never sneered at another human as much as I sneered at that policeman. Should I ever actually do anything like become a serial killer, the photo will make a suitable illustration for the background behind the newsreader, since I would surely look very sinister and aggressive. Not because I’m sinister and aggressive, but I do not like having my photo taken for purported “evidence” when all I’m doing is walking to work. It’s plain wrong and Big Brother very truly IS watching you. He doesn’t quite know why, but he’s still watching you and taking photos which will no doubt be scrutinised and neatly filed.

Went out to restaurant Choice last night with Mum and Dad, for the first time in ages. Choice is one of Manchester’s more upmarket restaurants and it’s a bit of a favourite of mine. Sadly, it later became packed with Labour party delegates; a number of whom were predictably awful. One guy in particular fancied himself as a bit of a ringleader and he saw it as his right and duty to fill the place with his boorish presence. Scouser, unsurprisingly. My recent personal dealings with scouse union leaders have sadly done nothing to improve my mental picture of both union leaders and scousers, as the men in question (who I obviously can’t name) are crooks. It’s a shame, the ordinary union members they represent deserve much better. Several of the diners continued to wear their ID badges around their neck, presumably as some badge of honour because they were important enough to get in and we weren’t. I suspect that they thought it exuded some sort of mayoral aura. It actually looked more like a “Jim fixed it for me” badge of the type that Jimmy Saville used to give out to kids in the 1970s than a chain of office. Pillocks. I couldn’t resist saying to one of them on the way back from the toilet, in a manner of affected helpfulness “Sorry love, you know you’ve forgotten you’re still wearing your badge?” She chose to ignore me and that made it all the funnier for me.

I really do wish that they’d all just go back home.