Where is Eric Heffer when you need him?

Eric splits the Conference scene - again......

Watching the Labour Party Conference on the box this week is a bit like watching the occupants of an ants nest. Everyone knows what to do and how to do it. Everyone claps in the right places, laughs at crap jokes from dullard speakers and ecstacises over the most boring of speeches... They even gave Tory defector, Quentin Davies a standing ovation for God's sake. Not a trace of the Awkward Squad of old, not a trace of that tricky resolution tabled to conference delegates and union block votes, no heckling - and certainly no hint of anyone getting 'Wolfganged'...

What would Eric Heffer have made of it all?

Red Eric - an MP from the Socialist satellite of the Liverpool Soviet and his ilk made Labour Conferences of old just superb TV to watch. Hardly a resolution went by without Big Eric, dressed in his trademark light yellow suits, storming out of conference, closely followed by fellow collectivists, Ian Mikardo and Renee Short. If you were lucky, mullet-headed Degsy Hatton and Tony Mulhearn, his co-founder of the Scouse People's Liberation Army would pop up offering to give Dennis Healey a Kirkby Kiss.... And TUC boss, Vic Feather could always be counted on to threaten the immediate walk out of a million workers if the Polaris missile resolution went through... Somewhere along the line, 358 year old Manny Shinwell would be wheeled onto centre stage so that everyone could applaud the oldest MP who ever lived...

And over on the top table, in a haze of smoke sat Harold Wilson, Ray Gunther, Barbara Castle and the rest, puffing away for all they were worth. If it wasn't a pipe, it was Capstan Full Strength - no one had heard of Health and Safety then. Brylcreem, National Health Specs, rolled up sleeves and loosened collars were the fashion statements of the day.... Michael Foot could always be relied on to wear his brand spanking new duffle coat at Conference - and George Brown would drink the free bars dry - and then go on the telly to proclaim that workers of the world should untie.....

It was exciting, it was spontaneous and it was passionate - it was 'must see TV'. In those days it was the Tory Conference which was stage-managed and the Liberal Conference which was uber irrelevant...

But those days have well gone, sharp suits and PR bods infest the floor - and as a consequence it's a boring as a Leonard Cohen gig.

Give me Militant Tendency any day over Brown-nosing tendency.