Hopi Sen

EDIT: I keep forgetting to point out that when I write these “found email” things they’re just me making stuff up so I can say things that aren’t nesc. things I believe. Sorry for any confusion. The following was found a bin in a Brighton meeting room.  I thought people might find it interesting. Names [...]

For busy journalists (like Rachel Sylvester) thinking of writing an article about appealing to middle Britain, class war, taxes and so on,  STOP! Before writing the article, please note down your beliefs about what “Middle Britain” is like, and compare them with reality. Answers to my “How rich is middle Britain pop quiz” after the [...]

I think someone at the Sun doesn’t like me very much. The first promotional material I ever get from the Sun*, and it’s an email telling me why my party deserves to lose the General Election and asking for some links, followed by an email with a giant jpeg of their front page, just to [...]

This speech didn’t need to be the speech of Gordon Brown’s political life – that description fit last year, when the party was in a truly febrile mood, David Miliband was being coy, ministers were hedging and a string of poor performances (notably at the National Policy Forum, where the PM gave a unfocussed, overlong [...]

Rumours. Something about them sends journalists a little doo-lally. So it was this weekend. Which reminded me of another famous example of how a rumour about a politicians mental state managed to sidle its way into the news agenda – when Hunter S Thompson wrote that there were rumours that Presidential Candidate Ed Muskie was [...]

Heretical thought number one: Peter Mandelson is not a particularly good speaker – he stumbles over words, puts emphasis in strange places. The reception he got (and deserved) was based on the parties enthusiasn for a fighting speech, not a quitting speech. Heretical thought number two: Why do speeches even matter anyway? Why do we [...]

First things first. People write and talk a lot about Labour conference. The amazing thing is how it’s all the same stuff. Watching conference from outside, and following it on blogs, in newspapers, the first sense you get is of the homogenisation of commentary and reporting. When you’re at a party conference, you talk all [...]

I write this sitting at work on my lunch break.  For the first time in a decade, I’m not at Labour party conference and it feels rather strange. Why have I decided not to be where all the action is? All those meetings. All those discussions. All those people to introduce yourself to and be [...]

… in checkbox form Things I have done at party conferences past [x]  Been asked to supply a joke for the leaders speech [  ] Supplied a joke for the leaders speech [x] Persuaded someone I’d never met to buy me a drink [  ] Persuaded someone I’d never met to vote Labour [x] Spent [...]

When the Lobby believed the British Prime Minister and American President had too friendly a relationship, and mocked the British Prime Minister relentlessly. If i were a Newspaper editor, and my Westminster correspondent filed this fluff every time there was a major summit, I’d be unable to resist replacing them with a finance or diplomatic [...]