CLARE SHORT famously called Tony Blair's spin doctors "the people who live in the dark," writes Frank Millar. Yesterday they cast us all in darkness, first to watch the video, then to await the real thing.
Queues for seats began as soon as they cleared Blackpool's Winter Gardens for lunch. By the time the searchlights announced the leader's presence it was standing room only. It proved a long stand.
The 65 minute speech, promising "a new age of achievement", was a serious business. And anyway, Rory Bremner's script writer had apparently baulked at the invitation to supply laugh lines. Still, there was some humour, much, of it predictably at the Tories expense.
The Prime Minister was so weak, so incapable of placing his stamp on his government that he had given birth to the first "ism" in politics to denote the absence rather than the existence of a political philosophy. "Majorism holding your party together while your country falls apart."
Still, Mr Blair confided. "He's got his secret weapon. I've got mine. . .Ken Clarke. Mr Feelgood Factor." The comrades (though curiously nobody seems to call them that) liked this reference to the hapless Chancellor.
And they were reassured to find the leader could even laugh at himself. "First it was Stalin. Then it was Kim Il Sung. Now it's the devil with the demon eyes. Can't we just go back to Bambi?" he implored.
Or maybe Kim Il Sung's official title? "The Great Wise Leader, President for Life Dearly Beloved and Sagacious Leader. Why not? That's what John Prescott calls me, sometimes." Again they laughed though one fancied perhaps just a touch nervously. The air would later fill with talk about a thousand days to prepare for 1,000 years". With Tony Blair they can never be absolutely certain.