Greenpeace – and a lot of red faces
ONE of the many reasons I have stopped going to party conferences (full list on application) is the ludicrous security palaver. Not only are you required to supply, months in advance, piles of intrusive details on fiddly forms, but there’s little point. When you get there, you must undergo ‘airport-style security’ to get in, even though police know in full detail you are not a terrorist.
I have always thought this futile and oppressive, and probably useless too. And so it now seems. Getting into the hall for the leader’s speech requires yet another level of selection. So can anyone explain how two well-known Greenpeace activists – head of politics Rebecca Newsom and political campaigner Ami McCarthy – were able to obtain seats in the Birmingham audience on Wednesday?
I’m not complaining. They brightened an otherwise dull morning. But if anyone is actually paying attention to all those forms, how did it happen?