A trip to see the PM.....

Last night turned out to be rather good actually for a sad old politico like me …...

I got to chat to the Big Man for about five minutes with my group of three (eds from Milton Keynes and Cambridge) and talked about Bath, Tamworth, the credit crunch and my hair (don’t ask). He described Tamworth as ‘a nice place’ and praised Brian Jenkins. We had been warned he wasn’t very good at chit-chat and that is certainly how it seemed because at times he went almost into speech mode (‘we are in the midst of a global banking crisis etc…)’ but I felt he had integrity and cared about stuff. Not great in the charisma stakes though.

Two weird things. First he has that strange thing going on with his bottom lip and you almost have to stop yourself copying because it is quite infectious and secondly it is only when you are really close that you notice he has this odd eye thing too. He is blind in one eye as you may know and so you are never quite sure which is the good eye or even if he is looking at you. I may even have ignored the Prime Minister of GB at one point!

He wasn’t alone by the way. During the night we also saw Alistair Darling (who looks ridiculously young close up), Margaret Beckett (who looked ridiculously orange) and various other bods including Hazel Blears who has weird proportions - there is more hair than body.

Just as exciting for me was we had got chatting to a number 10 press officer before GB arrived and she took on us an on exclusive tour of all the state rooms and then (even better) the cabinet room (No one else saw this yah boo!). That was fascinating to think of the decisions (life and death, war and peace etc) that have been made in that room and it was also interesting to see the quirky thing that while every other chair is placed firmly under the desk, tradition demands that the desk the PM sits in is always out and at a specific angle. Curious.

One thing you may feel is a bit 'typical' is that as we were completing our tour we went into a tight corridor and I bumped into someone. That someone was, ahem, the Prime Minister of Great Britain. I know what your thinking Derek, ‘only Sam…’

On the way out we managed to get a quick snatched pic with our mobile but as you can see it was dark and it isn’t a great pic. Still, I will dine out on it for some time!


PS To be fair to GB he is very well informed. He said 'I used to follow your antics on the Mem Book - has it moved'? He then asked if I had heard from Andy Scott lately and if I had a spare demo copy of Slum Living.