I believe that some of the actual events may have been more of a pantomime (though I think it was Bleasdale's intention to portray it as a classic farce, rather than realism. He's never been Ken Loach. Blackstuff had elements of farce and grotesque, and Scully even broke the fourth wall. But I digress).

I attended my first and last Labour conference while it was all kicking off and Kinnock had just begun to worm out the loony left. I went to see Billy Bragg and Derek Hatton went too, flanked by two police officers as bodyguards. No other MP in attendance, including front benchers had any security; his paranoia had clearly reached Lindsay-esque proportions.

Phil Jupitus was the MC for the evening. That's incidental to the story.