Shropshire Star

Shirley Tart: Sashaying with Boris

Boris’s partner Carrie Symonds has provided light relief at conference, says Shirley Tart.

Published

We curios of media centres sometimes get invested with powers we simply haven’t got or can reveal. But like anyone else, I hope we all do our best to help the general public wherever possible.

And three times the other morning I was asked if I knew the whereabouts of the Prime Minister’s partner Carrie Symonds

I didn’t. She sashayed into the Manchester conference centre at the weekend on Boris’s arm and so far as several delegates and guests – apparently - could tell, she disappeared.

So how daft were we only a little time later this vision in blue and red frock and wide smile was spotted in the main hall with the rest of the audience. What do I know!

Incidentally, for all the fuss I made early on about Brexit being on everyone’s lips, as the conference got going, it was happily rarely mentioned – not in that all-enveloping way of the past at any rate. Debates were on the whole reasoned as hopes and fears for the future were outlined, but giving way to perhaps a natural excitement or at least intrigue, that the dreaded word might seriously be moving up a significant notch. Or several.

Whatever the outcome may be in (hopefully) the near future,

And as Mr Johnson prepares to deliver the next sheaf of papers into the care of European pundits, he was also delivering his Manchester speech to those of us who were with him rather than the ones left behind at Westminster at this most extraordinary time in our political lives. But the ‘b word’ didn’t feature anywhere near as forcefully as it might have done.

I will tell you what did, though. The largely quiet army of young people who seem to have come out of the wings and be silently saying: “The future is ours, please do not spoil.”

And it was as if they spoke across the political spectrum to all politicians and followers of all parties. So are you listening as the conference season ends? Please do not spoil!