DIARY: Kippers and corrections for Blackpool breakfast

Despite positive reactions to Tony Blair’s airing at the recent GPC

Connect-organised business conference, New Labour’s attempts to woo

industry leaders at its own bash are looking somewhat shaky.

Labour was advised by business campaign group London First that it

intended to run an 8am fringe breakfast meeting at next month’s

Blackpool party conference. The do was thus included in the event guide

but, rather unconventionally for a breakfast meeting, was listed at 8pm.

To prevent assorted politicos wandering around looking like so many lost

souls, London First alerted Labour which sent out a correction slip. So

far so bad: the slip not only misspelt wheelchair and referred to

speaker and shadow transport secretary Frank Dobson as ‘principle (sic)

opposition’ but wiped out the whole point of the correction by giving

two different start times for the meeting.

The organisers have now promised to be put another correction slip on

all delegates’ seats which, hopefully, they will be able to find.

A bemused Patrick Kerr, London First’s public affairs manager, says

plaintively: ‘We just wanted to maintain the old London tradition of

having breakfast in the morning.’