The great thing about drinking is that it makes time fly. Crack open the first bottle at 9pm and by the time the fourth is uncorked it seems that only minutes have gone by before it’s two in the morning.
Dr Who must have been one hell of a boozer to manage all that time travel.
Party conferences are an excuse for the political classes to get plastered; plotting the downfall of the prime minister is thirsty work.
And even if that is not the reason for being there and you just want to party then there are so many receptions, fringe events and get-togethers where hooch is served you can pretty much stay pie-eyed for free day and night.
WATCH NOW: Rishi Sunak speech highlights
It was like that at the Tories in Manchester this week and it will be the same again at Labour in Liverpool next week. The determination to get wasted knows no political boundaries.
I have been going to party conferences for 38 years. For the first 21 of them, I was a drinker and they went by in a flash. For the last 17 years, I’ve been off the booze and they have tended to drag somewhat.
Rishi Sunak is also teetotal, so he’s had a long week. But that has allowed him to keep a clear head while all around were holding theirs. It has also given him plenty of time to try to create the cult of Rishi.
This is what he means by the new politics. Where once he implored the electorate to vote Conservative he is now urging them: “Vote for me, me, me.”
Where once he implored the electorate to vote Conservative he is now urging them: 'Vote for me, me, me'
GB NEWSI’ve not seen such a naked attempt to dominate the entire stage since Margaret Thatcher. Perhaps Mr Sunak is also looking for an ‘ism’ at the end of his name.
At least Mrs Thatcher didn’t use husband Denis to introduce her party conference speeches, but she might have done so had there ever been a time during the day when Denis could be relied on to be sober.
So there was no better way for the cult of Rishi to be imprinted on the national consciousness than for his wife, Akshata, to be his warm-up act. It’s what US presidential candidates do. Until now she has been in the shadows. Today she became Britain's First Lady.
Yes, this is the end of the Rishi as PM and the beginning of Rishi running for president. He is telling the Conservatives that he will do it his way and the party can follow him if they wish, but he does not care overmuch if they don’t.
That’s exactly what Thatcher used to do. She gave her Cabinet ministers free rein to do and say what they want because she made it perfectly clear what she expected them to do and say. And if they diverted from her path she fired them. Where Thatcher was the Iron Lady Mr Sunak is now trying to be the Man of Steel.
'Home Secretary Suella Braverman smiled through Mr Sunak’s speech, but through gritted teeth,' writes Nigel Nelson
PA
It was significant he kept mentioning the mistakes of the last 30 years and in doing so rubbished every PM who came after her. It was not just Labour’s Tony Blair and Gordon Brown Mr Sunak threw under his as yet unspecified new buses. He gave John Major, David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss a shove into their path, too.
Mr Sunak is deliberately distancing himself from the Conservative Party. His reaction was telling when asked by GB News Political Editor Chris Hope whether he would allow Nigel Farage to become a Conservative. Yeah, whatever, the PM seemed to shrug. Makes no difference to me.
Notice how many times Mr Sunak has replaced ‘we’ with ‘I’, both in his speech and the interviews which preceded it. He told conference: “I will tell it like it is. I will lead in a different way...I have an obligation to do the right thing.”
As I wrote on GBNews.com last week, his plan to increase the smoking age by a year every year until no one can buy cigarettes is a very unconservative thing to do.
The proposal had been previously binned for that reason because the Conservatives are nothing if not the party of choice and freedom, the party which believes people have the right to make decisions for themselves. President Sunak has taken that choice out of their hands.
He has even U-turned on the Conservative decision to scrap rail station staff. By abandoning HS2 and diverting the £36billion saved for hundreds of new stations they are going to be sorely needed to operate them.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman smiled through Mr Sunak’s speech, but through gritted teeth. As well she might. It had been a mystery why he had ever allowed her to say multiculturalism had failed in Britain. But giving her the rope to hang herself was straight out of the Margaret Thatcher playbook.
Mr Sunak even went as far as to say that he and his family are an example of why multiculturalism has worked in a further hint to Ms Braverman that she might like to start clearing her Home Office desk.
Earlier she had inadvertently stepped on a guide dog’s tail while touring the conference centre. It was a metaphor for what is to come under President Sunak.
Any Cabinet minister who steps out of line and treads on the wrong tail is going to be out.
