IT WAS all so top secret that it was almost like a spy novel. I speak, of course, of Labour’s local government election campaign launch. Even the night before, the event remained shrouded in mystery. My only clue to what was going on was that I had been given a secret pager number and the instruction to ring it at 07.30 hours (spies always use 24-hour clocks, I believe). Only then would I receive the co-ordinates for the launch location.
Hardly any press could be allowed in because “space was very limited”. This made it sound even more mysterious. I had visions of an underground bunker. How dull then to find myself at a boring old building near Tower Bridge (it was five storeys high and so space obviously not that limited). We were ushered into a secret closed room and told that no questions were allowed.

Why was this? But that was a question and, therefore, could not be answered. If questions are banned, they are banned. No exceptions, even for questions about a ban. I must say that holding an election launch without questions was a bit odd. But I could see their point. After all questions can be so very irritating. Questions are, in fact, almost as unpredictable as voters. If the Labour Party could, it would hold elections without any voters or questions to mess up their lovely plans. Is this democracy? (Sorry, that’s a question.) If it is then it’s democracy, Soviet-style.

Unusually for the launch of an election campaign, there were no questions from the media permitted