Goodies return in the age of austerity

One of the highlights of conference season is when the Tory press officers hand out goodie bags in the press room (after three weeks on the road, tired hacks are easy to please).

This year's contains a yello t-shirt advertising the mocked-up "Ed's knee-jerk chicken shack" and a set of "Labour policy dice" - three dice which on my first go delivered Ed Miliband asked "how would you solve the debt crisis" and the answer "how the #@£% am I supposed to know". Perhaps they are loaded.

 

But amid the excitement came some disappointment - inside the goodie bag was a red book titled "Ed Miliband's policies for Britain", which has only blank pages in homage to Ed's infamous blank sheet of paper. All well and good, except journalists have been given this book before. Memories are short but it is thought to have made an appearance last year.

At least it gives Labour a chance to hit back. On the day George Osborne gave his keynote speech, might I suggest they accuse him of peddling his own red book of blank pages in reference to the Budget tome?

Craig Woodhouse
Follow me on Twitter @craigawoodhouse