Brighton, midnight, the bar at the Metropole Hotel. On the one side, burly trade union officials, veterans of the Cold War Labour right, more expert in averting strikes than leading them. On the other, young left-wingers in jeans and trainers, nursing plastic bags full of leaflets and newspapers, smuggled in by the few MPs who will talk to them.
As the rival groups jostle each other at the bar, stacked three deep with people trying to get served, banter turns into arguments – about the route to power, the meaning of socialism, the traditions of the towns they come from.
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