Surely no one goes to a party conference to meet politicians?

One should be wary, as a general rule, of making general rules based on personal experience. This is a general rule I’ve made, admittedly, on the basis of personal experience, which I’m aware is problematic, but there you go. I always think of the time, at school, when a bunch of my fellow 14-year-olds had declared an armistice, and were having a late-night conversation about matters of personal experimentation of which a 14-year-old is normally loath to speak. The guilty and personal was revealed as healthy and universal, and comradely good feeling rose. In time, one boy made a terrible mistake. ‘Guys?’ he said. ‘You know when you do that thing with your thumb?’ And of course nobody did. Because nobody else did that thing with their thumb. I mean, Christ, who does? The freak.

This is my caveat. But still. Guys? You know when you go to party conferences, and you aren’t remotely interested in meeting politicians? I don’t think this is a thumb situation.