Fans of Larry David’s deeply wonderful US comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm will be familiar with the social angst of the “Stop-and-Chat”. This is Larry’s description of the social obligation to stop walking where you’re going and to talk to anyone you happen to bump into whom you know. Larry hates the duty to “Stop-and-Chat”.
Sociopathic? Yes, but a straw poll of delegates in Blackpool suggests to me that most of them secretly agree with him when it comes to party conferences. “I hide in my room sometimes,” one Tory told me, “because I just can’t bear having to have the same ten minute conversation with people I haven’t seen since last conference and then promising them all lunch to make them go away. I end up having lunches into the New Year which I only agreed to so I could get where I was going in the first place.”
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