Keep up at the back, please

Various black-suited admirers of Ed Balls were positioned at the side of the Labour Party conference hall for the shadow chancellor’s speech yesterday, slapping their hands in what looked like organised applause.

But not everyone was being quite so respectful. About halfway through Balls’s oration a bark of laughter came from a fellow who turned out to be David Wright, Labour MP for Telford. He was deep in a private conversation with another delegate and did not seem to be paying much attention to the maestro’s great musings. If past Labour behaviour is any guide, Wright should expect a dead sheep’s head in the post.