It would be nice if, occasionally, she got worked up about something that had nothing to do with bananas. But I don’t think that’s her, really.Anyway, into the parliament’s restaurant for lunch It is the sort of place that tries to be smart but isn’t. Did you mind Tony Blair sending his child to a selective school outside his borough?”It’s not something I would have done, no.”"Did you object to the reduction in the single-parent benefit?”"I did write to Harriet Harman, saying I didn’t agree.”"So, in short, would you say New Labour were actually still Labour?”"I would say the nuances are different, but the principles remain the same. And I think Tony would say that too.”So, no, she won’t be drawn along the “New Labour are rubbish route”, either.

It had to adapt.”"But how much of the `New Labour’ adaptation has actually been capitulation?”"Well, there is no point sitting around cherishing an ideology if you can’t get elected, is there?”"OK. They just weren’t swish or superficial enough for the self-interested, GTI-driving, a-banana-is-just-a-banana sort of people we became from the Seventies onwards Glenys, I think, would agree. She even says: “I wonder, now, if someone from Neil’s background can ever be Prime Minister.”"Why?”"Because of snobbery. Because he’s the son of a steelworker from Wales.”"So Labour, in order to get in, had to appear classier?”"Yes. It’s a disgrace!” God, I’m a hopeless and despicable and cheap old fake I don’t think Glenys is, though Her concern, I’m sure, is genuinely and passionately felt. In many ways she might have always been rather too good for us.Certainly, she and Neil were always the real thing, rather than the Islington thing, as far as Labour were concerned And, it occurs to me, this is actually what did them in.

I have written memos saying only Caribbean bananas should be on sale here. I shall have to write another.” Yes, you shall, I concur, affecting great outrage. I even add: “It’s terrible that they should sell Ecuadorian bananas here. Pardon? “Look at this banana!” she cries.
We are in one of the parliament’s coffee bars The bananas are for sale on the counter She is waving one furiously in the air “Look at it,” she repeats I say it looks like a nice banana.

Sort of yellow and crescent- shaped, which, to my mind, is just how a banana should be “But read the sticker,” she cries “Where is it from?” It’s from Ecuador “Exactly,” she says “We should not be buying bananas from Ecuador. We should be supporting the Caribbean banana growers.” Should we? “Yes Yes They are being squeezed out by the Americans. He gets pounds 103,000 plus a pounds 40,000 expense allowance, which makes him far better paid than, say, Tony Blair. Their combined income must be around the pounds 200,000 mark, which, for a couple of defeated old socialists who were out of jobs in 1992, isn’t bad going.