Greetings dear readers. I'm now in Manchester for the Tory party conference after experiencing the highs and lows of Labour last week and am about to head to the secure zone. As well as picking up a fringe guide, I'll no doubt stumble across the mini-shopping mall that is apparently trading in the exhibition hall.
Yes, you read that correctly, 17 retail brands, including Asda and Tesco, have set up temporary stores in the hall. While I can, at a stretch, see the reason for supermarkets having a presence, as buffets become a bit samey after a while, bizarrely retailers such as Harvey Nicks and Carpetright are also there too.
Maybe the brands taking part are doing this in the hope of having some high-profile visitors. If the paps got a shot of Sam Cam in the Asda store it could do wonders for their attempts to appeal to middle-class shoppers. If they can get Dave's wife patting her bottom in homage to their ads then the sky's the limit.
Perhaps once I see the spectacle in its full glory it will all make sense but at the moment it sounds pretty dumb.
It's being talked up as the first time a political party has done anything like this at their annual conference. I'd say there's a good reason for that...
