COMRADES at the Blairite magazine Progress feature an article calling for unions to stop “banging on about Labour” and focus on “rapidly-evolving workplaces.” Progress regularly publishes pieces calling for the party to support “fiscal responsibility” and its website even features “A message from Tony Blair.” Give them some sympathy — banging on is hard enough, but banging a broken drum is a tough job indeed.

We hear that delegates have swapped iPlayer for the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy website to catch The Campaign, an hour-long film made about the very same pressure group in the early 1980s. At CLPD’s fringe meeting yesterday lunchtime, CWU general secretary Billy Hayes said it was well worth checking out. “You’re in the company of film stars,” he told the audience, referring to panel members Jon Lansman and Pete Willsman, who were played by actors in the movie. “It probably got the lowest-ever viewing figures,” said the modest Willsman.

Speaking of film stars, who should we find at the heroic Shrewsbury 24 stall but John Bohanna? Among many other things, he was a talking head in the BBC series Lefties. Bohanna was featured as a “founder” of News on Sunday, the optimistic but sadly failed project to get a left-wing Sunday paper to a million readers a week. I’ve no doubt that with a few more pictures of dogs named after revolutionaries we can take the Daily Miracle to a similar number.

Too few heckles at Congress for my liking this year, but hats off to the delegate who sat reading the Star throughout Mark Carney’s speech. There was also a loud bark-like yelp from somewhere near the Unison delegation. Did Che sneak into the conference hall? We deserve to be told.