Ed Miliband came without his wife and was given a security man to sit with. He ignores at his peril the rule that leaders are never seen in public by themselves. A Labour supporter described him as looking "puny". Still, he was on the top level.
David Miliband tried to sit up the front in a favoured seat. But not being in the Cabinet he was moved back. The humiliation on his face was obvious. I think Chris Huhne got his seat.
Both Blair and Brown were invited - and were sat next to each other. They talked animatedly. "Bad luck about the IMF job, old son." "I never wanted it anyway. World Trade, I'll have that when it comes up." "Good idea. But I think George has offered it to Peter."
After 1,100 people had waited a couple of hours, a confident young woman - one of Jill Pay's deputy sergeants - made an announcement for our "safety". If any of us felt unwell during the speech, we were to let one of the attendants know. I can't imagine a General feeling the need to say that. It's just the sort of thing a civil servant from the Department of Work and Pensions would say though. She got a very good laugh from the body of the hall when she said, "The Speaker will make a brief speech".
Bercow's speech was perfectly good for two minutes but then he went off into human rights and dignity. It really wasn't for him to talk about that.
Obama's introductory joke was actually funny but then there was 40 minutes of intergovernmental platitudes until his one superb line "the grandson of a cook in the British army to stand before you as President of the United States." Some choking, welling-up, catch in e throat. Personal, concrete, Anglo Saxon. Otherwise, the best quotes from e speech were Churchill's and they weren't very good Churchill. The bird of freedom that chirps in the human heart. The chirping bird of freedom - it lacks sonority, doesn't it? "That should be tweeting bird, anyway." And when he quoted Churchill on how our Bill of Rights, Magna Carta and Habeas Corpus found their most famous expression in the American Declaration of Independence - that's like a right winger quoting JFK's "ask what you can do for your country". The patriotic punch there came from the fact he was a Democrat. Similarly, Churchill was flattering America and leaving the Declaration of Independence as the punchline. If he was actually keen to be nice to us he would have put it the other way round - that the Declaration of Independence wouldn't have been possible without the founding documents of the British Constitution - Magna Carta, Habeas Corpus and the Bill of Rights. He was doubtless speaking to his voters back home, but that's not polite.
The audience clapped only once (at British army cook). They may have been overawed, they may have been asleep.
After the speech, Obama shook hands with Blair and stroked him the length of his arm, shoulder to wrist. He gave Brown a matey pat on the arm, shook hands briskly and aoudad eye contact. Poor Gordon couldn't find anyone to talk to and marched purposefully across the width of the Hall to a group of people to whom he was obviously senior.
Obama shook hands with people on the aisle as he went down - ah, yes that was why there was such jostling for position before. And everywhere he went, the people around him applauded. Like courtiers. Never seen that before in England. Bercow introduced him to Nicholas Soames, "This is Churchill's grandson." Obama: "That's quite a pedigree. Do I have to pay royalties on the copyright of the quotes?"
Paul Waugh was the only journalist to get his hand shaken
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