Back in September 2002, Yates’s Wine Lodge was a Blackpool institution: packed, raucous and not for the faint-hearted.
And for three Labour MPs looking for sanctuary from the buzz and noise of the Party Conference at the nearby Winter Gardens complex one weekend that month, it was the perfect spot for a quick pre-lunch drink.
We had been MPs for just over a year – me, Kevin (now Lord) Brennan and Andy Burnham – and, as we stood around that sticky table, cool pints of 11am lager in hand, we were contemplating the future.
Each of us was still wide-eyed about politics in
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