Help, New Order Are Following Me!

"In my youth, I was in a band labelled a 'fourth rate New Order'. This, my friends, is a first rate New Order!"

And with those slightly slurred words, Tim Farron whirled around to point at the sound system, and 'Blue Monday' by New Order started playing. I didn't actually know the name of the song at the time. It was only when I got back to my flat in Glasgow that I realised where I'd heard it before.

I typed into the Youtube search bar "starter for ten New Order" and, sure enough, was greeted with a clip from the beginning of the film 'Starter for Ten'. Brian Jackson is at his first Freshers' party, and that song is playing in the background. A little Wikipedia rooting and I had the name of the song. Back to Youtube and I soon had a New Order compilation album playing all the way through. As of Sunday 28.9.15, when I started writing this post, I have listen to this album roughly twelve times.

The first time I listened to it, it was because I wanted to see what Tim was on about. The second time I didn't really have anything else I fancied listening to. Now, when I click on that album, Youtube starts it at the point I left off last time. The music is nice enough, quite fun to sit in a spinny chair and dance to. But that's not why I've been listening to that album so much.

None of us knew how to dance to it. I don't think any of us were born earlier than around 1990. Tim was at first the only non-LY member on the dancefloor - well, that part of the dancefloor; we were so intrigued by his ... vintage ... style of dance that we sort of swarmed around him - so at first he was pretty much the only one dancing. We started to notice that his movements weren't totally smooth. He sort of bobbed up and down as his arms glided this way and that through the air. Slowly, and not very surely, we started to imitate him. Except Jack Davies and Julia Wright. They'd been going for it from the start.

I remember turning round to see what kind of crowd had amassed. It actually wasn't all that large, but the look on everyone's faces was one of joy and surprised amusement. I was standing next to Ryan Mercer and Hannah Bettsworth and I don't think any of us could stop laughing. I remember thinking to myself that I was happy, forcing myself to remember the feeling of calm that was washing over me. At one point Tim leaned in to me and Ryan and said, "I am moderately embarrassed." He just kept going though, and so did we. It was that image of Tim unashamedly dancing his wee eighties heart out that I wanted to preserve. That image and that feeling.

That is why I keep listening to New Order. I was walking along Byres Road on the way back to my flat from university one day and saw an advert in the window of a shop called Fopp: "New Order: 'Music Complete'. CD £10, Vinyl £20." I grinned and seriously contemplated going in to buy it. (I ended up deciding to wait for reviews. New material from 80s bands is never an insta-purchase). I grinned because I was immediately picturing Tim shuffling around, doing the best Dad-dancing I've ever witnessed, and the smiles on everyone's faces as they forgot their disputes and differences over motions that had passed or hadn't passed that day. That's why I grin every time I listen to that New Order compilation album.

However, it isn't all about Tim. I loved that night because it was a party - the kind with glowsticks, not the kind with voting passes - with friends I will see at most three or four times a year. That was my favourite thing about conference. It may be because I'm young, or new, or both, but the social aspect of the party - in both senses of the word - is what pulled me to the far end of Britain for the two days immediately before I started my first year of university.

I have so many memories of just hanging out with my friends at conference: Gareth Ogg and I going on a desperate quest to find a poke ae chips; Natasha Chapman, George Potter and I deciding to privatise Ryan Mercer so we could buy shares in him; sitting with Nomi Farhi on the beach as she serenaded Bournemouth with her song 'Ode to UKIP'; Chloe Hutchinson, slightly tipsy after the disco, leaning on me and talking about I don't even remember what; Jonathan Waddell and Hamish MacKenzie reassuring me before our flight that I wouldn't miss it.

It's not that there aren't Liberal Democrats in Glasgow. In fact, here is a link to the Glasgow University Liberal Democrats Facebook page. I've met six Libdems at the uni so far and they've all been lovely. But it really isn't about being Libdems. I loved that weekend because I was with my friends, who happened to be liberals. Never mind being able to discuss Libdem policies without having tuition fees thrown in my face every two minutes. Never mind England being a safe space to criticise the SNP. Never mind my house being in a ward where the Libdem candidate got 32 votes in a recent by-election. The simple fact of the matter is: I miss you idiots.