This week, our intrepid diarist stalks the Tories

Ed Vaizey, the shadow culture minister, proved this week that Boris Johnson isn鈥檛 the only Tory to make gaffes. The MP, whose brief includes architecture, told delegates at an event on 鈥渁rchitecture and happiness鈥� held by the RIBA and Urban Hub that a building that had made him 鈥渧ery unhappy indeed鈥� was Westfield鈥檚 White City shopping centre. A bold statement, given that Vaizey was speaking at an event sponsored by, er, Westfield. And was sitting in front of a billboard advertising, er, Westfield. When informed of this after the debate, Vaizey offered the very Johnsonian response: 鈥淥h no! What an imbecile!鈥� Quite so.

  • If further evidence were needed that the building industry is naturally Conservative, it can be found by comparing the two main party conferences.

The Construction Confederation and Construction Products Association鈥檚 event at the Labour conference was cancelled at short notice owing to a double booking. In contrast, the industry event at the Tories this week was packed to the gills, with standing room only for latecomers. Could this be the beginning of a beautiful friendship?

  • Vaughan Burnand, chief executive of Shepherd Construction, could very well claim to be the unluckiest man in construction.

In his speech at the construction event, the 鈥渁political鈥� Burnand spoke to his audience about the crisis in the construction sector, using his own St Paul鈥檚 development in Sheffield as an example. City Lofts, Shepherd鈥檚 client on the 拢42m job, went bust in July, but the project鈥檚 two funders insisted that construction continued. Sounds okay, said Burnand, until you find out one of the funders was Lehman Brothers, which went bust about a month later. Work is continuing, but let鈥檚 hope the other funder wasn鈥檛 Bradford & Bingley 鈥�

  • There was a very small town feel to this week鈥檚 Olympic fringe event.

First, a Tory councillor led the crowd in a half-hearted, tuneless rendition of Happy Birthday to Lord Coe, who had turned 52 on the day. Coe then had to field a question from an unidentified man who suggested an alternative to building an expensive athletes鈥� village might be to get volunteers to put the sportspeople up in their homes. Rumours that the unidentified man was employed by developer Lend Lease were unconfirmed.