Observations from the Labour Party Conference 3: Memories of Guardian errors

A few years ago, the Guardian was famous for its typographical errors.  I was reminded of this when I ran into Anita Pollack, the former London MEP, at the Foreign Policy Centre fringe.

She has a book coming out: “Wreckers or Builders? – A History of Labour MEPs 1979-1999″.

I can never see her without remembering the Guardian error.  This was in the European Election results issue in (I think) 1989.  At a late stage, the editorial team had clearly decided that they should refer to the “turnout” rather than the “poll” in each euro-constituency.  They used the then cutting edge technology of “Find and Replace”.

The result was that one of London’s MEPs suddenly became – the hitherto unknown – Anita Turnoutack.