Everything stops for tea

Did a surreptitious cuppa scupper Ed ?  The extra demands of boiling water on locally-generated power are thought to have taken the Labour leader off our tv screens for five minutes during his party conference speech in Liverpool this week - and the inquest and finger-pointing seems to be continuing....

BBC version "It was a technical fault caused by a generator failure in a contractor's truck which was supplying a pooled feed to broadcasters." 


Sky News version "Unfortunately during Ed Miliband's speech a junction box powering some of the broadcast trucks tripped and as a result we lost the feed to our live link".


Carole Erskine, Sky News blog post "I can reveal that an engineer - for a different channel - simply tried to boil the kettle to make himself a cup of tea but this small action tripped a power supply and knocked out several trucks" 


Jon Craig, Sky News conference diary "....the ITV News technician who boiled a kettle in a satellite truck during Mr Miliband's speech, blew a fuse and robbed television viewers of the speech for about five minutes".

Below, a picture of the alleged crime scene which has fallen into my hands. I have blanked some brand names, but as you can see, the water-boiling machine is closer to an urn than a kettle.  I note, too, the nice little cafetiere, and the semi-skimmed milk.  A first glance a rather rugged area, but clearly used by some sensitive souls, not perhaps, as interested in Mr Miliband's words as others.