Stephen Pollard: Teach those teachers some better insults

It seems I have done the National Union of Teachers an injustice. I had always thought there was nothing more boringly predictable than its Easter conference: ritualised heckling of a minister; the occasional slow hand clap; the usual suspect Trots; and the thrice-hourly calls for strike action.

But after seeing the NUT in action once again this year, I realise I have missed the point. They might well be a rabble to whom most of us wouldn't entrust our furniture, let alone our children. One weekend of television coverage of their conference might well do more damage to the idea of teaching as a profession than any amount of strike action. But it's only this year that I've appreciated the true point of the NUT conference.

It's not about education, or teaching. The heckling is the point of it. It's clear to me now. Not for the NUT just the usual boos. Finely honed throat athletes, they spend a year in training, getting ready for the big event: the annual ministerial speech. The rest of the weekend is just preparation, and then winding down. Only one thing matters: the ministerial heckle.

When NUT members boo, they are merely warming up, ready to put into practice the techniques they've been working on for the preceding 12 months. This year was exceptional. Even the first heckle, usually just a shout, was pretty polished. Just as Estelle Morris said she wanted to work in partnership with the NUT, a group yelled: "Not with you, Estelle". Nice touch that, adding her Christian name. Put her off guard straight away.

But it was with the main heckle that they excelled themselves. It was left-field, unpredictable and impossible to reply to without looking weak. Just as Ms Morris got into her stride, the hall was flooded with a cry: "We didn't invite her."

Think about it. It's brilliant. Grotesquely impolite, but based on a deep understanding of etiquette. Off-putting. Too vague to be contradicted, but sufficiently clear to be thoroughly undermining.

The rest of the heckles were all rather prosaic, but then, I suppose it's too much to expect a full hour of sustained invention.

Even the NUT hecklers are only human, after all. And the quality is certainly a lot better than what I hear at White Hart Lane. I have to confess here to being a Spurs season ticket holder. I've put up with a decade of rubbish on the pitch. But I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to put up with the chap behind me.

His regular heckle pops out within five minutes, every match. Our main striker, Les Ferdinand, is, objectively, useless and he stands around doing nothing for most matches. So I suppose my neighbour's cry of "You're a tart, Ferdinand, a tart" is well said. Once. But after being shouted every 15 minutes, every match, it loses something.

He did come up with one good shout last year. We have an ageing German midfielder who has famously never scored a goal – not for want of trying. When he gets the ball anywhere near the posts, he shoots. And misses. Every time. As my neighbour yelled after one attempt: "Typical of Spurs to have the only German who can't shoot straight."

It's a shame we never get to hear their responses. My favourite is that of the comic who simply looked at his heckler and asked: "Who cuts your hair? The council?"

The best heckle I have ever heard came from David Blunkett. He was in the audience at an education conference, listening to a speaker extol the merits of selection and grammar schools. The speaker was clearly in a minority of one, and his delivery was faltering. As he paused for breath, the then opposition education spokesman turned to his neighbour and said in a loud stage whisper: "Who is this nutter?" The speaker never recovered. I know, because I was the speaker.

stephenipollard@hotmail.com