“IT'S time for a dance party and this one is especially for the ladies,” Anas Sarwar told a crowd of students at a Labour conference event sponsored by TikTok on Tuesday night.

Stood behind the decks at a club in Liverpool, the Scottish Labour leader played TLC’S No Scrubs to cheers from the crowd (below) – sticking his tongue out then wagging his fingers, somewhat in rhythm.

I first heard that Sarwar was going to be DJ-ing earlier that day in the Labour conference media room – and to expect R&B and 90s hip hop. That he did deliver – managing to at least not play the same song on a loop like Labour minister Lisa Nandy just 30 minutes earlier. Instead he next popped on ‘Where Is The Love?’ by the Black Eyes Peas – singing the lyrics whilst shuffling about.

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Mark Ronson’s Uptown Funk (ft. Bruno Mars) then rang out as Sarwar was joined on stage (below) by senior Labour MP Emily Thornberry for a dance off.

The man who some say is Scotland’s first minister in waiting goes full dad dance mode – think shoulder brushes and an awkward wooden gyrating move that is giving Donald Trump (below), and was perhaps the biggest blow to dancing since RayGun.

Alas, nothing could have prepared me for what happened next – as Sarwar and Thornberry started grinding. As Conor Matchett from the Scottish Sun put it – certainly not on our Labour conference bingo card.

But it also brought the dance off, mercifully, to an end.

The crowd of young Labour members loved it - with chants of “Anas” ringing out.

After all, this Labour conference was meant to be a celebration of July’s landslide General Election victory. In that context, scenes such as these make sense. 

But decisions made by this new Labour Government so far – from suspending just some arms licenses to Israel to cutting the Winter Fuel Payment to pensioners, especially as parts of Scotland hit just 3 degrees overnight – also make it feel incredibly inappropriate and tone deaf to many.

In any case, Anas Sarwar had his Michael Gove moment – and I am traumatised.