THE seventh congress of the Workers’ Party was meant to be North Korea’s most notable political shindig in nearly four decades. The sixth, in 1980, was a coming-out party for its then dictator-in-waiting, Kim Jong Il. At this one the late Kim’s son, Kim Jong Un (pictured), spoke for interminable hours to more than 3,000 clapping delegates, lauding a recent nuclear test and missile launch (subjects know nothing of the three that flopped last month) and announcing an empty five-year economic plan. None of the 120-odd foreign journalists invited to cover the show saw any of this gripping stuff, being sent off to a model electric-cable plant, a pristine hospital and a silk mill instead. Things briefly went off-script when North Korea expelled a BBC journalist and his team for “disrespectful” reporting—furnishing visiting media with some news after all.