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Conference blog

UKIP not ready for an election

Matt Sandy reports from the UKIP conference where he finds a party unready for electoral battle

You can tell a UKIP member (that's UK Independence Party) from 20 paces, the un-reconstituted Right marching towards their encampment in this un-reconstituted corner of Docklands for their annual conference.

With their shiny white hair and rolled up copies of the Daily Telegraph; with their tweed suits and self-righteously upright posture. Four rosetted pensioners edge out of Limehouse station in a strict formation. The two couples ignore the handmade [...]

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Labour's 'patchy' content

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  • Posted by Andrew Mitchell
  • 03 October 2007

The government needs to be radically more open and transparent about aid spending, writes Shadow International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell

Yesterday we had a fantastic international development debate.

We were privileged and humbled to welcome two very different, but equally impressive, international guests to the stage.

Exiled Burmese human rights activist Zoya Phan made a dramatic and emotional speech. Holding aloft heavy iron shackles, she said:

"These shackles were smuggled out of a prison in Burma. This is what those monks who have been arrested will be forced [...]

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O come all ye faithful

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  • Posted by Stanley Johnson
  • 02 October 2007

Wind-turbines turn to face the wind. Sunflowers turn to face the sun. Will the British public turn once again to the Tories, wonders Stanley Johnson

I don’t know whether it was the stark lighting in the ballroom of the Winter Gardens at Blackpool or the giant backdrop of green trees and blue sky, but when George Osborne strode out onto the stage soon after mid-day, he looked perfectly plausible as a Chancellor-in-waiting. He seemed taller, a bit heavier, his voice fuller, more authoritative. What’s more, he had some real red meat for an audience desperate [...]

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A turning tide?

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  • Posted by Alan Duncan
  • 01 October 2007

An optimistic if rather stiff Alan Duncan reports from the Conservative conference on the day he addressed the party faithful

My legs are stiff this morning. I guess that's what you get for running 13 miles the day before! The Great North Run is a slog but it's all for a good cause. By completing the race I raised nearly £500 for Own It, a charity based in Newcastle, which helps disengaged students into work placements. I was more nervous before the race then I was before my [...]

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Upbeat Tories

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  • Posted by Anne Milton
  • 01 October 2007

Guildford MP Anne Milton files in the small hours from Blackpool where she's found her colleagues in buoyant mood

1am, later than I intended but always the way it goes, just end up meeting loads of people you havent seen for ages. Fantastic atmosphere here with the mood being very up beat - a general election - just bring it on! Doing 2 fringes tomorrow on mental health and safety in the NHS - late for speech writing but the night is yet young for conference goers! Blackpool giving [...]

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Late nights, long walks and much dashing about

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  • Posted by Sam Barratt
  • 28 September 2007

A day spent tackling Burma, Gaza, four Oxjam concerts, four recruitments and a potential office move is a relaxing one, compared to the Labour conference

As Head of Media for Oxfam, the party conference season is an important place to go and spend time with Britain’s most senior and influential journalists, to discuss issues of the day. There is a rich cast of characters who either are there hunting in the margins for something new, or for new ways to present old problems (Darfur being a classic head-scratcher for many), while others use it as [...]

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If I were you David...

Ali Miraj, who was kicked off David Cameron's candidate A-list in July, imagines what he would do if he were Tory leader including going on a people management course

Ali Miraj, who was kicked off David Cameron's candidate A-list in July, imagines what he would do if he were Tory leader including going on a people management course

In an effort to put the difficulties of recent months behind me I intend to take the following steps:

First, I will shake up the Shadow Cabinet as follows. William Hague will be moved to Shadow Chancellor and made Deputy Leader. [...]

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Snap election? Bring it on!

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  • Posted by Hazel Blears
  • 27 September 2007

Cabinet Minister Hazel Blears urges Gordon Brown to call an early election and warns the PM activists are too precious to become a "passive backdrop for ministerial speeches".

I’ve lost count of the number of journalists who’ve asked when the election is coming, including at 6.30am on GMTV. The answer is simple – I don’t know, and neither does anyone else, with one exception. The delegates in Bournemouth are enthusiastic about the prospect of an autumn poll. They want to give the streets – and the Tories - a pounding.

My conference week has been fantastic. I’ve been [...]

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The taxi driver's analysis

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  • Posted by Owen Walker
  • 27 September 2007

A glimpse of the pied piper, a Chinese driver who thinks he knows the PM's secret, and much more...

As a wet-behind-the-ears journalist, two months into my first job and on my first trip to a party conference, the prospect of filing for four publications – having never been to Bournemouth before – without a guide or map is a tad daunting.

I realised the level of my naivety at half-past five on Friday afternoon. It was only then my trip was finalised and I had a quick search [...]

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The virgin delegate

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  • Posted by Val Price
  • 26 September 2007

What the Labour women were getting up to and why some of them were on cloud nine after being 'folleted'...

My name is Val Price, and with my husband Fred, we have been members of the Labour Party since 1964. We joined in Slough when Fenner Brockway – then MP for Slough – lost by eleven votes in that General Election. We were horrified. He had been vilified by the local and national press through the Tories for his support of the anti-apartheid movement and his work with ethnic minorities. [...]

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Mandy's flirtation with Communism

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  • Posted by Jessica Asato
  • 25 September 2007

Jessica Asato observes that the fog has finally lifted, as Labour bounces back with renewed vigour, now that Mandelson has given his blessing...

For me, the start of Labour Party Conference is always signalled by Progress'popular annual Sunday night Rally. This year, expectant camera crews and delegates waited to hear Peter Mandelson give his blessing to Gordon Brown's premiership as revealed in the Observer that morning. Nervous laughs greeted Mandelson's concession that he'd indulged in a bit of flirting in his life, though thankfully not with David Cameron as the Observer had [...]

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Confidence floods back

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  • Posted by Martin Salter
  • 25 September 2007

Martin Salter passes a hectic if alcohol-free conference, pausing to reflect on how Brown seems strengthened by crises, steady and sure footed under fire

I think Labour delegates are in a state of sceptical euphoria, almost not daring to believe the opinion polls, the talk of an early election and the strong position the Party now finds itself in after just three months with Gordon Brown at the helm. How different the political landscape now looks from 12 months ago with a resurgent Tory Party under Cameron, the tearful long goodbye to Tony Blair [...]

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We cannot be killed

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  • Posted by Sion Simon
  • 25 September 2007

'Shortly there will be an election, in which Labour will increase its majority'

Let’s be clear: this is a mad one. You won’t have heard it anywhere else, but you can take it from me. At the age of 38, this is my 17th consecutive Labour Party conference, and I’ve never been to one quite like this.

It’s in the nature of collective hysteria that no single act can be adduced to prove its existence. But there is a fin de siecle, self-destructive, [...]

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Proud to be unions

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  • Posted by Billy Hayes
  • 25 September 2007

Billy Hayes reflects on Tony Blair's greatest achievement and attacks the comprehensive failure of the Royal Mail's management in his blog from Labour conference

My day started with a meeting of the CWU Conference delegation at 7.30 a.m.

Our delegates debated out what our policy should be on the contemporary motions facing conference.

I never cease to be amazed at the interest, intellect and passion displayed by Union and Labour movement activists. It may not make my job as General Secretary easy, but such a power certainly makes for effective work by the Union.

[...]

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There's a buzz in the air

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  • Posted by Michael Cashman
  • 24 September 2007

Ex-actor turned politician Michael Cashman on what's put a spring in Labour's step.

This is my ninth conference as a member of the National Executive Committee and there is a real buzz in the air. And not just in the bars. Ahead in the polls, unity amongst the members, unity with the trades unions and the government, and almost unity on the NEC! Something is in the air. Talk of elections. Dates were whirring around the bars and fringe last night and then [...]

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Conference Blog

Contributors

Matt Sandy

Andrew Mitchell

Stanley Johnson

Stanley Johnson

Stanley Johnson is an author, journalist and former Conservative member of the European Parliament. He has also worked in the European Commission. In 1984 Stanley was awarded the Greenpeace Prize for Outstanding Services to the Environment and in the same year the RSPCA Richard Martin award for services to animal welfare. In 1962 he won the Newdigate Prize for Poetry. He also happens to be the father of Boris Johnson.

Anne Milton

Anne Milton

Anne Milton is MP for Guildford. She entered Parliament in 2005 having become involved in politics in the early nineties. Before that she worked as a nurse. She is married with four children.

Alan Duncan

Ali Miraj

Ali Miraj

Ali Miraj was the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for the marginal seat of Watford at the 2005 General Election. In July he clashed with David Cameron accusing him of gimmickry and was promptly kicked off Tory leader's candidate A-list

Sam Barratt

Owen Walker

Owen Walker

Owen Walker is a journalist for a number of titles within Financial Times Business, primarily focussing on pensions. He recently graduated from Cardiff University’s newspaper journalism post-graduate course and is cursed by a passion for Crystal Palace FC.

Hazel Blears

Hazel Blears

Hazel Blears is MP for Salford, and Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. She has served as Chair of the Labour Party, as Home Office Minister, and as Public Health Minister.

Val Price

Val Price

Labour Women's Network (LWN) was formed in 1988 and Val Price has been its National Co-ordinator for the past 18 years. A member since 1964 Val has held many posts in the Labour Party, stood for public office as a parliamentary candidate and a councillor, and now passes on her experience and knowledge to aspirant women candidates through her work with LWN

Sion Simon

Sion Simon

Sion Simon is Labour MP for Birmingham, Erdington. A former newspaper columnist, he is a member of the Treasury Select Committee and Chair of Labour's law and order manifesto group.

Martin Salter

Martin Salter

Formerly the Deputy Leader of Reading Borough Council, Martin Salter has been the Labour MP for Reading West since his election in 1997. Gordon Brown recently appointed him as Vice-Chair of the Party with responsibility for campaigning on the environment. He is also Labour's Parliamentary Spokesman on Shooting & Angling, and a member of the Home Affairs Committee.

Billy Hayes

Billy Hayes

Billy Hayes became General Secretary of the Communication Workers Union in July 2001. He is vice chair of Labour’s national policy forum and holds positions in the international trade union movement. Billy is married to Diane and has two young children, Melissa and Niall

Jessica Asato

Jessica Asato

Jessica Asato is Deputy Director of Progress and a Member of the Fabian Society Executive.

Michael Cashman

Michael Cashman

Ex-actor turned politician Michael Cashman was elected as a Member of the European Parliament in 1999. He represents the West Midlands region. He is an elected Member of the Labour Party's National Executive Committee (NEC) and also Labour's European Spokesperson on Justice and Home Affairs issues in the EP.

Tony Benn

Tony Benn

Tony Benn retired from Parliament in 2001 after more than 50 years to ‘devote more time to politics’. The longest serving Labour MP in the history of the party he served as a cabinet minister under Wilson and Callaghan.

Nick Clegg

Nick Clegg

Nick Clegg is leader of the Liberal Democrats and MP for Sheffield Hallam. Clegg initially trained as a journalist before working as a development and trade expert in the EU. He was elected as MEP for the East Midlands in 1999, stood down in 2004, lectured at Sheffield and Cambridge universities, and was elected to the UK parliament in 2005.

Peter Black

Peter Black

Peter Black is the Welsh Liberal Democrat Assembly Member for South Wales West, Chair of the Assembly's Education Committee and a regular blogger

Jo Swinson

Jo Swinson

Elected in 2005, Jo Swinson is Liberal Democrat MP for East Dunbartonshire and Shadow Minister for Women and Equality. She chairs the party’s Campaign for Gender Balance and is currently running a campaign against wasteful packaging. Jo is the youngest MP in the House of Commons.

Lembit Opik

Lembit Opik

Lembit Opik has been Liberal Democrat MP for Montgomeryshire since 1997 and is the party's Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform

Sian Berry

Sian Berry

Sian Berry lives in Kentish Town and was previously a principal speaker and campaigns co-ordinator for the Green Party. She was also their London mayoral candidate in 2008. She works as a writer and is a founder of the Alliance Against Urban 4x4s

Ben Davies

Ben Davies

Ben Davies trained as a journalist after taking most of the 1990s off. Prior to joining the New Statesman he spent five years working as a politics reporter for the BBC News website. He lives in North London.

Tony Woodley

Tony Woodley

At 19 Tony Woodley began working Vauxhall’s Ellesmere Port factory where his father George was the full time works convenor. Tony joined the National Union of Vehicle Builders (NUVB), soon to become part of the T&G. Rising through the ranks of the T&G he became the organisation’s general secretary in 2003.

Bob Crow

Bob Crow

Bob Crow started as a London Underground track worker straight from school. He become a union rep and held a number of positions in the RMT before eventually being elected general secretary in 2002

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Recent Posts

UKIP not ready for an election

  • By Matt Sandy
  • 05 October 2007

Labour's 'patchy' content

  • By Andrew Mitchell
  • 03 October 2007

O come all ye faithful

  • By Stanley Johnson
  • 02 October 2007

A turning tide?

  • By Alan Duncan
  • 01 October 2007

Upbeat Tories

  • By Anne Milton
  • 01 October 2007

Late nights, long walks and much dashing about

  • By Sam Barratt
  • 28 September 2007

If I were you David...

  • By Ali Miraj
  • 28 September 2007