Conference blog: Conference 2008

I turned a few heads this week by appearing at a fringe meeting at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham. Several Tory ‘representatives’ did double takes. Some were mildly rude; some were perfectly friendly. There were also plenty of Labour people who stopped to say hello, including, improbably, Sunder Katwala from the Fabian Society who looked like a fish out of water.

I had two distinct impressions of seeing ... read more

This year's conference has had a slightly different feel to it than those I have been to in recent years. To be precise there is a more serious atmosphere in and around the conference centre, not just on the main stage but in fringe events as well.

Usually conferences are a bubble, a miniature version of the Westminster village with political parties far more inward looking than at other times ... read more

After the three week conference season people might be forgiven for suffering from conference fatigue. Many will be trying to battle the effects of a Labour party conference which at times appeared to be a cross between the Japanese survival game show Endurance, and during all the standing ovations, a Jane Fonda work-out video. Manchester was a brutal and sometimes chaotic week, but the prospects for the forthcoming Conservative conference ... read more

Sunday was just one of those days. I was booked to chair a fringe meeting for the New Statesman at lunchtime and so got to Euston in good time for the Manchester train. That’s when it all started to go wrong. The train ‘wasn’t ready’ which, given that Virgin had presumably had since Saturday night to prepare it, was hard to understand.

When we finally did board the train ... read more

At the next election, foreign policy can be a winner for Labour. But only if we demonstrate why it is integral to Britain’s security and opportunity, set out a clear vision of British foreign policy that draws on our values, and show why progressive ends cannot be delivered by conservative means.

Foreign policy used to be considered enemy territory for the left. It was the realm where national interest had ... read more

The Bournemouth Identity

Bloggers rarely get the recognition they deserve – so it’s a good thing that the Liberal Democrats take time out to honour their keyboard warriors at conference. This year’s Lib Dem Blog Awards was a rout for Alix Mortimer’s intelligent and playful People’s Republic of Mortimer.

Mortimer’s blog attracts a keen following because she approaches issues with humour, honesty and genuine insight – but ... read more

It’s only been 4 days since I last wrote this blog, but it feels like a lifetime. In that time I’ve made 14 speeches, travelled about 20 miles on foot and even more on a “Segway.” As you may know, a Segway Personal Transporter is a strange device with two wheels side by side like a trolley or something. You stand on it and, well, whiz about. This caused a ... read more

Down to Bournemouth to join the Lib Dems. Not literally you understand. No, I'm actually here to chair a couple of New Statesman-organised fringes: one a debate on whether digital equality matters. Another - still to take place at the time of writing - on Network Rail.

Now I have a similar attitude to computers that I do to cars - I love to drive but have next to no ... read more

Party conferences are great fun for delegates, and I never think the TV coverage quite manages to capture the social networking element - seeing old friends for dinner and staying up late chatting over a drink.

Getting elected puts a bit of a spanner in the works of that, and while I still enjoy conference, the reality of a diary packed with early starts, speeches, debates and meetings tends ... read more

The fiasco over the 10p tax rate has highlighted more than ever the corrosive sense of unfairness created by Gordon Brown’s tax system; and the Tories have devoted themselves to making a virtue of having no policies at all, except those which favour dead millionaires.

On Monday Lib Dem Conference backed a new tax policy, which will bring fairness back into the tax system. This move separates us from ... read more

The most striking thing about Lib Dem Party conference is that everybody seems irrepressibly confident that, sooner of later, we’re going to be in government. It’s just a sort of assumption that’s made. And it explains why everybody takes every single debate and fringe so very seriously. Even in the bar on the first evening, people were in huddles discussing the merits of changing the voting system or reforming income ... read more

The first morning of Conference has a reassuring air about it. I had arrived the previous night after struggling through flash floods and rush hour traffic. This morning the sun was shining and all seemed right with the world.

Better still, and this is a unique experience for a Liberal Democrat Conference in recent years, another party was having a leadership crisis, not us. What will the media talk about ... read more