To Manchester to try to discern what, if anything, "Original Labour" might be up to - a task that was completed within five minutes of the announcement of the results. The key was in the second-preference votes, in particular those of the MPs who voted for Ed Balls. Nowhere else was the gap between Mili Ma and Mili Mi so pronounced - not even among the unions.

Twice as many politicians preferred Ed to Dave. This tells you all you need to know.

The war between Blairites and Brownites will be continued by other means. The thugs who put, and sustained, Brown in power are still in the ascendant. It was all I could do not to interrupt Red Ed's tepid acceptance speech with a chant of "Five More Years".

Frankly, Labour was doing fine without a leader. It was akin to the episode of Have I Got News for You when the tub of lard outpointed an absent Hattersley. And, of course, the appearance of the tub's victim at Mili Mi's side, along with Ginger Neil, only makes me more confident in my prediction. On reflection, "18 More Years" is nearer the mark.

All of which is highly gratifying and allowed me to dedicate the rest of the conference to writing Dave's speech and avoiding Julian Glover. Has there ever been a more infuriating Guardian journalist than the commentator who likes to call himself JG? He makes Michael White's "cracking wise" seem unpunchable. And he is even more resilient. Everywhere I roamed he was lurking with a card on which was inscribed: "The Coalition's Historian: Doing the graft so you get the first draft."

Cameron's speech is in many regards the hardest writing assignment I have undertaken since the fifth paper for the All Souls entrance. Osborne's cuts lurk on the horizon and rather preclude levity. No one wants to be the messenger when the message is so grim. And Dave's natural inclination would be to skate around the issue, leaving Osborne and Alexander isolated when the big freeze bites. All well and good, but he is, lest we forget, Prime Minister. Albeit in a rather technical sense for, without being unduly critical, he appears more absorbed, at present, in dear little Florence than weighty affairs of state.

He even suggested, with his serious face on, that he open the speech with slides of the birthing procedure. A suggestion I wittily deflected by remarking that his reputation as "No Notes Cameron" might suffer if he resorted to PowerPoint. But Dave, cooing baby talk to his daughter, was no
longer listening.