We had a highly successful party conference season, attending all three of the main parties’ conferences.

Probably the highlight of the conferences was our programme of fringe events, held jointly with Pedantry Concern, which were well-attended and saw an extremely high standard of discussion at all three events.

We also met with all the key spokespeople on disrespectful humour issues, including Secretary of State for Irony Mike Gargler MP at the Labour Party conference in Brighton.

When the party conferences finished a few weeks back, I was at a stage when I couldn’t look at a MP on the TV without screaming “No! No more!” and looking wide-eyed for a hill to run up. Happily, I’ve now recovered enough to look back and attempt a sum-up of the NDCS experience at the party conferences 2009, bookending all of the daily blogs I did here last month.

Looking at the numbers, altogether, we met 57 MPs, peers and candidates for election. Of these, 27 were Ministers or Shadow Ministers, including:

* Lead on education for each party, and another four junior education ministers.
* Minister responsible for Building Regulations.
* Minister for Disability, and his Conservative counterpart.
* Minister responsible for audiology services.
* 11 prospective parliamentary candidates who are likely to be influential in the next Parliament.

Not bad, if I say so myself. All of these chin-wags helped us achieve cross party support for our campaign on acoustics which, in turn, helped us achieve our recent campaign victory and the new package of measures from the Department for Children, Schools and Families. In fact, the conferences came at just the right time for us, allowing us to do some precision lobbying at the moment it mattered.

Part of the reason why so many MPs wanted to meet with us was Louis Kissaun, our deaf young person with us, who was able to explain the issues in a more direct way to MPs. After all, it’s young people like Louis who suffer most from rubbish acoustics. Louis seemed to enjoy himself: you can read our little interview with him here.

More than anything, the conference was a chance to chin-wag, muscle in on conversations, network and have an informal chat about our work and concerns, which is something you can’t really put a price on. It was one big Mastercard priceless moment if you like. Lots of unexpected opportunities arose during the conference, like a chance encounter with a journalist from ITV Yorkshire, think tank academics working on special educational needs, other charities concerned about new schools, and so on. And not forgetting all the fringe meetings. We attended around 30 and tried to sneak in a question at every one.

By August next year, I will have forgotten how tiring three weeks of schmoozing is, and will be raring to go again…

Conservative Leader, David Cameron

It was an attendee at one of our fringe events who uttered this “finding the new normal” phrase and everybody left rather taken with it. It got me thinking about what could be the new normal for carers or indeed if carers had ever experienced a new normal.

I guess the reality is that for some carers, things have improved – some PCTs are increasing support for carers, and the Caring with Confidence programme has made it easier to manage their caring role. Take a carer from 1979 and transport them to 2009; would they say things have improved for carers? And for others, despite the strategies and announcements, they don’t feel that anything has changed in their life at all.

I’ve been at the Tory conference for a week but I’m still not sure if the Conservatives could create a new normal for carers. The Conservative work programme launched last Monday does not mention carers so we’ve planned a meeting to discuss this with them. Their big social care announcement focused on residential care only, although we are promised more policies on social care before Christmas. Health bodies should be accountable to local communities, but it is not wholly clear how this would operate.

The election is looming so it is important that we make parties clarify what they will do, rather than accept broad announcements. Sometimes it’s the small things that make the difference.

But at our event this week, Stephen O’Brien did give more information on the new residential care policy. They calculate that the average cost of residential fees is £52,000, which covers two years. Five people paying £8,000 = £40,000 but the Conservatives expect this £40,000 to accrue interest between the time of payment and when it is needed to pay for residential care (eg pay at aged 65, but might not need residential care until 75) to cover the cost of one person in five needing residential care. Is this 1 in 5 figure right? And is the expectation of accruing such interest reasonable?

Conferences are strange places where people desperately try to network with other people in an frenzy of insincerity. Gossip replaces debate; lobbyists, like me, push their message as the one big issue; and bizarrely it all happens away from the main conference hall in corridors and side rooms. The conference parties are over and now that we’re all back to the office, the real work begins. We had meetings with the three main parties’ health teams; spoke to policy advisers and researchers and held debates about supporting carers and the issues of personal budgets. This is undoubtedly important and vital for our cause, but I can be honest and tell you that I’m glad to be back to normal.

Take care

Gordon

With every bit of objectivity I can muster, here’s my short summary of the three main parties conferences:

Lib Dems: A fractious affair, and a bit of a muddle on policy. Conference organisation also muddled. On the vision thing, Nick Clegg unsure whether to go after Labour voters and become the main voice of the centre left. Result: A missed opportunity. Policy still a muddle, retreating back into the comfort zone of being the third party, neither Tory nor Labour.

Labour: A quiet conference, no leadership challenges. Plenty of empty seat in the conference hall, as though all power has drained away. Mandelson the star performer, which says it all really. Little passion or policy on display from government ministers, although plenty of fire on the fringes from the unions with Tony Woodley. Surprisingly off-balanced by loss of support from the Sun newspaper – it’s only a newspaper. Only Alastair Darling faced up the biggest national problem of debt. Gordon’s speech, with plenty of statistics and new spending policies, did enough to confirm him as leader right through to the election. Result: Defeatism tangible. Guardian summarises the Labour conference.

Conservatives: Europe turned out to be a non-issue. Well organised conference, with an odd slip up or two, helping ensure there was no triumphalism. Some well-regarded speeches by such as Michael Gove, George Osborne, and others. Boris Johnson was a star turn, a planetry-sized ego, but huge fun. The other star turn again was George Osborne, as he has been in previous conferences. He surely should have lost the ‘boy George’ sobriquet now. Cameron’s speech had vision, sadly lacking in Clegg’s and Brown’s speeches. Result: On the path to office, but not quite there yet.  Guardian’s what the paper’s say of Cameron’s speech.

Conferences are sure to be different next year, with general election due in the Spring.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been trying to keep up with the party conferences. I’m not a member of any political party although have been a member of the Liberal Democrats in the past. To be honest, I left after Nick Clegg became leader. I have met Nick in person and he seemed like a genuinely good guy. But he certainly hasn’t convinced me on the national stage. He seems slightly too egotistical and there is far too much rhetoric coming out of his mouth. In contrast, Vince Cable appears knowledgable, eloquent, honest and has a genuine desire to provide solutions rather than simply scoring political points.

I feel sorry for the Labour party as they seem to be fighting an inevitable battle against historical precedent. Britain seems to get fed up with Governments relatively quickly and despite the Conservatives eighteen years in power in the 80s and 90s, they were certainly going to be ousted sooner or later by a disillusioned electorate. It goes without saying that Governments of whatever colour are never going to solve all the problems they are faced with so their reign will always come to an end. I don’t dislike Gordon Brown. Again, I think he’s in politics for the right reasons and I find his seeming discomfort in the media spotlight quite an endearing quality. Although I’ve never voted Labour, I thought about all the good changes that have happened since they came to office (minimum wage, civil partnerships, investment in schools and hospitals) and I believe they genuinely want to create a more equal and fair society (okay, so in some respects they’ve failed miserably but I think this is more to do with the financial clout of big businesses and their lobbyists). I remember what life was like under eighteen years of Conservative government and I feel sick at the thought of returning to it.

Which brings me on to the Conservative party conference. There are characters in the Conservative party that I really like; David Davis and Ken Clarke for instance. But David Cameron really worries me. I’m currently writing a book on critical thinking and yesterday was writing a section on assessing the credibility of a source. One of the criteria was background experience and knowledge. I’m thinking in relation to Cameron’s experience and knowledge of what it is like to be the average citizen of this country, to have had to take out student loans, work for a low wage, and provide for a family on it. When his world view is so fundamentally different to that of the ‘average’ person, how can he possibly make decisions that will benefit them rather than big businesses and their rich directors. What really incensed me this week was that the Conservatives are aiming to cut the wages of public sector workers in response to the immense damage caused by the greed of investment bankers which was bailed out by the taxpayer and these public sector workers. This, more than anything else, seems totally unfair and unjustifiable. It might be possible to argue that  Governments only really have control over their own employees, but for the Conservatives to capitulate to multi-national corporations and banks and punish the public sector instead is very troubling indeed.

There’s part of me that thinks no-one could possibly vote for the Conservatives next year and I wonder who is making up all these polls saying they’ve got a double points lead. But then I remember that at least two of my housemates say they’d vote Conservative and a good friend of mine has recently joined the Party so perhaps it’s me that’s out of sync with the general mood.

The devil is in the detail, which is why political parties often avoid it. But in the last week we have seen two detailed polices from Labour and Conservatives on social care.

First came Brown’s promise that to “those with the highest needs we will now offer in their own homes free personal care” (England only). In detailed terms, this would mean that those assessed at the highest level, critical, would not have to pay for any care received in their home. Care in residential homes goes unmentioned. Reports have suggested that up to 350,000 people may benefit from this although it can be assumed that a large number of those with the most critical needs already receive free care.

Interestingly, this policy doesn’t quite fit in with any of the proposals in the Green Paper.

The Conservatives retaliated with their own proposal: 65 year olds can pay a one-off £8000 which will “guarantee that absolutely all fees for permanent residential care would be waived – for life.” (Conservative website). However, there is no mention of covering costs of care in their own home.

It is this omission that I find strange. The Conservatives believe it is wrong that 45,000 people every year sell their home to pay for residential care. Their response is not to improve care provided in the own home, so that they don’t actually have to leave their home, but appears to incentivize the opposite. Care in a residential care home could be free (if you have paid £8k) but you would still have to pay if you were receiving care at home.

Tory Shadow for Health and Social Care, Stephen O’Brien, believes that it will not create an incentive for people to move into residential care because the desire to remain at home is so strong, therefore this policy will help those who have to move into care. I am not wholly convinced and what happens to those who cannot afford £8000 has not been mentioned either. This policy does allow people to keep their home, but does not seem to help them live in it.

My second question regards the amount. A one off voluntary £8000 will guarantee the Government pays all residential fees, which presumably means the cost of care and the cost of accommodation. In the same article on their website, the Conservative’s say the average amount in fees some pay is over £50,000. This means that you would need 5 or 6 people paying into a scheme to cover the costs of 1. I would love it if anybody reading this blog knows of current figures and projected trends for residential care…

Big announcements, but questions still to be answered.

When it comes to looking at the detail, take care,

Gordon

George Osborne’s speech won him the prize for making the speech that made the news of the week. Let’s see if David Cameron’s can beat it.

Comparing Conservative with Labour conference is a fool’s errand. The two have completely different ends, aims and procedures.

Labour in Brighton had delegates, trade unions and socialist societies who vote on party policy, debates which take a vote at the end, and assorted off-camera activities taking place away from the conference hall that keep the maching running.  Tory conference here in Manchester basically has speeches from the platform.

Of course people still come – and there are plenty of potential candidates here. But things tend to happen away from the conference hall, on the conference fringe.

In the conference hall itself few shadow ministers appear to work up a sweat about their speeches. Likewise the audience. Shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley spoke to a half-empty hall of half-listening people on the NHS, dentists, and local health care trusts, promising to “cut central health costs by a third” – and unveiled a new promo logo, “NH-Yes”.

Very little reaction to his speech, and little expected. There are times, sitting in the hall, that you wonder has the party conference had its day.

Seeking refuge away from the health debate, outside the conference hall a fine array of exhibitors fills the hall. How on earth did David Cameron persuade Harvey Nichols, M&S, Tesco and a host of others to take stands at the Tory conference?

“Ah, we don’t have a stand – it’s a retail opportunity,” I’m corrected by a M&S spokeswoman. “It’s an opportunity to sell some products. It hasn’t altered out political stance at all.”

It’s a move Labour could think about stealing from the opposition.

George Osborne is due to speak shortly, and mischief due on the fringe. More then.

Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) received the rude awakening on Wednesday that two-thirds of conference delegates were in favour of a postal ballot of the entire party membership rather than voting by conference when it comes to choosing members of the party’s national policy forum.

The 184-strong national policy forum (NPF) has 55 of its places reserved for constituency Labour party branches – and has become a more important forum for debating and deciding policy while conference merely debates it.

News of the vote came after the NEC tried – and failed – to get things to go the other way, only to have to reveal the truth albeit holding it back until Thursday morning.

At Labour conference on Wednesday, a day when most of the mediapack are either on or sorting their way back home, I found myself talking to a man whose presence suddenly transported me back to the late 1980s / early 1990s: Jon Lansman.

The famous (for that he was) party activist – from Tony Benn’s domination of internal Labour disputes in the 70s and 80s, the fight for an electoral college and power-struggles aplenty in smoke-filled rooms – is back on the scene, having spent much of the “last 12 years” away from it. I recall reading his name in reports of the time (I was at school), and also meeting him briefly (I was at the New Statesman).

The man who carried so much history ahead of him looks very different, as I guess you’d expect after more than a decade. He left the political scene – he was widowed and focused on bringing up their children – but he’s been back for some time, it turns out, working as assistant to Michael Meacher MP and on the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy’s various wants.

One of the things about Labour’s conference being in Brighton this year is that you can easily commute to it from London for a day. And that’s exactly what I had to do yesterday at short notice after a change of plans at work. To my amazement, applying for a pass at less than 24 hours’ notice, and the collecting it at the Conference Services office immediately before heading into the conference itself, was extremely strightforward given the amount of security involved. After the day-long queues of 2006 I had feared a hellish experience, but in fact I got from Victoria Station to inside the secure area within 90 minutes. Impressive.

Once in there I took a little while to feel I was at conference properly, and my assessment of the mood of the conference is based only on the few hours either side of Brown’s speech (I had reached home by the time the Sun story broke). So with that caveat, let me say that it didn’t seem quite as desperate as I had expected, in a funny kind of way. I asked earlier whether Labour secretly or subconsciously wants to lose; in some ways, it seems they do.

Since the financial crisis and Labour’s collapse in the polls, the party seems to have moved back on to territory where they feel more comfortable, more akin to a sort of social democracy. Some of this has been desperate popularism – the curbs on bankers’ bonuses, the rash spending commitments – of the kind that politicians only attempt when they’re deeply unpopular. But overall there is the sense that Labour’s response to the recession is comforting to the grass roots: they can talk the talk of not leaving people to languish as the Tories did in the 1980s, and of trying to take steps to cushion the blows.

The trouble is that the party’s record in office prior to the crisis is disastrously at odds with this admittedly vague narrative: it was Labour who let the markets run away with the nation’s best interests; it was Labour who left the public finances ill-equipped to respond fully to the woes of the resession; it was Labour who… well, we all know what Labour did and didn’t do.

Many in Labour therefore seem to be contemplating the general election in the same way as a man with a gangrenous limb contemplates its amputation: it won’t be pleasant, and they’ll miss being in power, but it’s got to be done. Labour needs to be separated from its catastrophic record in office in order to find it way as a party again. It is not simply Gordon Brown that must be given the chop:  “New Labour” itself has to be cleaved away by drastic electoral surgery.

There is a chance, therefore, that Labour in Opposition may just become a home for rational progressive politics again. There is a danger, of course, that it might swing out to the wild and savage left, and that the damage inflicted at the election will be less than surgical, and enough to keep Labour out of office for so long that it turns in desperation to another New Labour style clique to pervert its instincts for the sake of winning power. But Labour is a party – arguably the party, above all others – with a keen sense of its own past: the lessons of both Foot and Blair will no doubt be preying on the minds of many members. There is a chance that they might be able to steer between the extremes this time round.

Then again, I have a feeling that I was, uncharacteristically, the only person to walk away from this year’s Labour conference with any sense of optimism.

Gordon Brown’s conference speech dug deep to win over those in the conference hall. Those watching him in the hall saw him deliver the speech he has ensured no other Labour figure is in a position to give.

It wasn’t a startlingly good speech, nor even a surprising one, but he made it to the end. A post-election referendum on the Alternative Vote for Westminster (so dodgy timing and no proportional representation, then); compulsory ID-cards ditched (Labour delegates: “Phew!); lots of cancer care; a teenage pregnancy pilot scheme, and plenty more all poured forth from the man who, certainly given the opinion polls, was presiding over his last Labour conference.

His speech succeeded in lifting the conference hall somewhat, but the next few days will tell us if it’s lifted Labour’s poll ratings.

In an effort to raise contractors and freelancers importance in the UK economy, the Professional Contractors Group will be attending the Labour and Conservative Party Conferences this year. They have already attended the Liberal Democrats party conference which was held in Bournemouth last week (w/c 21.09.09).

This year’s Conservative Party Conference will be held in Manchester between the 5th and the 8th of October, and the Labour Party’s Conference has already begun in Brighton (w/c 27.09.09) and will conclude on the 1st October. As these will be the last Party Conferences before a General Election, they will provide an exciting and invaluable opportunity for PCG to communicate the value of freelancing and push their key policy objectives, including the abolition of IR35.

The PCG are committed to raising the awareness of contractors and freelancers and are gearing up to host the first National Freelancers Day on the 23^rd November. The PCG wants Freelancers and Contractors to be recognised for their ability to provide flexible solutions and working hard with their clients to assist economic recovery. There will be a number of events held throughout the UK on 23^rd November to celebrate National Freelancers Day which aims to bring together and emphasise the importance of the UK’s freelance workforce.

The website for National Freelancers Day was launched last week and gives information on how to get involved and also lists events that are planned for that day and also guest speakers. The PCG wants contractors and freelancers to get involved and share their views on why contracting is so important and what challenges they are currently facing in this tough economic climate.

The Parliamentary Labour Party certainly seems indifferent to the prospect of defeat. Subconsciously, or even just secretly, some MPs must be feeling gleeful at the thought. How else does one explain their failure to make every effort to turn their fortunes around, and get themselves a new leader? The Tories did it in 1990, after all…

Perhaps some feel that actually, after twelve years in government, the time is right for Labour to take a breather, refresh itself and regroup. While there may never exactly be a good time for the country to be governed by the Tories, the reasoning might go, there might be some merit in lumbering them with the current mess.

But perhaps it goes a bit deeper than that. After all, never before has a party spent twelve years in office without doing what its rank and file wanted it to do. Many of the Labour Party members of 1997 will indeed have been fundamentally unhappy with what Blair and Brown went on to do. How many people in 1997 were crying out for an over-complicated tax system, the Private Finance Initiative, reform of the gambling laws and an overly adventurous foreign policy? Far fewer than would have liked to see the renationalisation of the railways, a transparent resdistribution of wealth and a structural reform of the economy that genuinely reduced the gap between rich and poor. Still, never mind, eh?

The big question for Labour now is whether the New Labour elite will survive post-defeat, or whether the mainstream of progressive thought can re-take control of the party (without swinging out wildly to the crazy excesses of the left). I wouldn’t blame anyone at this week’s conference for being more focused on that fight than the tedious formality of the general election.

Tony Blair can look back with satisfaction at Labour events now that the party conference has, indeed, learned to love Peter Mandelson.

The conference hall – far from full, but that’s this year’s conference – clapped, cheered and even granted a heartfelt standing ovation of their own volition to the Business Secretary, after a speech in which he said: “We need to think like insurgents, not incumbents.”

And this was a non-contrived stander too: he walked away from the audience, refusing to wait and bask in any applause that may or may not come. All this chimed neatly with the postcards and personal organiser covers (yes, really) being given out just outside the conference hall (see pic).

And of course, Gordon Brown can congratulate himself on having achieved it in the end.

But away from Mandy, from a quiet Labour conference – no crowds or even queues to get into conference; plenty of room to move about and order drinks immediately on entering, say, the Grand Hotel – thoughts inevitably turn to events after the next election.

Like which likely leader looks set to make move for the top job. And so which Miliband, a chorus of voices wonders, will make the best play for it?

Will it be David or Ed? On the one hand, the younger of the two Milibands and currently Environment Secretary Ed enjoys a close prior relationship with the current prime minister (as one of Brown’s advisors), a neat public speaking style (at last week’s TUC and here), and a smattering of newspaper articles implicitly suggesting that he is the better of the brothers when it comes to the all-important social skills.

Foreign Secretary David, on the other hand, boasts a close prior relationship with Tony Blair (as head of the Number 10 policy unit), far easier manner and a good speaking style.

From my own experience – and, speaking to other lobby hacks and former ministerial colleagues, their’s too – I would put David way out in front. But the Ed Miliband bandwagon is certainly rolling. Am I wrong? Let me know.

The final Labour Conference before the election; would the tone be going out with all guns blazing a la Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or one mired by infighting and every man for himself? In the ornate lobby of The Grand Hotel, it felt more like the Titanic with people denying the reality of a sinking ship.

At a meeting with Labour Ministers Phil Hope, Gillian Merron and Mike O’Brien, we were asked to imagine a world in which we had to deal with a Conservative Government. The Tories would listen and respond to us less we were told.

Phil Hope and Andy Burnham (Minister for Care Services & Secretary of State for Health) also spoke at a Big Care Debate event where it was repeated again that moving finances for Disability Living Allowance into social care budgets will not happen. However, it is clear that because of the ambiguity (see previous blog) in the Green Paper, the Big Care Debate has turned into a series of denials on a single part of the proposals.

Actual debate on other issues does not seem to be widespread, which is harming the chances of changing the social care system for the better. Millions of lives are affected by our social care system and millions more will be, but we as a general population are not engaging with this debate. Is it because we do not care, or is it because of a lack of knowledge?

I accept that whole family assessments does not make sexy news, but for families with multiple care needs this could be key to getting the support that is best for everybody and not just an individual (Phil Hope was very interested in this idea by the way). Perhaps most people have not considered whether there should be a single national assessment process or variable local ones, but surely this is highly relevant in a world where people move around more. Some may not know that you have to pay for social care and others may believe that they will never need it, but we should still be debating whether we should all pay regardless of whether we use social care or not.

Labour say the Tories won’t listen, but what are they meant to be listening to? I guess that is up to us all.

One thing we do want Labour to listen to is that PCTs are not using the £50m allocated to provide breaks for carers for that purpose. This is partly because of a lack of information given to PCTs by the Government. Secretary of State for Health Andy Burnham has said that he will listen and we are to set something up after the conference. However, listening is only one part, we want action. You can help by signing the carers breaks petition

Take Care

Gordon

Twitter has, as I expected, added a bit of an extra dimension to conferences this year. Even if you don’t use it for anything else, I commend it to you as a source of immediate information, for instance on how different speeches have gone down with the party faithful (Davey and Huhne badly, Farron very well, it seemed to me). You may have seen the tweets I occasionally wrote from Bournemouth, and if so, some of the below may be familiar to you…

Shouty Nutter, on box, haranguing trad jazz duo, sadly out of shot. Liberal Democrats look on in bemusement.

Still, along with the new there is the old: the nutter who usually stands on a box outside conferences shouting about tobacco sales was present and correct (indeed, I’m not sure he usually does the Lib Dems). At one point I heard him from my hotel room, which was very near the BIC; I feared my working time might be disrupted by his impressive lung power, but he shut up again after ten minutes or so. I can only assume someone persuaded him to remain quiet, as he was still there much later, holding up his banners but not hollering. Later the following day he succumbed to temptation, however, having been provoked by a trad jazz duo. Understandable – anyone would have reacted the same. Although few people could have competed with them so successfully for volume.

In fact the clarinet and (I think) tuba were being played in aid of a fringe event promoting reform to the smoking ban as a way of supporting pubs and bars in the face of the recession. Shouty Nutter lost it at them, accusing them of all manner of evil, asking how they could live with themselves – amazing. I got a pic, but didn’t manage to get the jazz duo in shot, to my regret. I later heard of other attendees having attempted to engage Shouty Nutter in conversation; apparently, he’s a bit difficult to reason with. I wish I could remember his name – I was told it by a former colleague who claimed to have pushed him into the sea once, but can’t recall it now.

Turning to more conventional oratory, I saw Lembit Opik speak at a fringe meeting on whether the railways should be renationalised. He completely outclassed the party spokesman who defended the official policy of retaining privatisation. I won’t name the spokesman (you can look it up if you like), as I’m not sure the policy he was defending was exactly what he’d prefer to see happen, but even so Lembit’s command of his facts, construction of his argument and engagement of the audience was well beyond that of his opponent in the debate. For all his success in persuading the fringe meeting, however, an amendment to a motion on the issue in the main conference hall, supported by Lembit, failed to get passed a couple of days later.

Lembit’s career within the party seems to have ground to a halt, and while some of his judgments can perhaps be questioned regarding how he has presented himself, or causes with which he has associated himself, I can’t help but think the Lib Dems are wasting a valuable resource by keeping him out of the shadow ministerial team. Perhaps his engaging off-the-cuff asides get him into trouble; “I hope nobody’s recording this… Take it to Clegg and I’ll have to sit in the front row for his speech,” he “quipped”… There’s more depth to Opik than many realise, and it’s a great pity this isn’t more widely recognised.

Elsewhere on the fringe, a British Humanist Association event with Richard Dawkins was absolutely rammed. The chair of the Lib Dem Humanists and Secularists Groups made a Freudian slip by very nearly referring to it as the “Humanists and Socialists” group. Dawkins himself gave a reading from his new book – really the event was part of his book-plugging tour – and it was all very enjoyable. It did rather remind me of why I’ve never read any of Dawkins’ books though: much as he makes a persuasive argument against God and for evolution, it all feels rather like stating the obvious to me, and twenty quid for even a signed copy of the bleedin’ obvious is a bit steep.

Also at that meeting, a question was asked by a chap who introduced himself as “Mark Thompson”. “Hm, could that be the blogger Mark Reckons?” I wondered. A check on Twitter ten minutes later revealed a message along the lines of “Oh my God [sic], I just asked Richard Dawkins a question!” Quite whether it’s amazingly cool that I picked this up from the other side of the same room, or just ridiculous, I’m unsure. A more startling aspect of the event was when a woman a few rows in front of me collapsed; chairs were cleared, first aid was administered, and inexpert lip-reading suggested to me she had stopped breathing. That may or may not have been the case, but she eventually recovered sufficiently to walk out with the assistance of paramedics. Dawkins continued with his reading – probably quite rightly.

I’m not sure I have much more to tell. I encountered some superb stories about Ken Clarke and Michael Howard, but they’re not really mine to tell (note to self for future memory-jogging purposes: Ferrari, two Howards, bird-watching… tantalising, eh?). I’ve a horrible feeling I might have lingered conspicuously in the back of Laura Kuenssberg’s shot yesterday afternoon – I had thought initially she was just chatting to her producer, but then rather got the impression she was doing a live two-way, presumably for the BBC News Channel, and got out of the way sharpish. I should know better really, but my mum does always say she looks out for me in the background of the TV coverage, so who knows, maybe she saw me at last…

It’s not been a good week for the Lib Dems. The party seems to have been fighting on too many fronts: attacking the Tories; attacking the Greens; playing up to the politics of envy with the “mansion tax”; trying to get in on the cuts discourse with the tuition fees gambit and Clegg’s ill-advised talk of “savage cuts”. None of the various efforts seemed to be terribly successful, and the “ready to win” slogan has been explored here already.

The party seems to be coming round to the idea that it needs to present itself as a potential governing party, which is quite different to being a small party that grubs around for seats wherever it gets a sniff of one. In the latter guise, they have been able to nick odd seats all over the place, and present themselves in different guises to different sets of constituents. But to be a credible national party one cannot do that: flitting tactically between the liberal and social democratic legacies within the party, depending on the audience, does not work on a national scale.

The Lib Dems are now firmly impaled on the horns of this dilemma. The relentless attacks on the Tories suggest the Lib Dems are terrified of being squeezed: they hold a lot of seats by close margins ahead of the Conservatives, and it would only take very small swings to deprive extremely capable and well-regarded MPs, including Lorely Burt, Tim Farron and Sandra Gidley of their seats. Susan Kramer is also under threat in this way. So, tactically, to defend against this, they must counter the suggestion from the Tories that you may as well vote blue as yellow – but will this help them to take seats off Labour, which must surely be a more promising avenue than just defending past gains from the Tories?

All told, I’ve seen nothing to make me think the party isn’t in for a tough election, and nothing to make me think they will be able to respond to it with any sort of strategic purpose afterwards. Next year they will reach 100 years since they last won a general election – it’s the sort of consistency which no party wants. Some members will doubtless ask why they haven’t benefited from Labour’s decline; I doubt anyone in the party will have the answer unless they’ve been reading this blog – God knows I’ve gone on about it enough.

I’ve always regarded Bournemouth as my least favourite seaside conference venue, and while I’m mellowing towards it slightly, this week has pretty much confirmed my view.

The venues are not great. The Bournemouth International Centre is a confusing early 1980s building, which has too many windowless corridors and poky little rooms with inadequate air conditioning. The Winter Gardens in Blackpool is more easily navigable and much more characterful. The Marriott Highcliff Hotel isn’t a small hotel, but feels like it; the ceilings are low, the corridors low and the layout cramped and confusing when compared to the main hotels in either Brighton or Blackpool.

Bournemouth is also quite slopey: the hill atop which the Marriott sits is a real climb – I’ve been chatting to people as we ascend it, and the conversation stops as we hit the slope and have to breathe in, lean into the gradient and steel ourselves for the onslaught. Seriously. This is the gradient between the hotel and conference hall where John Prescott famously used an official car to travel 250 yards, supposedly to protect his wife’s hairdo from the blustery clifftop wind. If they had been going up the hill to the hotel, rather than down the hill from it, I’d have said it was completely fair enough.

It can be easy to forget what a challenge a party conference can be. I’m no fan of this particular cliché, but just this once I’ll use it: they can indeed by an emotional rollercoaster. The lobbyist has to navigate around other lobbyists and companion organisations, plus politicians, engaging policy and networking skills to good effect. It can be the case that nearly and entire day goes by with nothing particular to do, then you have to turn it on at 8pm for three or four intense hours.

This can be stimulating and pleasant work when you find the right people to talk to, do a good job of getting your message across, and perhaps set up future work; but if it goes badly on any of those fronts, you’re suddenly stuck away from home, quite possibly on your own, and unable to leave. At its worst it can be a crushing and dispiriting experience, but at its best it seems ridiculous to call it work.

Depending on exactly what you’re doing, it can however involve a ferocious amount of work, either at the conference itself or, more often, in the weeks leading up to it, as meetings are arranged – from one-to-ones with politicians, to working breakfasts and long-anticipated fringe meetings. Some people will go for a single day, or maybe two; others will arrive on the Saturday, leave on the Thursday and have one day at home before it’s time to head to the next conference.

Much is made of the long hours culture at conferences; frankly, and allowing for the fact that some jobs require longer hours than others, I’m less than convinced by this – you can spend half the night in the bar if you like, but you don’t have to, and you’d have to be either a particular sort of person, or simply mad, to do it every night. I’m also sceptical that much of any use gets done there, certainly from a lobbying perspective. It’s priceless if you’re a journalist, I’ve no doubt, and party activists probably find it actively useful as well. Of course, if you work for a charity, the trick is to associate yourself with a group of private sector representatives who have decent expenses accounts.

Food is less focused on than drink, very often. A decent breakfast seems a pretty staple part of the day for most conference hacks, and after that it’s amazingly easy to get to 8pm and realise you’ve not eaten anything since. If things get desperate you can always duck into the nearest random fringe event to stock up on the grub there: standard fare is greasy nibbles of the onion bhaji / spring roll / mini samosa / plaice goujons variety; slightly more up-market buffets will have chicken or salmon on sticks with dips and crudites; a hot fork buffet occasionally crops up, but the bloody things are always a nuisance to eat I find; and then there are dedicated food fringes, like the NUT’s perennial fish ‘n’ chip supper, and a regular curry night – can’t recall who runs that one off the top of my head, but it’s always there. But the good ones tend to be invite only. The adrenalin / tedium of conference is often a remarkably good appetite suppressant.

The regular work challenges were magnified for me this year by a change of job: having been in post for five months now, I’ve picked up a reasonable overview of the new issues – to do with health and social care and research – but I can’t claim to have in-depth expertise in anything other than a few very niche issues. Health policy being what it is – complicated, and driven by regional and local delivery considerations – it might be another two years before I can hold my own comfortably.

The change of job also changes the conference experience in other ways. It’s an odd sensation to be in the familiar setting of a conference, but surrounded by no familiar faces at all – either fellow lobbyists or parliamentarians – because everyone I know of old is in a totally different set of events and meetings. The regular cast of faces that one gets to know – and often not see from one set of conferences to the next – can often make a conference more bearable.

Still, having only had to do one conference this year, I can afford to be somewhat relaxed about it all. This is doubly so because the Lib Dem conference is always more laid-back than the others: it does not have as many delegates (not just a reflection of the relative sizes of the parties – most Labour delegates are financed by unions, and most Tory delegates can afford to fund themselves, but Lib Dem activists typically have neither luxury), and there is no big security cordon. Getting into the conference centre requires a polite bag search, rather than the airport-style scanners and associated massive queues at the big two. For those doing all three, it’s a pleasant and gentle opener to the season.

I was ambivalent about the whole business of going to conferences by the end of last year’s season. But even after one event this year, the down sides have been thrown into sharp relief for me, and I’m pleased it will be another twelve months before I have to contend with one again; I’d still be pleased if it turned out to be some multiple of that period.

I’ve just come out of the worst fringe meeting I’ve ever attended. I’m furious at almost every single person who was in that room. [Obviously I’ve not just stepped out of a frine meeting – I wrote most of this last night and didn’t have chance to post it; I’ve left it as it was rather than re-writing.]

For starters, the sheer amount of bad manners on display was astonishing. Phones were left on, papers and clothes were noisily shuffled, food was eaten needlessly loudly (yes, I am being serious), and in some cases – not least, I was pretty appalled to observe, between two gentlemen apparently representing the RNID – entire conversations were had; in hushed tones, but conversations nonetheless. This is, frankly, and all joking aside, the sort of thing I am used to experiencing at Conservative Party fringe meetings – and the high average age of the audience was, I’m sad to say, probably not a coincidence. And it came after I had the pleasure of remarking to an MP that the quality of input from those present at another fringe earlier in the day had been commendably high: well-informed, considered, reasonably set forth and hugely informative. How sad the day should end with the opposite.

But this evening’s problems went beyond ill manners. It was an event run by the Dying Matters Coalition, a new body that is also an arm of the National Council for Palliative Care. I’m willing to cut new organisations some slack, but if they’re organised enough to arrange and fund a fringe meeting, and publicise it widely, they should be organised enough to have someone in the room to carry the microphone to those who want to ask questions. But they didn’t.

The low quality of those “questions” cannot, in fairness, be blamed on the hosts, however. I put “questions” in inverted commas because I don’t think a single question was asked all evening. All fringe meetings are susceptible to those who simply want to offer their own opinion, but this applied to all speakers this evening, and went as far as people turning their backs on the panel and addressing the room, having previously attempted to shout down previous contributors.

Another particularly worthless contribution was made by a lady who insisted she had a question for Vince Cable – even though he had to leave and time for asking him questions had run out – but who then simply stated her own views. Worse still, she accused previous speakers of confusing palliative care with assisted suicide, and insisted they were not the same thing. This would have been fair enough had she not herself then conflated assisted suicide with the withdrawal of treatment – they too are different things. After that she returned her attention to the massive plate of food she had collected from the buffet at the side.

What’s that? Oh yes – Vince Cable. After a long week, Vince deserves credit for steeping outside his portfolio to speak on this issue. As one expects from Vince, his contribution was thoughtful, balanced and clear, and by far the most valuable contribution of the evening; he was able to offer a deeply rational and worthwhile overview of a hugely difficult and contentious subject.

With Vince departed for another function, feelings later in the evening ran high – understandable, up to a point, given the nature of the subject. Some contributors wanted to raise the issue of assisted suicide – perhaps in a more forthright way than was really appropriate, but they certainly didn’t go beyond the behaviour of many other attendees. Nonetheless, given that the tagline used to advertised the meeting was, “A good life needs a good ending,” you’d have thought the subject was at least pertinent. Liberal Democrat health spokesman Greg Mulholland did not, however, and was strongly critical of the speakers who raised the issue. At the end, he returned to them, and said, “It’s a shame if you misunderstood what the event was about,” which struck me as astonishingly rude. I didn’t notice him shouting down Vince Cable when he addressed himself to that part of the end of life debate.

I’m now reflecting on whether it is actually fair to call this the worst fringe meeting I’ve ever attended. I’ve been to some where there were only two attendees other than the speakers and representatives of the sponsoring organisations. But even events like that have produced some worthwhile discussion – as an overall “worst” fringe, I’d have to say this is the strongest contender I can call to mind. It certainly did not do its subject, or its undoubtedly worthwhile intent, justice.

Liberal Democrat Shadow Health Secretary, Norman Lamb, speaking at The Trust's fringe event

Tim Luckhurst chaired our event with Norman Lamb MP representing the Liberal Democrats. Tim recently lost his father to Motor Neurone Disease and praised the help his family received from their Carers’ Centre, so was a very able advocate. We also saw a video of a carer explaining the benefits and problems with having a budget to choose the care you receive rather than being given a care package.

It became clear that many delegates felt that the type of information, advocacy and brokerage that Carers’ Centres could provide are wholly necessary if people are able to manage their own care support. Choice is not real choice if it is not informed.

It was also made clear that carers must have a choice; the burden of managing a budget and organising care should not be dumped on the carer. Don, the carer in the video, explained how he was able to buy respite but then spent it doing paperwork!

And finally, people must have the choice to say no. Some people do not want to manage their own care and would rather social services provided them with a package. This is also linked to local authorities and health bodies ensuring that there is a range of services available for people to choose from.

Norman Lamb was quick to agree that for the Lib Dems personal budgets can give people more choice but that real choice meant informed choice and the choice of saying no. An important point was also made by two of his fellow Lib Dem MPs that services finding and identifying carers cannot be lost, or they won’t even get the chance to make any choices.

Take Care
Gordon

Day two of our Bournemouth Liberal Democrat party conference adventure started with a morning of meetings on the patio of a cliffside hotel in the beautiful morning sunshine. It sounded like perfection at first. Two hours later, we were stumbling off the patio, blinded by the sun and with a deep tan on the half of our face facing the sun.

But the meetings went well. We met Baroness Garden, who works on children and education in the House of Lords for the Lib Dems. I got asked lots of questions about childhood deafness which put me on my toes but was quite nice since it showed an active interest in deafness and a desire to find out more. She was aware of our work to get the law changed on acoustics which was positive. Our message is getting out there before we’ve even come to party conferences…

We also met with Annette Brooke who also asked lots of questions and made a few requests for further information. She raised a new issue – how we do make sure that deaf children who are home educated get the right support from their local authority? A good question and something we’ll be coming back to her on.

There were lot of other charities there all waiting to meet MPs too. At times, it felt a bit like a political form of speed dating with MPs moving between different tables to talk to different charities. All that was missing was a little bell ringing at the half hour mark.

Once that was done, the afternoon was spent stalking MPs and getting their views on our simulation of acoustics in the classroom. One MP said she thought it sounded like a baby listening to the world from the womb!

And then finally, we ended the day with an impressive fringe meeting hosted by Every Disabled Child Matters. This was the best fringe meeting I went to, primarily because it had two young disabled people interrogating two shadow Lib Dem Ministers – David Laws MP (who looks after education) and Steve Webb MP (who looks after benefits) – on what the Lib Dem manifesto will have for disabled children. The highlight for me was when one of the young people was asked if her teachers had low expectations of her. She replied that her teachers told her that she would only ever end up working in a fried chicken takeaway, and how this motivated her to prove her teacher wrong. Her advice to others was simple: don’t give up. She also suggested she did end up working in a fried chicken takeaway, she would get her revenge by spitting in the food! It was a very spunky and inspriring reply.

And that was it. Time for a late night train back to London to reflect on a good two days with the Lib Dems. Now the travelling circus moves to Brighton for the Labour party conference next Sunday…