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Conferencing III Mar 06

On Saturday afternoon, I popped into the conference hall just in time to see Baroness Ludford MEP storm the stage (I exaggerate a little). From there, to a meeting in the bar, and then to an excellent LibDems Online fringe meeting. There were some great online campaigning tips discussed, and hopefully many of them will be used on the national party website for future elections. For obvious reasons, I’m not going to detail those tips here 🙂 It was a pleasure to see the party demonstrating how innovative it can be. It was also great to hear the panellists praising LibDem Blogs, for which we all remain very grateful to Ryan.

On Sunday, I was in the hall for Ming’s speech. His call for the party to be more professional was particularly appropriate, coming as it did after moments the microphone of the man introducing him failed. It was a solid, encouraging speech. My personal highlight was when Ming rightly complained about the over-centralisation of governance in Britain:

“It is absurd that if a hospital operation goes wrong the first democratically elected person in the chain of responsibility is the Secretary of State for Health.”

On the other side of the hall, I saw that David Howarth, who was gesticulating at Chris Huhne, had noticed the same thing as me: that this was lifted straight from the speeches Huhne gave throughout the leadership election. It remains an important point and it’s good to see Ming taking on board some of the issues that we raised in the contest.

(Ironically, of course, while it applied to Chris Huhne’s hospital in Eastleigh, it doesn’t apply to Ming’s in Edinburgh – thanks to devolution, the situation is marginally less centralised and the line of accounability leads to the Health Minister in the Scottish Executive.)

Much of the talk around conference was on Ming’s first reshuffle, which has now begun, with many delegates playing fantasy shadow cabinet (James has a tip for Michael Moore’s replacement at defence). Nothing particularly surprising in the appointments so far. One frontbencher who didn’t back Ming during the leadership election confided in me on Saturday night that, as you’d expect, they were waiting to see how Ming would reward the other candidates’ backers. The MP in question, who will remain nameless, had also decided to turn down their current role if offered it again.

All in all, despite some organisational issues and a pretty sparse agenda, conference was good fun. Caught up with friends, and met some new people, including various bloggers. Hopefully I’ll be able to afford (in both time and money) Brighton conference in the autumn.

Insecurity Mar 06

Alex Foster’s photo of queuing LibDems prompts me to comment on the bizarre security checks being carried out at party conference in Harrogate.

I was fortunate not to be caught up in any long delays, but I have a conspiratorial mind: I’m the sort of person who, while waiting to pass through the metal detector at the airport, can’t help wondering about the best way to get a bomb onto the plane. I therefore found myself pondering the logic of the system to which we were subjected when entering the conference centre.

I was asked to remove my coat, which was then examined by a security officer. I was asked if I had a mobile phone and to have it turned on. This was then also checked by security. And that was it. If my phone had actually been a detonator, I could have got round this stringentest of scans by claiming not to have one. If I wanted to get a pistol into the conference centre, I would merely have to have made sure to carry it in my trouser pocket and not my coat. A Richard Reid style shoe bomb would have gone undetected. No self-respecting terrorist would have been caught or deterred.

It’s possible the security checks were so good that this was all misdirection, and I was so enthralled and puzzled that I didn’t notice the hi-tech X-ray CCTV cameras giving me the twice over, but I think not. If we’re going to take security seriously, for our own safety, I can accept being slightly delayed so that it can be done thoroughly. Being checked so seriously, but so ineptly, though, is most off-putting.

I don’t know who came up with these procedures. I’d like to think that the Harrogate International Centre was concerned to protect itself and foisted them upon the party, because then the concern is why the HIC’s systems are so attrocious. The alternative is that the party needs to show the media that it takes itself seriously as the “real opposition”, and therefore has to act as if it considers itself a prime target for terrorism. Knowing, however, that it isn’t much of a target at all, it doesn’t matter if the security procedures are lax. I hope it’s the first explanation.

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Conferencing II Mar 04

Hello from snowy Harrogate. Despite the weather, I arrived only an hour later than intended yesterday afternoon and had a chance to watch Deal or No Deal before heading to the conference centre.

Rather than attend the Meeting the Challenge and Meet the New Leader session, which I correctly predicted was standing room only, I went straight to the bar, and from there to the pub, and from there for a curry. An excellent conference evening catching up with various LibDems I’d not seen for ages.

I went to the Post Office debate this morning. When I read the conference agenda, I thought “interesting motion” and not much more. Reading the papers yesterday, I discovered that apparently it’s a controversial motion and the party is split on it. So, I went along. There were some good speeches – Chris Huhne got a long, loud round of applause when he arrived on stage to speak in favour – and the motion was passed overwhelmingly.

Then to breakfast, and back to the conference centre for fringes – all of which were packed full. So we headed back into town. I’m now back in the conference centre, which is much warmer than outside.

Before I go, here’s a photo of Advocates Close in Edinburgh yesterday morning. I’d popped into the National Library, at which point it was snowing very lightly. When I emerged half an hour later, nearly a centimetre of snow had fallen, and it was continuing to fall heavily.

Advocates Close

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Conferencing Mar 02

I’m off to Harrogate tomorrow for LibDem spring conference. May or may not be able to blog from there.

If you’re going too, please say hello.

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