Blogging Conference 08: Monday

I was up and in the hall early on Monday morning for the consultative session on party reform, the debate on the Bones Commission report. I was pleased to be called to speak in one of the intervention slots. I will report on this in a separate post.

Shadow Chancellor Vince Cable MP’s speech was a masterly example of speech writing and delivery. Vince really has developed into a brilliant political performer. With a swift jab he dispatched Gordon Brown saying he wasn’t someone who would “kick a twitching corpse”, before spending time on dissecting the empty rhetoric of Cameron and Osbourne. He then went on to a justification of the proposed new approach to tax. I actually thought this section was better than the speech he actually made in the tax debate later in the day.

My lunchtime fringe was again one based around data from Ipsos MORI but this time looking at “Happiness: a new political challenge”. Again, I will report on this in a separate post.

After a detour to have my photo taken with Lorely Burt MP to help with the campaign we are running in my ward to stop a Post Office closure, it was into the hall for the key debate of conference on the “Make it Happen” document. Yet again, I will report on this in a separate post.

It was then back to the hotel for a bit of recuperation before heading off to The Goat and Tricycle for excellent real ale and chat with fellow bloggers at the Liberal Drinks. Then a group of us walked down to the venue for the Liberal Review which is a kind of satirical Lib Dem amateur dramatics. Lots of laughter, rude jokes, and a brilliant impression of Margaret Thatcher.

Then, as is traditional the bar and, after a lengthy interval, bed.

This content was originally posted on my old Process Guy blog.