I like Tom Hamilton’s becoming-annual series on crass (and crap) political communication. (See here for the 2006 and 2005 editions). My favourite from this conference? Well, it’s our old friends F4J, now trading under the name “The Real Fathers for Justice”:

It’s time for Labour to listen!
The Real Social Exclusion
Fatherlessness
Social Decay
Criminalised Children
100 Children a day lose a father
ASBO KIDS
The existence of lone parenting! When it takes two to create and raise a child.
Highest Depressed Childhood rate in Europe
The bad taste that all these problems stem from is a poor foundation of Family and Family Values and ultimately respect for parents in the UK.

On the overleaf was a densely-printed 8pt font 16-paragraph rant about why there should be a legal presumption of “shared parenting”. These F4J types seem to have fooled some people (I spotted one female Tory commentator who should know better comparing them to the suffragettes earlier) that they’re some sort of progressive movement. In fact, they’re just another regressive bunch fuelled by personal antagonism to their former partners and furious that the advent of some limited recognition of the rights of women and children has undermined the right of husbands and fathers to do whatever they want. Oh, and I should say this more often - they don’t represent the majority of divorced or separated fathers in the UK, who come to agreements about child custody that they are reasonably happy with, often during a difficult and upsetting time.

Of course, bringing in their current demand - a “shared presumption of parenting” - would fatally undermine the only current presumption that applies: that what’s done is in the best interests of the child/ren involved. Here’s a tip for free, fellas. You want to position yourself as mainstream, sensible, right? So refresh your knowledge of the accepted usage of capitalisation (cheap shot, I know!); think about presentation; think about evidencing your preposterous assertions; think about your audience (it’s a LABOUR conference, muppets - we LIKE ASBOs!). Oh, and if your public positioning is that it’s all about the kids, try hard to think up a campaign call that doesn’t undermine that.

I watched the debate on the health service at Labour party conference on Wednesday afternoon with Kerron and Adele in the cafe in the exhibition hall. I was only paying attention because Oxford West and Abingdon CLP were seconding the Unison motion, as both the vote and the impact on government policy of that vote were foregone conclusions. But then our attention was caught as the debate descended into the best sub-student union farce, and graduates of NUS conference leaflet wars leapt to the platform to demand who had put such-and-such a paper on delegates’ seats, and was it indeed a paid staff member…

We were idly discussing which delegates had their speeches written for them (a giveaway is usually the “Conference, this is my first time at conference” at the beginning; a personal tale about a relative with a dreadful disease who would had died under the Tories but lived thanks to a Labour government’s new (PFI) hospital in their area is also a good stalwart in a health debate), and which had their path to the podium smoothed by the Labour party’s staff.* So, catching up on my blogs just now, I was amused by this anecdote from Thirsk and Malton CLP:

Having a coffee at 8.30am I was greeted by a rep from Labour regional office. “You’re involved in finance – fancy delivering speech on pensions?” [...] Within fifteen minutes I was upstairs at the GMEX, writing my piece; quizzing party experts on related matters and beginning to feel that time was running out.

Unfortunately the delegate in question didn’t get called to speak. But I’m sure he was excellently prepared if he had been called, with all the facilities of the party at his disposal to help him write the speech…

* NB: our staff work bloody hard, and I’m sure are having a pretty tough time of it at the moment. But I’m not convinced they need to unnecessarily increase their workload by spending time helping I’m sure entirely capable and articulate delegates with their speeches…

Well, it’s been whispered about for months, and now it’s finally hit the papers that Peers School are thinking about bidding for academy status. Peers certainly needs something to change - I reported last month about some encouraging progress in GCSE results, but that still means just over one in four of their pupils getting 5 good GCSEs.

As you might expect, I have pretty mixed feelings. I can see how young people’s self-esteem and pride in their school would be boosted by a relaunch, in new buildings, with a new uniform and ethos. After all, most of Peers’ intake come from the Rose Hill, Blackbird Leys and Greater Leys estates, and I’m not convinced that attending a secondary school with a desperately bad reputation and buildings in disrepair has shown those young people that their education is thought to be of importance by the powers that be. And it’s not as if nothing has been tried to turn it around: Peers was in an Education Action Zone until few years ago and has been in special measures for the last year.

But I’m infuriated by the whole concept of academies - handing over that degree of control to a private sponsor in return for a paltry amount of cash, while the government stumps up the rest, over and above what would have been available to a school opting to remain a community comprehensive. I just don’t see why leveraging that government cash has to be tied to private money, and the loss of accountability that goes with it.

Hvaing said that, whilst I don’t support the concept of academies, I think I could have been reconciled to this one, though, if one of the big employers in our city - perhaps BMW, with its pretty well-paid unionised workers, or Unipart, with its commitment to employee learning and health - were the sponsor. But no. Who’s the proposed “business” partner for Peers School? The Church of England. Pah.

Just got in from conference, going to eat and go to bed. I really hope I’ll be able to post some more reflections on the whole shebang over the weekend.

So, I’ve found finding time to blog in the last few hectic days a little difficult, but I thought you might enjoy this piece over at the New Statesman’s conference blog.

Update: The reorganisation of the NS website means the link is broken, so here’s the full piece I wrote for them:

Party conference usually means a seaside location, a falling-out between Blair and Brown, and queues. Apart from the inland location, this year was little different on the surface, but the frenzied rush of particular ministers from one reception to another pointed out the start of a period of huge change for Labour. The only thing vying for coverage with the leadership race was several-day wait for passes, as the inexperience of Greater Manchester Police in managing a conference of this size became clear.

There’s an interesting discussion to be had about the politics of pass pick-ups. Rumours of thousands of passes not sent out were confirmed by day-long waits. People from across the spectrum of conference attendees were affected – senior journalists, MPs, lords and their researchers, trade unionists, delegates, visitors from charities and business and speakers for fringe meetings. And this raises an interesting question: with one working printer, a queue of hundreds and limited time, who gets special treatment? Who gets fast-tracked? The photographer for a major national daily who can’t get into the conference or even into his hotel inside the secure zone? The political correspondent who threatens to file a piece on the chaos? The former MP and new Lord, who can’t understand why her years of service aren’t recognised? The delegate, anxious not to miss the priority ballot deadline? The corporate PR, on the phone to his lawyer? Or the group of young people from a deprived area of south Wales, who’ve come to address senior ministers about what it’s like growing up without what most of us take for granted?

Those young people didn’t get their passes, but even so managed to put on the best fringe meeting of the season, hosted by Save the Children. All the usual props were missing – warm white wine, dreadful canapés, overweening security, a gulf between the platform and the audience. Instead, there were concentric circles of chairs, with the smallest occupied by those five young people from the Cynon Valley and Jim Murphy MP, the minister for work.

The young people spoke articulately of the challenges they faced – being a teenage mum, getting thrown out of home, living on benefits, wanting to work but being unable to afford to travel to job interviews. They had red and yellow cards to halt the minister if they didn’t understand what he was saying, or if they thought he’d been going on too long – an innovation that would certainly help debate in most council chambers. And there was one other crucial difference between this meeting and the rest of the fringe: the attitude of the government representative. Jim Murphy took a risk and entered into the spirit, losing the defensive tone of those ministers discussing the missed child poverty target, and in a soft Glasgow accent being honest about what he could and couldn’t do. He made no attempt to give a pre-prepared speech and made no easy promises. He listened, and he responded directly to the young people, jettisoning the jargon, the language of stats and priorities. And at the end of the meeting, he did agree to take the young people’s biggest issue, and meet his transport counterpart to try to do something about it. I have no doubt that the experience was overwhelming and prized by a group of young people not used to having their opinions valued by anyone, certainly not by government ministers. And the minister gained a perspective unmediated by pressure groups and the media about what it really is like to live below the poverty line. It was quietly impressive, and showed what could be done if more often the experiences of people that rely on a Labour government are part of the conversation about our future direction.

That meeting followed an unexpectedly-enjoyable speech by the Prime Minister. I’m not a new Labour councillor, and I don’t support more public service reform, yet his speech was a technically brilliant tour de force, and in the relief of his departure, conference felt able to be charitable and affectionate. He cleverly used examples of how he has changed his position on a variety of issues whilst in government – linking pensions to the average wage, placing environmental obligations on business - yet claimed them still as new Labour, opening up the space for Gordon to differ on policy but keep that crucial narrative thread. I just hope that in putting together his plan for government, Gordon listens to the young people like those I heard from the Cynon Valley and makes a renewed commitment to meeting that target to end child poverty in a generation. It’ll take some measures that old new Labour couldn’t have supported; maybe new new Labour with a new leader will be able to.

Don Paskini, junior spin doctor for the Labour machine, poses a question. With a five hour queue for people without passes, who gets theirs first? The teenager, obviously.

Strangely, the realisation of Blair’s impending departure seems to have released the party and enabled delegates and MPs to relax. It’s noticeable that at this conference, the mood of most delegates hugely affectionate towards him: I’ve been in two meetings where he has spoken today, neither of them wholly filled with loyalist cheerleaders, and both times he was given a standing ovation rather than the usual dutiful applause. Perhaps, knowing he’s going, he’s now treated as above the fray. What do they call it in America - lame duck? There’s something of that about the way he’s being treated, even by delegates who have misgivings about some of his policies.

Other than that, my observations of day two of conference are thin. I only made it to the one fringe today, entitled “Has Labour lost touch with women’s lives?” It was hosted by the EOC, Fawcett, YWCA, TUC, the Fabians, and Oxfam* and chaired by Michael White of the Guardian. The speakers were a desperately lacklustre Ruth Kelly; Madeline Bunting, now at Demos and late of the Guardian; and Deborah Mattinson of Opinion Leader. A further speaker was delayed in the neverending queue for pass pickup - a subject running the deputy leadership race a close second in delegate conversations. The stars of the show were two grassroots women speakers - a woman whose name I didn’t catch representing a Midlands women’s NGO, and a teenage mum who attends YWCA’s centre in Doncaster. The most interesting point was made by Deborah, discussing the received wisdom that David Cameron is popular with women. Her work has found that his honeymoon is well and truly over, with an eight percent loss in popularity since his high watermark amongst men compared to a twelve percent drop for women, putting him on the same trajectory in a similar timescale to William Hague.

Later, at the women’s reception, I collared Ruth Kelly, intending to ask her about the forthcoming white paper on local government. Not a subject of huge interest to many people, but vital to us in Oxford, a city that elects no Tories for any city or county ward, but where a Tory county council can still impose charging for residents’ parking whilst making city-centre parking used mainly by residents of the surrounding areas free. As soon as I said that I was an Oxford city councillor, she realised that I wanted to talk to her about unitary status. With a swift “I’m being lobbied every day about this by your MP…” she moved on. Not sure whether that’s a good or bad sign…

In news about my ego, I’ve been surprised by the number of people, many of whom I don’t know, who’ve come up and said they read this site. It’s very flattering, though I’m surprised that the photos on the site, most of which are pretty old, are any guide to identifying me! I’m trying hard to keep this site updated during conference, which is why it’s particularly galling that my webhosting company has chosen this week to play silly buggers. I hope it’ll be sorted soon.

Tomorrow, I plan to go into Gordon’s speech and see what’s interesting in the fringe, followed by finding a cheesy disco somewhere - well, it wouldn’t be conference if I didn’t dance to Build me up Buttercup at least once.

* Declaration of interest: I’m employed by YWCA and a trustee of Fawcett

So, I’m here in Manchester at party conference, settled in the lovely Ibis hotel. Nothing much to report - been to the London Labour reception, caught up with a few friends (anyone else have conference friends? People you think of fondly, whose company you enjoy, but who you see at conference and realise that you haven’t seen since the previous year’s conference?) and had a few drinks with the staff of Labour South East.

My best conversation of the day wasn’t even with a delegate - it was with the taxi driver who dropped me back to my hotel (in my defence, wandering around a strange city on my own at 1.30am didn’t seem like a good idea). He was a former local councillor from Pakistan, who spoke of his own axis of evil - Blair, Bush and “Busharraf”. He’s a Labour supporter, keen on what we’ve done to help Pakistani and Muslim people in the UK (he mentioned making it easier to reunite families in the UK in particular), and wanting to come back to Labour - but not until we have a new leader.

Tomorrow, I’ll be off to the joint women’s fringe at 5.30pm - it’ll be my first chance to hear Ruth Kelly speak in her new role of women’s minister. YWCA also has a teenage mum speaking at the event. But first, I have the chance to have a lie-in - Sunday morning at conference is dead, and I’ll catch some sleep while I can.

Thoughts (disorganised) from the night before conference:

Getting a photo for my pass application didn’t seem like a big deal in June. Oh, well, that didn’t come out too well, doesn’t matter, get the bloody thing sent off to the party. Now it’s conference, and I’m going to walk round with a photo of myself grinning menacingly with sunglasses on my head round my neck all week. And this year, charity passes are orange - just right to clash with every outfit I own.

At least I got mine. Work are bringing a bunch of young women who use our services, and eleven of their passes haven’t turned up. How to introduce young people to organised party politics - make them stand in a queue in the rain for hours to pick up accreditation. Happened last year too.

I hate smart women’s shoes. And the amount of standing around you have to do at conference. Only by-elections are worse for footache. We had one of those yesterday too. The combination isn’t going to please the chiropodist on my annual post-conference feet-are-fucked visit.

I’m quite looking forward to not being responsible for all the YWCA staff and young women, the fringes, the stall etc. There’s something fulfilling about handing over a large and stressful project like managing party conference presence to someone else, particularly when you hand it on to two other people - yes, I managed both the practicalities and the politics all on my own, yes, it was hard but we got there smug smug smug.

What’s the point of bringing a contemporary issues motion through your CLP, through the palaver of sending it off, only to have it ruled out? I got the one on child poverty submitted from Oxford East - it wasn’t leadership bashing, just an important issue, contemporary because the government published an entire action plan on social exclusion last week, and still it got sodding ruled out. Not that I could have spoken on it anyway… damn charity pass. Gotta go as a delegate next year.

I may get time to go to the beating the Lib Dems workshop, though. It’s a semi-annual torture, trying to persuade the party that in the end, attacking them harder and harder from the right on national issues gets us nowhere. I bet we’d not have been dancing after last night’s by-election if we had used the Tom Watson Hodge Hill playbook.

Having said that, it may amuse some of you versed in the intricacies of Labour factions to know that I have been asked, and have agreed, to blog occasionally for Progress during the conference. I rang them to check that they had meant to ask me, and they confirmed that they had, so some of the readers may get a bit of a shock if I have one of my rare political days during conference. And I’m sure it’ll just provide more ammunition to those who’re sure I’ve sold out.

Rats, it’s nearly nine thirty and I’ve not eaten or packed yet. Have to get the bloody ironing board out…

Congratulations to brand new Labour councillor Bob Timbs! Last night, in a crucial by-election, not only did Labour held the Lye Valley seat vacated by Dan Paskins (pictured above, with Bob), but we increased our majority from 21 in May to nearly 300 now! The full results are here, and here’s the Oxford Mail’s report of it:

A jubilant Mr Timbs, of Normandy Crescent, Cowley, said after the result was declared shortly after 11pm: “I am gobsmacked. I thought it was going to be really tight.
“We won on local issues. People know me as chairman of the Horspath Road Residents and Tenants Association and they know they can rely on me.”
Mr Timbs said his priority would be to campaign against family homes being turned into multi-occupancy dwellings badly looked after by landlords.

Of course, there’s one other dimension to this result. The council is still in no overall control with a Lib Dem minority administration, but nearly five months after the local elections, Labour is back as the largest single party.

Update: the Guardian’s report is here.