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.