Party Conference Time

In around an hour I’m getting a lift up to Blackpool with a Daily Telegraph editor for the Tory Party Conference. It goes from Sunday to Thursday.

I didn’t come to the UK planning to attend, but it sounds like too much good fun to miss. The conferences are very social and I have been told there are two primary objectives:

1) To not have to pay for a single drink over five days.

This it seems is surprisingly easy as there are dozens of “fringe” events and forums where hosts provide drinks.

2) To keep a constant blood alcohol level over the whole event

This one is more challenging as it means having to drink with breakfast, lunch and in the evenings. One is allowed to have the level drop on the final day for the Leader’s Address, but more so as people have to drive home.

I’ve also been informed there is a third objective, namely

3) Don’t get buggered due to (1) and (2)

I don’t think that I will have problems remembering that objective at all times 🙂

Talking of party conferences the UK Labour Party have just had their one and as Russell has noted, an 82 year old (WWII Jewish refugee) party member was forcibly evicted for a single heckle. This of course was an over zealous volunteer security guard but the publicity has been devastating. Front page of every single paper. Didn’t help that the Police refused to let him re-enter citing the Terrorism Act.

Now in one of the papers yesterday I was reading a near hysterical rant about how Tony Blair is turning the UK into a police state and people need to march on the streets to reclaim their civil liberties. Imagine my surprise when I read at the bottom of the column the author was a Labour Party MP!!! 🙂

Back home the media get excited if an MP expresses any view at all slightly outside the “official line”. In the UK the MP has to actually threaten to kill someone in their own party for it to makes the news.