We have to be insurgents at conference, filled with energy and hungry for renewed change – here’s how

The Paul Richards column

Long ago Tony Benn warned us that Labour’s conference was becoming so sanitised that all the politics would be removed. Instead of bringing resolutions, delegates would bring balloons, and it would end up like the US political conventions.

I always thought that sounded great. Knife-edge votes on nuclear disarmament or nationalisation of the sugar industry are exciting for those taking part, but don’t do much for the party’s electability. I’ve long favoured the approach we adopted in the 1990s of a rolling programme of policy, and a national policy forum to develop it in depth.

Lest you think these developments are fiendish New Labourism, they were developed under Neil Kinnock’s leadership. Neil knew how an almighty row and tub-thumping speeches at conference go down with floating voters (hint: not very well). The first NPF was in 1993 when John Smith was leader. It was held in the Ark in Hammersmith, and my job for the day was to ‘mind’ a rising star called Tony Blair, but that’s another story.

The drama of decisions being debated and voted on at conference has been expunged, and replaced by ministerial speeches, videos, and short scripted remarks by delegates and parliamentary candidates. It’s all designed to show unity, loyalty, energy and what a respectable bunch we all are. The Saturday, Sunday and Monday of conference is the short steep climb up to the Leader’s speech on the Tuesday after lunch. The Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday is the free-wheel down the other side of the hill.

The Blair years saw attempts to jazz it all up a bit. Bill Clinton was drafted in twice to lend some glamour. Gabrielle performed. Loud music blared – Beautiful Day by U2, Roxy Music’s Let’s Stick Together, All Together Now by The Farm, Things Can Only Get Better and once, somewhat incongruously, If the Kids are United (They Will Never be Defeated) by Sham 69. The sets grew bigger and more dramatic. Blair’s first conference as leader in 1994 in Blackpool saw a pistachio coloured backdrop replace the red and grey, perhaps the first clue that he had little respect for Labour tradition.

But despite the laudable attempts to modernise conference, some aspects remain stubbornly immutable. The first days are spent greeting old friends and colleagues, catching up with news of new jobs, parliamentary selections, and swapping conference gossip. In the absence of much drama on the conference floor, the action shifts to the fringe, where the real politics takes place. The Progress Rally and the Tribune Rally, with their packed platforms of stars of the left and right, vie for the hearts of the delegates. Delegates wander around with their fringe guides with their meetings of choice ringed in ink. Ministers stride purposefully around with their aides and bag-carriers in their slipstream. Sometimes they have to be somewhere; sometimes they just want to look important. Old hands gossip with journalists. Apparachiks look apprehensive. And there, in amongst the crowds, an occasional celebrity can be spotted: Mariella Frostrup, Kevin Spacey, David Frost, Billy Bragg, and Andrew Neil (if he counts as a celebrity).

This will be my nineteenth annual conference. For me, conference is as much a part of the annual calendar as Christmas or Easter. I’ve grown up with it. I was twenty-three when I first went as the Labour Students delegate. My block vote was 4,000. Sitting near me was Jimmy Knapp from the National Union of Railwaymen. His block vote was 94,000. I went to the bar.

It marks the official end of summer. I adore the conviviality, the tribalism, the intrigue, the theatre, the late nights (although not as much since turning 40), the gossip, the free champagne, the occasional flights of rhetoric, the full English start to the day in a Brighton guest-house or Blackpool B&B, and even the vol-au-vents and chicken drumsticks which must sustain the conference-goer for days on end. Most of all, I love the people, because Labour is a family. Sometimes a family that rows about something seemingly inconsequential, like who should inherit that old red vase that stood in granny’s hallway all those years, and sometimes a family that pulls together in the toughest of times, like now.

This year, conference has to be different. We are entering the pre-election period with a large poll deficit, and a developing media and public consensus that we are going to lose. If we simply go through the motions – big speeches from ministers, 45-minute Prime Ministerial speech, announcements which fleetingly sound good but don’t mean much (‘ten eco-towns’, anyone?) – then our springboard to the election will fail to give us a bounce.

Instead, conference should project the sense of Labour as an insurgent party, filled with energy and idealism, and hungry to win the election because there is still so much to do for the country.

How can we do this?

First – fewer ministerial speeches
Ministers can speak on the fringe if they choose, but I would reserve a conference slot for the Chancellor, Foreign Secretary, and Home Secretary only. The rest of the speaker slots should be filled by public sector workers, councillors, mums and dads, in short anyone with a ‘real’ job and some experience of life as it is lived by 90 per cent of the voters. We should also have plenty of sessions led by Labour’s brilliant cadre of up-and-coming candidates, talking with passion about the places and people they want to represent.

Second – some real debates about the manifesto
I’m warning you now: if Labour’s manifesto is cooked up by some clandestine cabal of trade union leaders and Downing Street political fixers, party members will feel angry and alienated. And you don’t want that from the only people you can ask to go and sell it on the doorsteps. If the theme of the manifesto is going to be fixing our broken politics, I can’t be the progeny of a shabby deal. If the theme is empowering the citizen, then let’s start by empowering Labour’s members. If reform of the public services is a central part of the manifesto, then let’s ask the people who work in them and use them.

Third – invite some Afghan schoolgirls to be the international guest speakers
The existence of such a thing is proof in itself that our soldiers should be out there.

Fourth, let Gordon Brown do a Q&A
But this time let the delegates ask the questions directly, without filtration. We could invite members of the public in too. And perhaps we can draft some new jokes?

The media only want one story from conference: a demoralised party on the brink of catastrophic defeat, preparing for a divisive leadership election. This September, in the Brighton bars and hotel rooms, let’s write a different script.

Photo: Luke Montague, Flickr