BRIGHTON 2005
It has to be said that I did not depart for this year’s Annual Conference in Brighton with much of a spring in my step. Initial analysis from progressive contacts in London suggested that it would be largely triumphalist but the triumphalism would be flat and eclipsed by spasms of terror-induced anxiety. Prospects for improving Partnership in Power, by establishing the final year amendment procedure (promoted by our CLP) which would restore some life to our debates, were not good. Security would be tighter and more oppressive than ever before and there was half a chance of being blown to bits and left looking like the West Pier. Even the cards for the Brighton Races failed to inspire and with no Robin Cook around to assess the form or the odds, the chances of financial compensation for enduring the events of Conference appeared remote. How very wrong I was: all this negativity soon evaporated in the intermittences of the Brighton sunshine as Stanley Kubrickism and rewrites of scenes from A Clockwork Orange displaced New Labour control-freakery and stage-managementism. Find out all about it at the October Meeting when I give the Annual Conference Report: a must for all volcanophiles and idle and dejected activists in East Devon.