First things first. I’m not staying in Brighton this year. I booked my conference tickets late and affordable accommodation was hard to come by. I’d also set my heart on camping after a number of excellent camping holidays since we went to Glastonbury.

However… it turns out that one doesn’t camp in Brighton – obviously not the done thing – and the one camp site close to the town has it’s tent field closed during conference week.

So, I had to look around and found a place down the coast in Seaford – quite a distance from Brighton, but on a train line and (crucially) with a relatively late service during the week. So you find me sat outside the tent at 11pm; above me a clear night sky with the stars nearly as bright as when we were in the Lake District, and the sound of the sea (I’m about 100 yds from the beach). Lily and Joel would be so jealous.

I wouldn’t call it ideal, but it’s probably saved me in the region of £600-ish. Plus I’ve done the ‘staying-in-the-bar-till-5am’ thing, and I don’t really fancy it this year. Too many things to do.

There isn’t too much to report today. The approach to Brighton was weird. I’d driven down so that I could bring the tent and I was interested to see that there were no signs on the A23 referring to conference. The last time I drove down to Brighton was when we lived in Twickenham, and there were banners on every bridge by the Countryside Alliance and other not-terribly-supportive groups. This
year there was nothing, just a poster by the Green party slagging off Labour between the train station and the conference centre. Ironically mostly hidden by a tree until you get close to it.

I assume that means that the likes of the Countryside Alliance have decided to stop campaigning because they assume that Cameron will give them back their hunts, slave wages, trespass laws and gun-totin-freedoms should he win the next General Election.

After quickly pitching the tent, I arrived in Brighton just in time for the North West reception and to catch up with some comrades who I’ve known for some years now.

One of the sad things about the Constituency Party not being active any more is that you miss the occasions to meet up with activists from neighbouring constituencies.

About half way through Gordon and Sarah Brown came in and gave a speech. I can’t help but feel for them (and to a lesser extent Harriet Harman). The whole conference week seems to be a rush from one gathering to another, saying basically the same thing in each meeting to rally the troops. Despite that, Brown’s speech was fine.

Better fun was meeting up with @msgracefm, @LaurenceDurnan and others from the Blackburn contingency (I’m told it’s the largest constituency group from the NW). We went for fish and chips, discussed blogging (local vs national) and android vs windows vs blackberry phone platforms – at which point Grace adopted a look similar to our Jude when I start talking about android vs windows vs iphone
platforms.

Yvette Cooper gave a lovely speech at the Young Labour reception which I was generously allowed into. It’s hard to believe that most of the people in that
room were in juniors or just starting secondary school when Labour won in 1997. Yvette managed to remind everyone of the grim days under Major without sounding patronising – a work of brilliance if you ask me – but then I wasn’t the target audience.

And so back to the tent. I didn’t do the things that I had planned (Compass rally in the evening followed by Welsh night or something like that), but much more fun and gossip-ey.

Tomorrow looks like it’ll be interesting. So I’m going to call it a day and climb into the sleeping bag. I might just stare at the stars for five more minutes though. You don’t get a view like that from a B&B room.