Tuesday, 27 September 2005

Labour Party Conference - Third Day Report

As part of the aims of building a stronger party, at various points during the conference there are a number of training sessions looking at how the party can be improved. Monday started off with two training sessions which I attended on working together, and effective scrutiny.

The second of which on effective scrutiny featuring our own Dave Wilcox, detailing how the County had worked on a topic of health scrutiny.

The training session completed it was then into the conference hall to hear the speech from Gordon Brown, notionally on the work of the National Policy Forum around the Governments finances. However in reality it was essentially another step in Gordon’s bid to become the next leader. The speech covered a wide range of areas, from debt relief, to economic growth, to education for all from 3 to 18, including the important point of for every right there is a responsibility.

Lunchtime on the Monday saw a fringe meeting around the theme of Rail investment in the North West. As with most of these, there was a Government minister in attendance and I got the chance to ask questions on Community Rail Partnerships, and what tips they could offer on getting a station.

Dave Blunkett started off the afternoon, his speech didn’t seem to announce any new policy measurers and seemed to be steady as we go, and the only thing of interest was what will be looked at around the CSA.
Following on from a debate around the Building Prosperity for all policy documents, there was a presentation on the Olympics bid, which saw something I never expected to see, a former / current conservative speaking to the conference in the form of Lord Coe.

The day finished with the International Speaker, Luisa Dias Diogo Prime Minister of Mozambique speaking on how a number of the improvements that have been made within her country have been thanks to the work of Gordon Brown / Tony Blair on debt relief, trade and issues around the make history poverty work.

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