Out and About in Bournemouth...

Bournemouth, the end of September, rain, traffic, crowded restaurants, fully booked hotels and a lot of MPs – this all adds up to the Labour Party Conference 2007 . We were at the conference in full this year.

Fringe events were as varied as ever, from champagne tasting to a beer meeting, and from Oxfam Coffee Shops to the housing crisis to defending postal services.

All environment fringes were based in the ‘Climate Clinic’ this year, indicative of its increasing importance in the political sphere, indeed in the words of their own slogan; “Climate change isn’t on the fringe, it’s the main event.”

An environment fringe that I attended was the SERA (Labour's Environment Campaign) Question Time. Panellists were representing Wessex Water, the Energy Savings Trust, Natural England, Environment Agency and the Environmental Services Association. Discussion here centred on legislation and targets for carbon reduction, and how this will also be good for the economy.

Fringe events were held all through the day and continued into the late evening, although then they competed with various sponsored parties. The restaurants and hotels were also full with people, discussing Brown’s Leadership speech or a particular fringe or stand that they had visited.

The conference hall was always busy, and it was amazing to see the diverse range of charities and businesses that attended. At the time of Brown’s Leadership speech, the whole conference centre was quiet, crowded around watching the plasma screen dotted around the complex, which was an experience to say the least!

In fact, the atmosphere everywhere at Bournemouth was really friendly and dynamic. Someone compared it to a university Fresher’s fair and I can see the similarities - socialising until the early morning (although maybe these are not followed by early morning breakfast briefings at university); picking up freebies (from bags, to pens, to mints to a yoyo) and meeting an eclectic mix of people.

The question is, will it be the same without the seaside next year, as the Labour conference moves to Manchester again for 2008?