Labour Party Annual Conference 2013

Ed Milliband addressing the Eastern region delegates reception

Having had a male delegate in 2012 to the national Labour Party conference (i.e. me!), our Constituency Labour Party (CLP) had to send a female delegate this year. Cllr Brenda Canham was chosen as the delegate. I booked to go along as well to support Brenda and attend several fringe meetings and training sessions. In the end I was asked to go and act as the assistant for Richard Howitt MEP as his normal assistant was unavailable at short notice - as some of you will know I work on a part-time basis for Richard undertaking constituency liaison work.

Conference is particularly busy for any elected official, but particularly for MEPs this year - being the conference in advance of the European elections in 2014. Conference began with the East of England reception on the Saturday night - all national party figures attended this including Ed Balls, Harriet Harman and Ed Milliband (photo above shows Ed speaking at the reception, where he repeated his commitment to stop the bedroom tax). There were various other receptions that evening as well.

Sunday began with the Eastern region delegates briefing followed by a rally held at the Odeon cinema re: the European elections - Alex Mayer number 2 for Labour for the Eastern Region spoke at this and did very well as did all the other speakers. Labour candidates for the European elections seem to be of a very high calibre.

The highlight of Sunday evening was the RSPCA beer and curry event - not just a highlight because of the curry (which was very tasty!) but because the RSPCA and other guests spoke passionately about their duty to protect animals. I managed to get a few 'Stop the badger cull' pin badges and stickers to pass around to local party members.

Richard Howitt MEP meeting with Eastern region representatives

Monday was a very busy day as the bulk of functions that Richard needed to attend occurred on the Monday so it was important to be well organised. In the morning Richard was lucky enough to be called to speak in the international debate section of conference. Richard spoke regarding European matters and highlighting UKIP and Tory MEP voting records - he reminded delegates that "it really does matter who you elected to the European Parliament" - asking those present to do all they can to maximise the vote for the Labour Party in 2014. 

Richard Howitt MEP speaking at Labour Party conference 2013

Big thanks to my technical consultation (i.e. Angus!) who got this video uploaded onto the internet very quickly

Also on Monday, I attended debates relating to Israel and Palestine - a very emotive subject and naturally, the debates were really quite fiery.

Tuesday started with a number of meetings with selected parliamentary candidates for the Eastern Region including North Norfolk, South Norfolk, Southend & Rochford, South Suffolk and others. The Leaders speech was on Tuesday afternoon and I thought that Ed did very well and has continued to outline some very clear differences between the Labour Party and the Conservatives. There were some clear policy pledges, including a firm commitment to axe the bedroom tax and freeze energy prices until January 2017 if Labour were to win the election in 2015.

 Ed Milliband addressing the Labour Party conference

The frozen energy bill that appeared in the conference hall to symbolise the commitment to freezing energy bills

On Wednesday I attended a fringe entitled "Does Labour have a UKIP problem?". I was pleased to see a lot of people attending this and pleased to see virtually everyone attending recognise that UKIP was indeed a threat to the Labour Party. There were numerous examples given of seats that would normally elect a Labour representative instead being won by UKIP and I was pleased to be able to highlight my own Thetford example. A joke was shared to highlight the message put out by UKIP and the Tories, it went something like this; "there was a banker, an immigrant, a voter and a politician and there was a pack of 10 biscuits. The banker takes 8 biscuits. The politician then says to the voter, watch out mate that immigrant is going to steal your biscuit".

Conference is also a great opportunity to meet up friends friends and make new ones. I went along to a Labour karoke with Jane Basham, the fantastic Labour parlimanetary candidate for South Suffolk and Luke Cresswell a member for that CLP as well as Sandy Martin who helped me a lot of with my by-election campaign and I met Tracey, who I'd never met before, but helped with telecanvassing for the by-election.