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This year, at the age of 72, I will be a delegate from Labour International CLP to my first ever Labour party Annual Conference, in Brighton from 24 – 27 September.
Why have I never been before, during the time I was so active in the Labour party? Perhaps I will find out.
4 September
I booked my flights yesterday so I am really going. I had a few doubts in the last few weeks, mainly financial but also there are hints that there may be vicious battles for power ahead and I am not sure I want to deal with nastiness on what will be my holiday this year.  I haven’t been to Brighton for over 30 years and it’s bound to have changed. The programme for the conference is now online ; it is long and I haven’t  had a chance to browse yet.
A quick look and I definitely want to hear Angela Raynor briefing on what to expect at conference, and go to a welcome cocktail reception with Jeremy Corbyn. I imagine the whole world does too, so I may not get through the door of the cocktail lounge! Logistical organisation needed, soon.
7 September
My daughter has given me a birthday present, ticket to the World Transformed, the Momentum fringe festival, a lovely idea. But how will I fit in Ken Loach, Hilary Wainwright, Dennis Skinner, Naomi Klein and others must hear speakers and attend the official conference events too?  
Like many other people I know, in person and on Facebook, I re-joined the party when Corbyn was elected leader and I am an unashamed supporter of the election manifesto. It is not a person I support, although I confess I have grown really fond of someone with similar interests and who carries on through the most appalling attacks, with tolerance and understanding. more than I would have in this situation. I have supported Labour’s current policies all my life and my aim at the conference is to ensure they continue to be policy, and to have a good time as well.
10 September
Why do people go to  conferences?  I suspect the secret of this conference will be to treat it as series of smaller conferences and concentrate on getting to know a few people in each group. I suspect there will be a lot of hanging around, chatting and drinking coffee and /or glasses of wine. From the map of the venues, there will be lots of running from one session to another. I really must get a grip, because all my winter clothes are put away in bags, and I won’t need them until November at the earliest in Spain. Boots! ! Tights, Ugh!!!!
I am writing this blog is because I have no concept of what a large conference, with thousands of people, will be like and I hope it might be useful to someone who wants to go next year.  I think that in the past decades politics has grown apart from normal life and that politicians have moved away from the rest. In Spain we call politicians “la casta”, the political class. Back when I was politically active in Cardiff, in the 1970s and 80s, things were different. Labour MPs I knew rented  a shared house in Brixton for the small number of nights they were actually in London and our Conservative MP and his wife were on the PTA in the local comprehensive where all our children were educated. My wish, though not a popular one I think, is to see being an elected parliamentary representative as a civic duty, giving five years of your time with a guarantee of keeping your job.
I think one of the fun parts is going to be staying in one of the two large houses Labour International has rented, a bit like student life I imagine– sitting up late discussing the day. I have only met two of the other delegates in person, both women living in Spain, but I feel I know many of the others from our Facebook discussions and I want to meet them face to face.
11 September
The idea for this blog was for the Labour International web site, where we hope lots of people will write their conference experiences.
My brilliant grandson Evan set up this page for me a couple of years ago, well before his tenth birthday (!) and until now I have posted about Spain, from a British point of view.  Trying to finish a novel and then looking for an agent or a publisher has taken more time than I thought and the blog writing has slipped. The comments and requests from friends who are not members of the Labour party to explain more about the differences within the party have encouraged me to continue  writing here, in the run up to the conference. 
I think the concept of left, right and centre has shifted so far to the right in the last thirty or so years that we have forgotten when ideas like nationalised industries, good quality social housing and a totally public health service were completely mainstream.  Now they are called hard or extreme left. I have always been conscious that ideas of centre ground are different depending on where you come from, so that “centre” if you come from industrial South Wales, as I do, is different to the centre seen by people from “the home counties”.
16 September
I thought it useful to talk about Momentum, as non-Labour party members may be a bit puzzled at the press coverage.   I am not a member myself, but I do appreciate the key role they played in the last general election and the way they are encouraging young people into the party. .
Historically there have always been groups within the Labour party; I assume they were formed to ensure that a particular point of view does not get forgotten.   When I researched groups within Labour today I was amazed at the large number and I have never heard of even a quarter of them.
One of the oldest groups the Fabian Society is still active but during the long years when I was outside the Labour party, groups have come and gone and it was only when I re-joined in 2015 that I learned about Progress. This is one of the most influential groups, key to the changes in the internal structures of the party during the time of New Labour. They set up a mentoring scheme for prospective parliamentary candidates, for example, using the generous donations of Lord Sainsbury. Am I a fan of Progress? No. Do I think that people have the right to set up organisations to lobby for ideas they think important and right? Yes, as long as they are transparent about their aims and objectives, and about their funding.
Since the June election many inside and outside the Labour party have acknowledged the success of Momentum in gathering new members and energizing them into community action.  So successful was it that, in fact, the Conservative party has tried to copy the model, setting up an organisation called “Activate” and using social media as its base. So far it has not had the same success.
 The right wing of the Labour party do not like Momentum; they claim that it is an organisation within an organisation and has members whose views are Trotskyite, similar to the Socialist Workers party.  I honestly don’t know nor, to be truthful, do I care if people on the left, who hold the same socialist ideals, choose to leave one party and join another they think has more chance of success. A political party is made by people to fulfil certain aims and these aims mutate as the world around changes. The Momentum members I have met so far in, certainly in Labour International, are doing lots of the hard work of organisation. It will be interesting to see how they function at first hand at the conference.
22 September
I am almost ready to leave.  The more I read about the conference the more daunting it seems. How many delegates will there be? Certainly thousands. Then there are there are the MPs and councillors who attend, and then there are the lobbyists, the people from business and charities and the general hangers on. Five thousand people, ten thousand? How will I ever find the people I know in that crowd?
What is the aim of the conference? I suspect that there will be many different groups with their own aims and objectives and the skill of the organisers will be if most people go home believing their aims have been met. Is it possible for this conference to be a win/win for all the chapels in the Labour party “broad church? I think the leadership team has managed to bring Labour to where it is today, four points ahead of the Tories in the latest opinion poll, by demonstrating quite some political intelligence.
So my aim is to see a party working together to win power when the conference ends on Wednesday and to use that power to bring change to Britain. I want to see a country for the many not the few again before I die and I want to have hope that my children, grandchildren and their children will enjoy the benefits that I enjoyed.
06.30 24 September
Brighton
The seagulls woke me at six o clock, seven by my Spanish internal clock. The house I am sharing with other Labour International delegates is within sight of the sea. I arrived last night too late to pick up my delegate credentials, so I will leave early this morning to pick them up. Fourteen of us met up last night for a drink and a planning session but finding a restaurant for that many in the centre of Brighton on the Saturday night of conference was too much and in the end we had to split up into smaller groups. I enjoyed a very good Indian meal and great company.
This morning we have the Labour International (L.I.) meeting at 09.30 but the formal opening of the conference has been brought forward to 10.30 and we may need thirty minutes to get through security so we will miss it. This is the first of many clashes today – our L.I. rights of migrants fringe meeting clashes with many other events.
The L. I. meeting is an important one as we have grown from around 800 members to over three thousand since Corbyn was first elected leader and we need to organise in a different way. We have already started using software called Zoom to organise online meetings, and by varying the times of these meetings we can accommodate the time zones where people live. But not everyone feels comfortable with these technologies and some older members do not like using Facebook, for example. I don’t have a smartphone, from choice, but here in Brighton I realise that being on Whatsapp would be a distinct disadvantage.
25 September
Sunday, the longest day!
 I left the house at 08.45 and arrived back at 23.30!. Thirteen thousand people packed into a large space with no natural light and a lot of noise from 09.00 until 17.30 is not really my scene.
There were lots of high points as well as some low points. Rather sadly a low point came at the start of the day and influenced my mood. The meeting of L. I. was, I thought,  an example of the struggles that are taking place within the wider party. Change is almost always painful and for many years the organisation of the Labour party has been in the hands of a comparatively small number of people. Since Corbyn was elected large numbers of people have joined the party, people who want to take part, to make their opinions heard and shape the party. This can be difficult to accept. I saw some of this at our meeting and it left a slightly sour taste in my mouth. Fortunately a fire alarm went off accidentally and brought the meeting to an abrupt end.
I had missed the opening of the conference and I decided to postpone going into the main session until after lunch, and I explored the stalls that filled the ground floor of the centre.
A few of us left the centre together to look for fresh air and lunch in a nearby coffee shop and my mood changed completely. We met Ken Loach and his wife, who were unfailingly friendly and interested in everyone who stopped by their table.  Even though I felt slightly guilty interrupting them yet again, my overwhelming desire to thank Ken Loach for the films he has made won. His films have added so much to my understanding of the world –from Kes, through Land and Freedom, the Wind that Shakes the Barley, Carla’s Song to I, Daniel Blake. He and his wife are as passionate in their desire for justice in the world as I imagine they have ever been, and we agreed that we not going to see the rights that our grandparents fought for, for us, be taken away from our grandchildren, while we had the energy and the health to continue the fight.
Some of the speakers from the floor were quite brilliant, impassioned and powerful, the best today were women. And for me Sara Callaway from Crossroads Women’s centre in the Kentish Town, London was exceptional. I was less impressed by the speeches from the professional politicians.
Another highpoint is the unfailing friendly attitude of the support staff at conference. The security staff, the police outside, the stewards -some are Labour party supporters financing their attendance at conference, all were friendly and helpful.
The two evening fringe events were a high and a low. The high, not surprisingly, was the welcome drink with Jeremy Corbyn. There were a dozen competing events but the ballroom was full of predominately young, ethnically diverse people who were enthusiastic in a totally informal, friendly way and Jeremy Corbyn judged the mood perfectly. He was at his most relaxed, joking, teasing the crowd, enjoying the atmosphere. The reception by Brighton Council, in the wonderful Brighton pavilion, was a disappointment though, mostly white men in suits and the welcome from the Labour leader was a predictable blurb for economic growth in  Brighton, ignoring the many people who sleep in doorways.
The last event of the day was perfect, a family supper with old friends from Cardiff in their home in Hove. Perfectly cooked roast chicken and roast potatoes, a glass of wine and normal conversation meant I could relax and when I arrived back at the house I went straight to bed and slept so soundly that I did not hear my house mates return a little later. I missed the drink and the jokes but I had seven hours of perfect sleep.
26 September
A good night’ sleep works wonders the conference centre wasn’t nearly as intimidating this morning. The security staff are almost friends and I know my way to the toilets, the coffee shop and the stairs to the conference hall without asking.
Emily Thornbury gave a good speech International Affairs. She has grown in confidence and she carried the hall with her. The debate on Brexit was interesting because speakers from the floor were able to express very different opinions and be listened to with respect. What I heard confirmed my support for the Labour leadership line. The vote, like it or not, was to leave and the negotiations are not in the hand of Labour. We must campaign for the continuation of the rights of people to live and work in Europe and the ability to create jobs. In my opinion the only way to convince the people in the deprived areas of Britain that the EU offers them any benefit is to mitigate the almost forty years of neglect that they have suffered under every government since Thatcher.
The highlight was John MacDonald’s speech. It brought tears to my eyes and reminded me of my conversation with Ken Loach yesterday. People of our generation remember from the stories of our parents how hard their life was before the 1945 election ushered in the public services that revolutionised my life. Listening to MacDonald and watching the faces of the thousands standing and cheering in that hall I believed that the spirit of 1945 has risen again. Inspiring.
This afternoon was the most relaxing time so far. Ann Bonner and I took a taxi back to our house and we had a couple of hours to rest, catch up with emails, even time for a short siesta. We missed Sadiq Khan’s speech but I was sure it would receive lots of  publicity and I could read about it later.
We returned for a fringe meeting in a pub,  to listen to a panel of speakers including John McDonell, Cat Smith, Rebecca Long Bailey and Mark Serwotka talk about the practical necessities for translating the manifesto into government. One of the most inspiring speeches was from Kevin Courtney of the teachers’ union, spelling out how dire is the state of the schools in the UK, and how it affects the future of children and the health of teachers. He called for education to be taken back into public ownership and manged by local government. Ann and I were delighted to join three of our fellow delegates for a meal in Pizza Express, one of the treats I miss in Spain, although I can buy their frozen pizzas in our local Iceland store. Good meals with interesting discussions are definitely one of the big pluses of conference.
26 September
Key votes this morning so it will be important to be in the hall the whole time.
I found the technical details and names like “reference back” a bit confusing but luckily most of us delegates sit together so the old hands were able to explain some of the finer points. I feel it is a big responsibility to be voting on issues that are so important to the speakers from the floor who speak with such passion.
For me a key issue is the accusations of anti-Semitism that have been made against Labour party members, some of them Jewish themselves. A new organisation for Jewish socialists was launched at the conference and several Jewish women members spoke brilliantly on the subject of anti-Zionism and the distinction between it and anti-Semitism this morning. They spoke movingly of the plight of the Palestinian people and received standing ovations from the floor of the conference. I hope this means the days of the witch hunts and expulsions are finished.
The financial report, which I expected to be a formality, if a positive one, as Labour is now firmly in the black, was questioned in detail by speakers from the floor. They wanted to know the cost of the Compliance Unit, active in the exclusions and expulsions of members in the past two years. They also queried the pay rises given to the staff employed by the Labour party and several questions were asked about the amount that headquarters passes to Constituency parties. Currently CLPs received £2.50 per member, an increase from the previous £1.50. Several speakers complained they lacked the money to carry out their activities in an effective way. The chair promised to look at all these questions in detail.
I spent the lunch break in a Momentum fringe meeting called “Global Justice Now”, with brilliant speakers who were frank about the enormous problems faced by so many people in the world, and how these problems were causing huge mass movements of people. We in the more prosperous west are not facing up to our responsibilities for having caused many of the underlying problems in the first place.
Naomi Klein addressed the same issues in her brilliant conference speech. She told us  how the “the Shock Doctrine” is playing out in Puerto Rico, where the US is  making aid in the hurricane destroyed island dependent on  the Puerto Rican authorities opening  up their public services to private capital. She told us what an inspiration the success of a Labour party with a socialist manifesto was to people all around the world who are eager for change. Her description of the way the terrible things that are happening in the world at the moment are also the motivators for great and positive change reminded me of the line from “ A tale of two cities”, “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times” . Definitely a conference highlight so far.
27 September
The last day of the Labour party conference and Jeremy Corbyn’s speech is to come.
An amazing thing happened today. Last night Ann and I talked with the driver of a taxi we took to a meal with our fellow delegates. We talked politics and as we drew up at the pub and got out, he told us about a “conservative toff” who had asked him where he had got his cockney accent. He told us he stopped the cab and told the man to get out but we could see it had really upset him. As we paid the rather high fare I gave him a hug and said “don’t worry about idiots like that man, but maybe  vote Labour next time”. This morning we found a five pound note through the letter box, with a post-it note attached. It read “ I took two ladies to the Parkview Tavern. You paid me too much. Steve”.
The build up to Corbyn’s speech this morning was enormous. As the hall started to fill up a choir appeared on the platform and they kept us entertained with songs. Every seat was full as on he came to the now familiar chants of “Oh Jeremy Corbyn”.
His speech was everything I could have asked, pledges on climate change – a threat and an opportunity he said and I totally agree. An upgrade to our industrial base, embracing the changes brought by technology. Jobs, rights and a decent standard of living are what are essential  for every citizen. When he spoke about the scandalous state of social housing and the rights of everyone to a decent place to live he recited some lines from Ben Okri’s moving poem about Grenfell Tower
“Those who were living now are dead
Those who were breathing are from the living earth fled.
If you want to see how the poor die, come see Grenfell Tower.
See the tower, and let a world-changing dream flower”
It brought tears to my eyes, and, I rather thought, to Corbyn’s eyes too. On foreign affairs, he reiterated his pledge to a decent ethical foreign policy, support for Palestine and a ban on arms sales to Saudi Arabia. I worry that because this challenfges so many vested interests, it puts him in danger. It was a speech to bring about a socialist Britain and he made it seem possible. He offered real hope for the first time in many, many years.
 30 September 2017
Recollections in tranquillity
Am I glad I took the plunge and went to the conference as a delegate? Overwhelmingly yes!
I felt I was taking part in history, a moment when the centre ground in Britain changed and the move to the right of the last thirty years has been halted.  Food banks, homelessness, unsafe housing side by side with unimaginable wealth, these are from the 1920s and 30s Britain. Never again, British people said in 1945 when they elected a Labour government. Well, they did come again and when I stood in the conference hall in Brighton, cheering not just Corbyn and McDonnell but the many impassioned speakers from the floor, I sensed a huge will to create a new Britain and a belief that it is now possible.
Apart from the politics it was the people I met who made the days in Brighton such a great experience. I loved sharing a house with such a diverse group of people, aged between 19 and 79, we had so many laughs. I loved entering the conference area on the seafront each morning and being greeted by the party activists, handing out the newsletters they had written and printed overnight, the leaflets for meetings they had organised and just pressing their case in a friendly, if passionate way. The security staff and the stewards were friendly and helpful and I got to know some, useful when my comrades took my bag with the much prized ticket for Corbin’s speech into the hall without me and I was allowed in anyway!
In the interminable wait to go through passport control at Alicante airport (they must have the slowest responding machines in the world) I talked with two young couples who were going to Benidorm to celebrate a birthday. Perhaps I don’t look the part as they seemed surprised to hear I had been to the conference, but we established that they were angry at the way jobs were taken by machines in the retail sector solely to increase company profits and the NHS nurse told me how far her standard of living had slipped since she joined seven years ago. These are people who need a Labour government for the many and I realised how important it is to talk to everyone I meet.