Party Conference

Feeling sorry for myself cos I've got a cold and a hospital appointment this afternoon so thought I'd cheer myself up by watching the labour party conference live onn bbc parliament!
I'm hoping that susan will blog any interesting bits of conf for us!

Ive also asked Andrew to blog about the fringes he attended over the last few days

The campaign group fringe
Was mentioned briefly on bbc

The little I saw of yesterdays conf was awful with Jack straw saying how great it is were locking people up more and that newspapers now don't have to pay for court lists and isn't it wonderful that you can now watch court hearings online - I gave up shorlty after that!

This mornings conference has been slightly better -


Paul Kenny from the gmb has moved the contempory issue on energy regulation.

Paul rightly calls regulation for the energy companies saying "Gordon for standing up for our citizens against unregulated dash for cash by energy companies is a vote winner.
Protecting british people from being ripped off is the role of this government and regulation does mean protection.

Tony Woodley from unite speaks on the issue and says lagging the loft is laudable but doesn't help the millions in fuel poverty now - they need help to pay their bills now. Energy companies have had a 500% profit since 2003 - the greed rip off profits being generated by these companies must be stopped. We need a cap on energy profits now and if the companies don't get the message then we should be taking them into public ownership if its good enough for the banks its good enough for utilities. He then read out a letter from Annie a council tenant in lambeth who says she is paying 50% of her money to heating but she is having to decide whether or not to pay the bills, heat her flat or put food on the table for her 2 year old son - I've supported labour all my life how can they do this to people like me, I thought they were on our side. - brothers n sisters its people like annie we need to support and if we don't then we as a party have nothing.
(He gave exactly the same speech that he gave to tuc conf!)

Unites tony woodley then speaks again on the european working time directive opt out. He makes the point that this legislation originated with the tories. In the last 15 years we see british workers working the longest hours in europe. The pro business lobby tells us that removing the opt out reduces flexibility. People don't want to work for long hours they have to, to make ends meet. The british unions are united that we must have a policy to work to reverse this tory crime and remove the opt out.

This is not an issue on a wish list for the future, or for the policy forum ping pong - the eu is debating it later this week and we must send a message that britain is not the social dumping group of europe we want the same rights as the brothers and sisters in europe.

Paul kenny seconds

Derek Simpson then speaks again about the economy and the current crisis.

He comments on usa nationalising the risks of the banks but not the profit.
In the uk when we saved northern rock 2000 jobs were still lost - why aren't we as a government saying as well as stopping the crisis we'll prevent job losses as well.

These aren't unprofitable business - hbos and lloyds tsb are profitable - why is there a need to shed the workload.

This is the party of the people not fat cats and spivs let that msg go from this conference and from this government.

We can be pro business but not at the expense of the people.

Billy hayes from cwu then speaks and talks about the governments policy of a positive future for royal mail.
The tories want to privatise royal mail as do the lib dems. Our party policy is that we would keep royal mail in the public service.
Of course there are problems to address decades of under investment and the chief exec of public service earns 3 million pound! So its a bit rich when we talk about public sector pay.
There's issues with changes in royal mail and we need innovation and change.
Our cwu members are getting the message when they speak to the public - we don't wanna see royal mail privatised.

Let's distinguish ourselves from the lib dems and tories and keep rm in the public sector.

There was then a number of speakers from the floor nearly all of whom spoke about fuel poverty.

Apart from Dave Anderson MP who said that change is the buzz word for this conference and wouldn't it be nice if our own Mps would support our leader for a change, if labour MPs stopped undermining our leader and started undermining the tories, cos they haven't changed. Only one dif between Cameron and Thatcher - Lipstick.

We can talk about positive change and change the health outcomes by providing free school meals for all.
We could change the despair of millions of people who need affordable housing by implementing our party policy - we could change the decades of discrimination by implementing equal pay - we should fund that - forget about the courts this government should just do it.

And those that don't want to can go forth and multiply.