It's my birthday today and, like last year, I'm spending it at Labour Party Conference in Brighton. It's a bit calmer this time around though. Last year John Prescott called us Mekons on the Today Programme because of an article Tom and I wrote about the decline of political parties. This year we have a bit of a lower profile.

I went along to a couple of events last night and it did strike me that it was much quieter overall. Claire Short reckons that less than half the MPs are here this year. Anyway, today is the first proper day and I'll head into the main conference centre for an event we're doing at lunchtime to see what's going on.

Posted by Paul Miller at September 26, 2005 10:21 AM