'Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer ...' Mr Brocklebank.

EXCITEMENT abounded as the Labour Party conference arrived in Liverpool on Monday for the first time in 86 years.

Well, admits Mr Brocklebank, it nearly abounded: as he stood around outside the conference hall, he bumped into one local MP who, on being asked if they were having a good time, responded conspiratorially that it was "the most boring conference I've ever been to".

And this but Monday morning! HOWEVER, for any delegates feeling particularly demoralised, the glossy brochure for the proceedings offered some slight ray of hope.

About 30 pages in, there was a bright pink notice of a fringe meeting celebrating 60 years since the decriminalising of suicide. LABOUR leader Ed Miliband's speech on Tuesday was the highlight of the week's events, but the real coup came before he began his speech, when a video of the Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, giving her best wishes to all attending, was aired.

However, while she and her people had managed to smuggle the video out of the country under the noses of the military dictatorship, smuggling footage of the conference into Burma proved more difficult, as the whole live feed to the BBC news channel went down for more than 10 minutes in the middle of Miliband's speech. ONE of the most striking things about conference is the abundance of delegates representing all sorts of obscure causes.

And it's good that when they swap their daily campaigning for the glitz and glamour of the conference, the comrades all keep their sense of perspective and feet on the ground.

Hence, why one female delegate representing Justice For Colombia stormed back to the bar at the Jury's Inn to berate the barman for the Chardonnay not being cold enough. Who said we weren't all in it together? SPEAKING of all being in it together, Mr B spotted one of his old Labour muckers loitering around outside the Arena.

Intrigued was Mr B to see that, on his entry pass for the conference, the ardent Labour campaigner (and potential candidate for a council seat) was defined as "Contractor".

When Mr B asked why the party seemed not to want to take ownership of him, the Contractor, refreshingly honestly, replied: "It's so when I get p***** and say stupid things, they can deny all knowledge of me."

"There must be a lot of Contractors at this shindig, then," replied the squire.

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Title Annotation:	Letters
Publication:	Daily Post (Liverpool, England)
Date:	Sep 29, 2011
Words:	400
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