Welcome to the party season

Squeaky bum time.

That's right, party conference season is in full swing, which is why I haven't been blogging this week. Too busy organising and promoting events that will take place at the Labour and Conservative conferences in Liverpool and Manchester respectively.

You can organise the most fantastic meeting but if no-one turns up it's a dud in any language. Competition is fierce. At any one time there may be 20 rival events, some offering free champagne, others promising a Cabinet (or Shadow Cabinet) minister.

Labour events are especially hard work for Forest. In 2005 we had an absolute corker of a meeting starring David Hockney, Joe Jackson and Mirror columnist Sue Carroll, but rightly we erred on the side of caution by booking the smallest room in the hotel.

In 2007, after two days' hard graft handing out leaflets many times over, we attracted a hundred delegates and one MP to a drinks reception. The following year however we hit rock bottom when only 12 people attended a speaker meeting in Manchester with not a single MP in sight. (It didn't help that the party declined to publish details of the event in the conference brochure.)

This year we're organising a party with live music at the famous Cavern Club in Liverpool. It's a risk because the club is a 12-minute walk from Albert Dock where the main events are taking place (that's a huge distance in conference terms), but we wanted to do something a little different.

Why bother, I hear you ask? "Won't catch me near Labour Conference," wrote one person on our Facebook event page. "It's the bloody Labour Party who killed our pubs and clubs with their overbearing nannying ways."

True, but in my view you've got to take the fight to our opponents, be it Labour, the Lib Dems or the Conservatives. Anything else smacks of defeatism.

Our job is to communicate with those MPs who share our concerns about excessive regulation and the plight of Britain's pubs and clubs. They do exist and turning our backs on potential allies doesn't make sense, politically.

It's important too to maintain a media and political profile and party conferences provide a useful platform. Last week, for example, I got a call from Five Live expressing interest in our Cavern Club event. Fingers crossed, Stand Up for Liberty! – our principal event at the Conservative conference in Manchester – will attract similar interest.

Earlier this week Pat Nurse asked why we didn't attend the UKIP conference in Eastbourne last week. "It really would be nice if you could be seen to be properly impartial and not go to any party conferences or go to them all (inc Lib Dems)."

Simple answer? Money. It's expensive to organise events that stand out from the crowd and we have to prioritise. That's why we're not doing anything at this week's Lib Dem conference either.

Actually, I've had good reports about this year's UKIP conference but it's a vicious circle. To attract journalists and broadcasters to its conference UKIP needs MPs and a greater share of the vote in a general election.

With no MPs and little or no media interest, UKIP's annual conference will remain a sideshow of limited value to anyone outside the party.

Sorry, but that's the way it is.

See also: Forest at the Labour and Conservative party conferences

Comments

[Pat Nurse]

I'd have bought you a pint :)

[Gary Rogers]

The Ukip conference for which i was there for the duration, there were journalists and broadcasters present. and a couple of very well known ones.Ukip has established itself as a mainstream party. However good luck Simon in Manchester and Liverpool!