Adieu conference

So the exhibition stands are back in their cases and the hotels are again charging sensible room rates. The party conference season is now over and will be memorable for being largely unmemorable. Even now it is hard to recall what Nick Clegg said three weeks ago.

In essence the Lib Dems were beastly to their coalition partners; Labour was beastly to itself (no change there) and the Tories beastly to err, a Bolivian's cat. Yes all very forgettable but then again why should a conference season three years away from an election be anything other? Neither government nor opposition used their conferences to set out detailed policy ideas. Instead they alighted on themes - which had a degree of similarity. Ed Miliband's speech, widely criticised at the time, proved to be a slow burner as much of his assessment of what constitutes good and bad in society was reflected in David Cameron's peroration.

The Prime Minister's speech is always the highlight of the conference season. This year's was a low key effort. The speech itself seemed to be a patchwork of concepts poorly stitched together and with no real underlying theme. The headlines "stop moaning" "fight in the dog" and "people are fed up of unaccountable greed" barely link. Its understated delivery - Cameron has been far more compelling - gave the impression that this speech was an unwelcome intervention on the diary of a busy Prime Minister. That and the comic dispute about the role of domestic pets in immigration cases only fuelled the theory that the PM has still yet to establish a properly functioning No10.

Another stand out issue arising from the conference season and particularly the Conservative conference was the presence of a plethora of lobbyists, if indeed a collective of lobbyists can be called a plethora. Seemingly Ministers had to run from venue to venue with their heads down to avoid being assailed by an interest group of one kind or another. Fringe meeting food - the staple diet of the conference goer - was apparently denied to the hungry local party representatives as the corporate raiders grabbed the cocktail sausages by the handful.

A lobbyist in this context means anyone who attends conference on behalf of an organisation they work for, are an advocate of or are consultants to. But it is difficult to know what is wrong with that that. Should a cancer charity be denied the right to make its case at the party conferences? The question should really be - is your organisation spending its money and time sensibly by having a presence at the party conferences? In these straightened times it is often difficult to make the case that it is worth spending such a lot of money for so little impact. PSA will only advise clients to attend the party conferences if their particular circumstances truly merit the investment needed. The conference organisers love the presence of lobbyists though. It generates much needed revenue and anything that keeps party activists away from fringe meeting microphones can only be a good thing.

So we bid adieu (or good riddance might be more appropriate) to the 2011 conference season. Perhaps we need to get back to big seaside set piece events with big Prime Ministers giving big speeches. The conference season has become far too metropolitan and slick. Besides they now do a mean Panini in Blackpool!