The worst thing about ageing is remembering you were once young. I am 32 and that isn’t exactly old, but in some ways I feel about as ancient and weary as Methuselah. I was 23 the first time I went to party conferences. The year was 2015 and the political landscape was so different to today’s it now seems absurd.
Jeremy Corbyn had just been elected Labour leader and the Conservatives were celebrating their first majority in a generation. The Liberal Democrats were barely a shadow of their former selves, and still reeling from the election loss of a lifetime.
I was 23 and I had a really swell time. I drank remarkable quantities of alcohol, enthusiastically spoke to every single person willing to speak to me, found any and every bit of gossip I could get my hands on exhilarating. It felt like I’d made it; I really was a member of the Westminster bubble, and that bubble was amazing.
I am writing this column nine years later, and three days before the start of Labour’s annual gathering. I chatted to a member of the House of Lords yesterday and neither of us could really believe that we really had to hop on that old, cursed merry-go-round again.
It isn’t that conference has changed per se: I know exactly what’s about to happen – what will be happening as you read this – and in some ways that’s comforting. I know I’ll arrive on Sunday afternoon and briefly wonder why I’d been dreading my jaunt to Liverpool. I’ll bump into a thousand people I know and it’ll be heartening.
I’ll have my first glass of free, warm, barely drinkable white wine and it’ll feel like home. I’ll see newbies looking excited and the old guard looking like grizzled war veterans, and I’ll listen to a series of MPs give speeches about nothing at all.
I’ll drink a bit too much and regret it on Monday morning. I’ll attend panel after panel, and sit at the back as a combination of politicians, wonks, lobbyists and journalists discuss the issues and policies of the day. By the time 6pm comes round, I’ll realise I’ve learned nothing new. The drinks will flow again and someone will tell me something they shouldn’t say, and I’ll see a spad necking a glass of fizz the second their ministerial boss leaves the room.
I’ll wake up on Tuesday feeling worse for wear, yet again, and wonder if what I need may be the darkness and comfort of the main conference hall. There, I will remember why I usually avoid that hall altogether, as no secretary of state will ever really say anything of value there. If they do, it will have been briefed out to select newspapers beforehand anyway, and so there is nothing for me there.
The leader’s speech will come and go, and for a while it will feel like the most important speech in the world. I’ll make sure to note several details and have several pointed views, because I know it will be the only thing people will discuss all evening. On Wednesday I will go home, rest for a couple of days, then do it all again in Birmingham with the Conservatives.
It was once a routine I dearly loved because it made me feel part of something, and that’s always fun. It gave me the feeling that there was one world inside the conference centre and one world outside of it, and the two rarely collided.
That’s the reason I can’t quite bear it any more. I’ve been covering politics for nearly a decade now, and things have only gone from bad to worse. There has been chaos and entertaining drama, but while we all fiddled, Rome kept burning. It is possible that the tide is about to turn and this Labour government really will change everything, and get Britain back on track… but it’s hard not to be pessimistic.
So far, they have been doing an OK job, but what the country needs is something much better than OK. I don’t know if they will manage it, but what I do know is that conference will not change anything. The circus will come into town and it will distract us all for a while, then we will get home and remember that everything is or feels broken.
It’s just quite hard to get excited by that, is all. Then again, by the time you read this, I’ll probably be somewhere up north, glass of something bubbly in hand, having a pleasant enough time. Maybe that’s better than nothing.
