Apologies for the lack of posts. Things should get back to normal now. I've been away at the 3 party conferences, and what a depressing experience it has been.

I'm in Bournemouth at the moment for the Conservatives. Lordy. The most striking - and most damning - feature is that it's just, well...boring. I mean, really, really boring. It has zilch atmosphere. You would think that, since this is the opposition's last conference in advance of a general election at which a deeply disliked government is to put itself to the electoral test, spirits would be up or, at the very least, there be some spirit. As if.

Still. that is at least a well-merited consequence of the fact that the Tories are going backwards - that they are even less likely to win support than a year ago under the stunning incompetence of IDS.

And yes, it is they who have got themselves into their current state - it's not the result of divine intervention or fate, but the direct result of their own behaviour and decisions in opposition. And of the great white hope of the Conservatives, Michael Howard, who manages to convince further with every passing day that he is not fit to be Leader of the Opposition, let alone PM. I look forward to his speech tomorrow.

What a rabble. I was at an NUT fringe meeting this afternoon, hoping to see some sparks on school choice between Tim Collins, the Shadow Education Secretary, and Steve Simnott, the new NUT General Secretary. On the panel was a Tory MP of whom I had never previously heard called Angela Watkinson. Her speech was - quite apart from being read out from a crib sheet - of such stunning inanity that it deserves a wider audience as an example of its type:
drab and pointless, comprised of silly anecdotes about her experience as a school governor and the fact that she has grandchildren. I wouldn't have paid the slightest attention to it or to her - she displayed all the attributes of classic lobby fodder - had she not been introduced as - I can barely believe this as I write it - a member of the front bench education team. In other words, Michael Howard expects support for his proposal to install this woman as a Minister of State at the DfEE. It is so self-evidently preposterous a notion that merely writing it confirms that no one in the party leadership is in the least bit serious about power.

As if that wasn't enough, Tim Collins then smothered the NUT General Secretary - a man who believes the most basic foundation of Tory policy, choice, is immoral - in the rhetorical equivalent of sloppy kisses. Good God, he even began his remarks by saying that the greatest piece of legislation put forward by a Conservative was Butler's 1944 Education Act, specifcally because it was the result of a consensus which included the NUT. He wasn't on the campaign trail; he was at Conservative Party Conference! Are the Tories so entirely devoid of spunk and belief in their own principles that they have to apologise for their own existence at their own conference?

What a shower.

I could go on for much, much longer, but what's the point? If the stuff on display here in Bournemouth is anything to go by, they're not just going to lose the next election big time, they're stuffed for good. Deservedly.

The most notable feature of the LibDems' conference was the number of young, sharp suited clearly careerist types. They flocked to the Tories in the 1980s, to Labour in the 1990s and now, it seems, they are descending on the LibDems. That might be pretty depressing for the rest of us, but for the LibDems it's far more significant than anything else from this year's conference season.

As for Labour, well, I don't really have much to add to what has been written, other than saying that the idea conference would be a blood bath was always misguided. How long will it take commentators to realise that Labour conference has changed beyond just the decor and the platform control. The psyche of the delegates has changed, too. They know that they are on display, and they behave themselves in front of the cameras. They do their fighting off camera.

I can't overstate how pleased I am to be done with conference season this year. They've all been so oddly quiet. And so, so boring. Even for a political anorak such as myself.