Birmingham conference diary - from evening to morning

For any reading this who has never been to a major party conference - these are massive events in which at least as much happens on the "Fringe" e.g. side events as in the main conference hall.

There are events from first thing in the morning to late at night and anyone who is interested even in one or two subjects affecting human beings, never mind a wider range than that, will usually find far more events they would like to attend than you could possibly fit in.

So for example last night there was a reception organised by Conservative MEPs, at which the leader of the UK delegation of Conservative MEPs, Syed Kamall, who is also leader of the "ECR" (European Conservatives and Reformists) group in the parliament, made a plug for the ECR meeting at 7.45 am this morning. He jokingly suggested that people attending both didn't need to go to bed in between.

In fact I was one of the people who did attend both, and will probably fit in a post at some time this week about some of the things said there. Judging by the fact that not too many people were falling asleep early this morning I suspect most of those who made it to the ECR meeting had made sure to get some sleep at a reasonable hour!

The soon to be ennobled Martin Callanan, Syed's predecessor as chairman of the ECR, was certainly wide awake this morning. He made some interesting comments about the new European Commission.

Martin said that he had wholeheartedly agreed with David Cameron in opposing the appointment of Jean-Claude Juncker as the new EU Commission President, but when Mr Juncker produced his nominations for Commissioner portfolios, Martin's opinion of him went up, not least because he obviously has a sense of humour.- his appointments included a French socialist to take responsibility for budget discipline, and a Spaniard who owns a fleet of racing cars and more than one oil company to deal with Energy and Climate Change - thereby infuriating the Green hardliners. Almost as angry would be those lefties who want to impose penal regulations and taxation to cripple the City of London with the proposed appointment of Lord Hill to oversee Financial Services regulation.

My main problem updating this blog has been finding time to write up some of the interesting things I have heard - I still have not covered the best bits of George Osborne's speech yesterday or Francis Maude's speech about the massive cuts which have been made in the cost of the civil service, or a wonderful session with a group of people who overcame tremendous handicaps to set up their own businesses, or one of the most moving, powerful and authentic statements of British patriotism I have ever heard, from IDS.

But I will be writing all these up, although some of the things which are happening at conference may have to wait to be put on the blog when I get home.

Now off to hear Teresa May and Boris Johnson ...

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