Our delegate this year to Party Conference was Alex Tate who managed to be selected to speak when both Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling were on the platform.

Good news for Chester Labour Party came in the guise of an award for "Using New Technologies in Innovative Ways", for which we must thank the sterling efforts of Peter Barnard and the rest of the Team Labour people who work behind the scenes in Chester.

This award covered both the launch of our new website as well as a wider use made of IT for campaigning purposes over the past few years. Alex received the award from Deputy Leader, Harriet Harman, and was photographed on the platform.

Alex said it was a great experience to see and speak to the government's decision-makers and hear first hand their ideas and views on current events. David Miliband was called away early from an evening seminar to fly off to an emergency meeting on the Burmese crisis at the UN, but not before he impressed us with his clear and cogent views about our involvement in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It was universally impressed on delegates that the ramifications of global warming would be the greatest impacting feature ever to affect world security.

Gordon Brown's wife, Sarah, chose to make her maiden speech as PM's wife to a women's forum at the conference. She was very poised, articulate, amusing and knowledgeable and showed herself to be a major asset to our rather shy new PM. As CLP Women's Officer, Alex has requested that she consider making a visit to Chester where we have our first Labour and first woman MP.

Alex urges everyone to consider even a short attendance at the Conference which will be held in Manchester next year for a tremendously worthwhile experience.

Have you ever been a delegate to Party Conference? Tell us your experiences and how you felt.

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