Monday Morning

Timing is everything in politics. My arrival at the entrance to the secure area around conference coincided with that of David Miliband. He went on to make a superb speech - not just a unifying speech from a closely defeated candidate for the party's top job - but but foreign policy and what can and should be achieved. I shall be reading the text carefully - it had great substance.

I've escaped from the conference for a couple of hours. I'm hoping to call in at the Labour History Museum - I used its archives for a paper I presented in the summer on the first Labour Group in the House of Lords (1924 - formed as Labour entered overnment for the first time). They have the original minutes of the PLP (Parliamentary Labour Party); copies of the conference reports (which always include a parliamentary report) and books of memoirs not generally available. I will be depositing a copy of the paper that the staff at the archives were so helpful in assisting me with. [If you are interested in a copy, drop me a line at info@washminster.com. I will email a copy as soon as I return home - where my PC's hard drive has the file.

Tonight I am attending a Law Society reception (which as a law lecturer at a couple of universities, I have a great interest in training which the Law Society oversees) - then Diversity Night at an Indian Restaurant. Finally I'll be going to the Guardian's late night reception.