I had a nice stroll through Manchester to get to the Town Hall for my first fringe event. If there's a credit crunch on, it didn't seem to be affecting the shops in the city centre they were very busy.
The meeting was organised by the Fabian Society "Can we give the white working class what they want" The speakers were Hazel Blears MP, Brendan Barber of the TUC, John Cruddas MP, John Denham MP, Sunny Hundal, Blog Journalist, John Trickett MP.
It was a very frank and open discussion with the panel and delegates, and proved the party has to address the needs of D and E core voters. I hope this has set the scene for the week.
Then it was the ring of steel!! You can unserstand the high security, especially when you see what happened later in the day with the car bomb in Pakistan. Horrible.
I spent a couple of hours wandering around the exhibition stalls and catching up with people you usally only see at confernce and of course lots of collegues from Salford. The Salford stand was very good and promotes the city well.
My usual partner in crime at conference for the last few years has been Steve Coen, and I have to admit we do gatecrash a few of the better receptions. Tonight was no exception! We managed to get into the London Party reception. David Milliband, Harriet Harman and Gordon Brown were the guest speakers. A very united front.
Nice to be invited to the Young Labour meeting. This happened as I was Salford's youth officer till I was 45!!
The highlight of the day though was the The Co-operative Street Games launch, where I got to meet one of my all time heroes Brian Robson, one of United's greats.
The last meeting of the night was in Canal Street which was really alive and buzzing. It was to support the Labour Party's LGBT Group.
A good first day.
