Jon Cruddas's conference diary

Day one of the Labour party conference was a surprisingly enjoyable, even comradely, experience. The fringe packed; the bars friendly and the Manchester Conference Centre working well. Great speeches, in a super venue, made to warm, receptive groups of delegates. The weather: perfect. On show, the Labour party at its best- a respectful, modern pluralist party.

To cap it all, at five past midnight I saw Tom Watson MP embrace Barry Gardner MP, Joan Ryan MP and Shioghan McDonagh MP. Tom was, allegedly, the leader of the 2006 ‘Curry Coup’ against Tony Blair, his colleagues, allegedly, leaders of the 2008 ‘Progress Putsch’.  Does this signal the end of the attacks on the PM? Definitely not. Yet it points to the possibility that the party can somehow stop from tripping into factional self obsession. It could yet be retrievable.

A few hours earlier, I had been gripped by a sense of foreboding. The satellite system on the 8.53 from Euston failed: all seat bookings cancelled, journalists, lobbyists and MPs in a mad scramble for the £15 First Class Weekend Upgrades. I arrived in Manchester to discover I had packed the wrong phone charger and that the laptop was not working.

Arrive late for the first fringe: ‘Can we give the white working class what they want?’ organised by the Fabians. As I am late all the platform have agreed I have to go on first so stumble through a few minutes and then sit back and listen to Blears, Denham, B Barber from the TUC, blogger Sunnay Hundal and my colleague John Trickett make some fantastic contributions. Then the maybe three hundred in attendance in Manchester City Hall got stuck in. A really good event. Hazel in particular was great. No talk of personalities and leadership crisis.

Followed this with some Sky and BBC interviews and the only topic was leadership and plots. Instead I take a punt on a ‘middle class tax cut’ funded by a new top rate, informed by a Spectator blog from earlier in the week and Obama in the States. Let’s see if it flies.

Final evening fringe- The Compass Rally, again hundreds in attendance and ten platform speakers. Our factional enemies over at ‘Progress’ have nine for their rally so we had to have ten on the platform for ours. Denham, Miliband E., Doug Alexander and many more are all urging bold innovative thinking. At last cabinet ministers are coming over to Compass—the centre left is on the move. Later I’m dismayed to discover two of them are also appearing over at the Progress Rally tomorrow. Hmmm people are positioning. I go on last of the ten speakers. It is a great event.

Off for a beer and a curry- a local spends most of his meal directing abuse at our table about Labour, Brown, asylum seekers and the war. A final drink at the Unite reception. Good night out, good day.