The real point of Liberal Democrat Conference

With Liberal Democrat Voice starting a poll on the point of Lib Dem Conference I thought I would run through a few of the ones that Stephen & Alix have clearly overlooked:

1. It gives Lembit an opportunity to practice his harmonica skills by “entertaining” people late at night in the conference hotel bar.
2. It keeps Liberal Democrat activists in free pens from the various commercial stands, meaning that we never have to buy any for the rest of the year.
3. To give the opportunity for Liberal Democrat members to practice their skills at “acting normally” when they realise that they are in the background as a well-known Liberal Democrat or journalist is being interviewed on television.  “Acting normally” usually involves trying not to look as though they keeping looking round at the TV camera even when they are, as well as pretending that they aren’t excited at being in the background as Andrew Neil, John Pienaar, Paddy Ashdown etc are being interviewed, as well as laughing animatedly at the jokes of the person they are with even if they aren’t funny just so it looks normal.
4. To give the hotel cleaners of the Highcliffe Hotel Bournemouth / Grand Hotel Brighton / Crowne Plaza Liverpool (etc etc) the opportunity to hone their skills in hoovering around drunk asleep LDYS members early in the morning.
5. To give parliamentary researchers the chance to meet real party activists and thereby make them determined that they will never try to do it again and that they must keep these people as far away from the “real politics” of Westminster as they can.  Meanwhile, the party activists moan that these besuited self-important chinless wonders never do any work and don’t understand what “real politics” is.
6. It gives Jenny Tonge an opportunity to say something controversial about Palestine in a fringe meeting knowing that the media will go along hoping that that is exactly what she will do.  This then gives the party the chance to spend the rest of the year apologising for what she has said with the poor excuse “well that’s Jenny for you”.
7. To keep alive the competition within the Liberator Collective of who can walk around for the longest with their arm in the air waving the Glee Club song book at people who never have any intention of buying one.  Clearly after the 40 plus years they have been selling them they haven’t realised that anyone who wants to buy one will know where to get one from anyway, and the reason people are in the bar when Glee Club is on is because they hate glee club and want to get away from it and are not going to be tempted to by a songbook just because some idiot is waving one around in in the air.

I am sure there are many more, which I will add as I remember them.