Thursday, September 25, 2003
Cold Turkey
Listening to Good Morning Wales on the radio today I started to have severe withdrawal symptoms for Party Conference. The programme had relocated itself to Brighton for the day and was discussing the leader's speech and of course last night's Glee Club. The Glee Club is a huge sing song and get together that over the years has achieved a notoriety of its own. Happy as I am to be home I do feel a bit of resentment at being unceremoniously dragged out of this environment and being denied the opportunity to take part in important policy discussions that could impact on Wales. It was made worse by the fact that despite the efforts of the Welsh Liberal Democrats to ensure that all six of our AMs were present for the entirety of the two Plenary sessions this week so as to keep Labour on their toes, the other parties did not appear to have bothered. Labour had their full quota of 30 AMs there as I would expect but the Tories were three down and all the Plaid AMs were not present for every vote. The Tories even tried to oppose the Business statement but did not get any support as we took the view that if they couldn't be bothered to act like an opposition and make the effort then they did not deserve our help. I don't go to Conference for a good time, I go to work but that does not stop me enjoying my work. Do the BBC really have to parade all my friends and colleagues at Conference across the airwaves so as to rub it in?
