Sunday From The Sofa

There’s something strangely comforting about watching Liberal Democrats dealing with procedural matters, so it’s apt that the opening item in today’s coverage is the FCC report. It’s also somewhat nostalgic for me, since Sunday was the only day of Conference I could watch last year and so most of what I saw was the reports. Of course, it’s also a little weird watching speeches on reports you can’t see, particularly in the case of FPC where, as the LDYS observer I was (occasionally!) in the room at the time.

One trend that hasn’t changed is the appalling quality of the captioning of speakers. Already we’ve had Jeremy Hargreaves as “Vice Chair, Federal Conference Committee” and a reference to “Golder’s Green”. I fear things can only get worse, particularly if anyone from Wales gets up…

In anticipation of another trend, can speakers kindly stop invoking the Preamble To The Federal Constitution? On the one hand it’s thoroughly dull hearing it, because we all have it written on our membership cards (heck, I just got my Welsh party variant card, so I have it written down twice!) But more than that, it is used to suggest that something should be done because it is “naturally” Lib Dem and really, we should have better reasons for doing things than “because”.

It was interesting to hear Mark Hunter suggest that “…we would no sooner blame Manchester University for the government’s decision to go to war in Iraq”. Clearly he hasn’t met the University of Manchester Students Union…

The Beeb aren’t doing well on the broadcast mechanics so far, we’ve had picture interruptions throughout (filled with generic shots of Brighton) and we’re now seeing a video presentation to the conference hall by the high-tech solution that is zooming the camera in on the screen in the hall…

Extra: Most redundant question of Conference - "James, would you like to ask a supplemental?"