Day 1 at Labour Party Conference in Brighton 2009 - A Delegates Eye View!

Day1 at Labour Party Conference - I arrived yesterday on a beautiful day in Brighton, booked in to the Hotel and made my to the Brighton Conference Centre for the 2pm Opening.
The Key Theme was Operation Fightback and the need to put to the County the clear choice between managing the economic recovery whilst defending all that we have achieved over the past 12 years and the savage cuts and austerity promised by the Tories and Lib Dems!
Ed Milliband made a real rousing speech laying out key Manifesto Policy areas and the stark choiced that the UK electorate will have.
Douglas Alexander talked about Campaigning and highlighted the 3 key areas detailed in the picture opposite.
Basic hard work contacting as many pe3ople as possible and making our Campaining relevant to local people was the key.

There was a Q&A with Gordon Brown chaired by Harriet with PPC's on stage.
Camberwell and Peckham's submitted motion on Rights for Interpreters in the British Army was not chosen as Contemporary Motion to be debated at Conference so my chance to speak at Conference probably gone!!
I voted for our motion of course and for motions on Housing and Public services and the 4 Contemporary Motions chosen were:
Employment Right, Housing, Manufacturing, Public Services and School Meals.
I was actually interviewed by IOSH for their You Tube site so that should be posted later today!
My interview by IOSH at the Labour Party Conference is now on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/ioshchannel about my Fish Farm Placement!
The evening was spent at 3 Receptions, The Gibralter Ambassador, The British Legion and RSPCA.

Day 2 begins with debate on the Economy and Sustainable Communities!!
OPERATION FIGHTBACK CONTINUES!!!!

Me and Mel, Academic Year looms, Theatre week, Brighton calling and Hibs get back on winning track!!

We had a Birthday lunch at work yesterday celebrating 3 Birthday's and I was given this Cartoon which irrefutably proves the family link between me and Mel Gibson, need I say any more!!!!
Work is busy with preparations for the start of the new Academic year and all things going well on Health & Safety, Environment, Business Continuity, Swine Flu and Campus Watch fronts!!

I had a good week of culture going to the Globe to see Troilus and Cressida and following it up on Wednesday with a visit to "An Inspector Calls" a play I did at St. Augustines High School in Edinburgh many years ago!!

Excellent plays and performances all round. Plan to do more Matinee Theatre visits in the future as I have the taste back again!

I am off to Brighton on Sunday for the Labour Party Annual Conference for the first time and I am the Camberwell & Peckham Delegate to boot!!

I am staying at the Brighton Hotel and am looking forward to getting totally immersed in Conference and hope to write a daily Blog with my experiences at Conference IT permitting!!

The Hotel Brighton looks nice so looking forward to spending 4 nights there!

Hibs had a good 3-0 win at home to St. Johnstone with Stokes scoring 2 and looking like he is getting back into the groove! Good result after the poor defeat to Hamilton so lets hope it continues!!

Fantastic Southwark Labour Party Conference, Brighton, the West End and Hibs tripped up!!

The Southwark Labour Party Conference on Saturday was another fantastic day with over 100 Party Members and great speeches from Harriet, Val, Steve Reed and Ed Milliband!
We are all prepared and positive about the elections in 2010 and delivering a Labour Council and a Labour Forth Term ! The prospect of the nightmare scenario of a Cameron Government and a Lib Dem/Tory Council alongside Boris at City Hall is too horrible to contemplate without thoughts of taking your own life!!! We just cant allow that to happen can we!!!!

I am out Campaigning in South Camberwell this weekend as taking all 3 seats there is a vital part of our strategy so vitally important to us!!
I am now all sorted for the Labour Party Annual Conference and looking forward to it as the Camberwell & Peckham Delegate!! Going to be at the Brighton Hotel from Sunday til Thursday!!
Packing my bucket and spade but probably stuck in the Conference Hall for most of the time!!

I have a good theatre week this week with Troilus and Cressida at the Globe Theatre on Sunday and An Inspector Calls on Wednesday

Hibs bubble well and truly burst on Sunday with Nish sent off, Riordan missing a penalty and going down 2-0 to bottom team Hamilton Accies!!!

Time to regroup for St.Johnstone at home on Saturday!!

Southwark Labour Party Conference and Hibs sign Liam Miller!!

Looking forward to the Third Annual Southwark Labour Party Conference tomorrow at the Beomund Centre with Guest Speakers Ed Milliband and Steve Reed. Of course Val, Tessa and Harriet will be there as well as many Southwark Councillors and members so should be a good day preparing for the General and Council Elections in 2010!!

On the Hibs front they have signed ex- Celtic and Man Utd. Midfielder Liam Miller on a 2 year contract. He was a fantastic young player at Celtic and floundered at Manchester but hopefully he can revive his career and alongside other Irish signing Anthony Stokes it looks like some very shrood buying from Yogi Hughes building up a strong squad to get us through a long hard season which has always been our failing in the past. He has cleared out some of the deadwood and looks like he is building a good mix of youth and experience!!

Dungeness, Belfast, Giants Causeway, Brighton and Scotland out of World Cup!!

After my break in Edinburgh and St. Andrews I went away again at the weekend to Broadstairs with Shauna and back to my fast becoming favourite wilderness of Dungeness!!

There is something very quirky and appealing about the place and I cant keep away from it!!

Then off to Belfast for the USHA Autumn Conference and a fantastic trip to Giants Causeway on the North Antrim Coast! A great time and good Conference and some Guinness and Bushmills thrown in for good measure!!Brilliant!!

In the past 2 weeks over 3000 miles travelled so need a bit of a rest and time in the office and at home!!

After some confusion it now appears that I am definitely going to Brighton in a few weeks time for my first ever Labour Party Annual Conference as Camberwell & Peckham Delegate no less!!

I have to attend a briefing at Party HQ next week and am still searching out somewhere to stay!!
Scotland departed the 2010 World Cup Qualifiers in 3rd place with a couple of good performances but too late to recover from the shocking bad one against Norway last month! A good win over Macedonia followed up by a good performance against Holland only to lose by a sucker goal at the end!!

We clearly have some very good players in Brown, Fletcher and

McFaddyen and some good guys behind them in Whittaker and Hutton but some mediocre, and old mediocre at that, at the back and last night that really showed!! Our best attacker will not play for Scotland with Burley in charge so it will be interesting to see if he keeps his job? The last week might just have been enough to keep him hanging on!!

The Lockerbie Bomber, Scottish Parliement, Edinburgh Festivals, my Half Century and Hibs looking Good!!

I am coming to the end of my break in Edinburgh and of course the big story has been the release of the convicted Lockerbie Bomber,

Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi. Clearly the SNP Minority Scottish Government have made a huge political error of judgement and I hope that the Scottish electorate will not quickly forget it. There has been significant damage worldwide to the reputation of Scotland which I think will have a lasting negative effect and it really shows how out of touch the SNP are with Scottish and World public opinion!!
I have had a restful but active time in Edinburgh visiting the Scottish Parliament, an impressive building and I really like the openness of it and the accessibility to ordinary people to look at and use the building! I went on a very informative Tour although the buidling was busy due to the Lockerbie bombing issue of course!
I spent some time going to Edinburgh Festival Fringe shows highlight being Frank Skinner's "Credit Crunch Caberet". I have never seen Edinburgh as busy as it is this year and some nice weather really helped the experience! The Edinburgh Festival's are really fantastic events for Edinburgh, Scotland and the UK!

I also reached the 50 year Milestone on Saturday and we had a Birthday Barbeque at my Sister's in St. Andrews. Bernadette worked very hard and made me a fantasic Birthday Cake! Saw all my Nephews as well so a really nice day and week!!

Despite some initial worries Hibs have started off fantastically well in the SLP with 2 very good wins and yesterday a 1-0 defeat to Celtic but all reports are of an excellent display by Hibs with Celtic Goalie, Boruc, the busier of the Keepers! Made me laugh to see McGeady sent off for diving after all the Eduardo furore! I recall that great Celtic hero Henrik Larsson get more late penalties for Celtic at Parkhead than anyone!! As they say what goes around comes around! Celtics comprehensive defeat at Arsenal does highlight the widening gap between the English and Scottish game which in my view is largely down to the incompetence of the people running the Scottish football!!

"Yogi" Hughes looks like he is putting a good sqaud togther and getting Anthony Stokes from Sunderland may prove to be the buy of the Season!

SLP Cover mel gibson Link, Shauna and I at Peter Pan and Ripleys and Hibs win opening game!

The South London Press were true to their word and carried a story on my Mel Gibson connection whiuch you can view through the link below:

http://www.icsouthlondon.co.uk/tn/news.cfm?id=31313&headline=Camberwell%20Cllr%20related%20to%20Mel%20Gibson20to%20Mel%20Gibson20to%20Mel%20Gibson20to%20Mel%20Gibson

Shauna and I went to see Peter Pan in a tent in Kensington Gardens which was fantastic and on Sunday went to the new Ripley's Believe it or Not exhibition at Piccadilly Circus!

All in all a lovely weekend and beautiful weather

Hibs kicked off the season with a 2-1 home win against St. Mirren with the Prodigal Son Benji retruning tpo score the winner!
Look at the action on the BBC site below:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/h/hibernian/default.stm

Scotland crash, Hibs improve and "I am not tired and I will not go to bed"(Peter Pan!)

Well Scotland's World Cup campaign come to a shuddering halt in Oslo last night with an embarrassing 4-0 defeat! With 2 game left, one against Holland, it is not going to happen and we need to contemplate a poor campaign. We do have some International Class players in my view, Gordon, Hutton, Whittaker, Caldwell, Murray. Fletcher and McFaddyen but too many very average players I am afraid and a very average Manager. His weakness highlighted in the Ferguson/McGregor affair which was a disgrace and not sure he is the one to take us very far!! We have more players playing in the Premier League that for many years but we appear to be getting worse and way behind the performances in Paris of 2 years ago!

Hibs ended their Pre-season with another good 0-0 draw at Bolton in Jaskeleinen's Testimonial with a big crowd and 3,000 Hibs fans at the Reebok!

St Mirren on Saturday and let the Season commence!!

I am taking Shauna to see Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens on Saturday so looking forward to that as Peter Pan is a favourite with both of us!!
Booked some Fringe Shows at the Edinburgh Festival so off on the 21st for a week!

Braveheart and Hibs getting it right!

It looks like the South London Press will be running a story on my Mel Gibson relationship with a non too flattering comparison of my life with his!!
I did like Braveheart and have a framed postcard of the Film Poster in my flat!
I need to work on joining up all the family dots but it all looks good with Mel's Mother confirmed as Anne Reilly from Longford, home of the Friary Family!!









Hibs took on Blackburn Rovers at Ewood Park and came away with a very creditable 0-0 draw against a strong rovers team so perhaps things are moving in the right direction? Bolton Wanderers next and then let the Season begin!!

Salmond raking it in, Carnivale Del Pueblo, Mel and me and Hibs Pre-Season stutters on!!

Good article in the Telegraph today highlighting how much cash Alex Salmond has made (£275,000) from not resigning his Westminster seat even although he is First Minister in Hollyrood! Disgraceful!!!

I went along to the Carnivale Del Pueblo in Burgess Park yesterday with 100,000 people from all over London.

This is a fantastic event and luckily the weather held out to make it another special day in Camberwell

I heard through Facebook of someone who may be a relative as he is related to IRA General Sean McEoin through the Reilly Family of Balinallee just as I am and he has told me that Mel Gibson's mother is a Reilly from the same town so looks like I am related to Braveheart himself!!

Always thought that there was a family resemblance!!!

Hibs rather uninspiring Pre-season continued with a hefty 3-1 defeat at home to Preston North End!

Away matches this week at Blackburn and Bolton to blow away the last remaining cob-webs and then the season starts on Saturday!