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An odd thing happened to the Conservative Party conference this year - it changed.

I have been to many conferences, although to be honest it is only in the past five or so years that I have endured the entirety of the event. What was odd was the atmosphere of virtual disdain for the process of conference - not just from the party faithful but from those outside the hall.

I arrived on the Sunday afternoon and was walking to the venue from the hotel. I ran in to the remnants of the anti-cuts demonstration that had taken place. I would add at this point that by calling this 'anti-cuts' I do not intend to give succour to the idea that there are cuts, for the reality lies somewhere closer to the 'slower growth' school of thought than it does to cuts. I leave it to the economists of our time to debate the preference of real terms growth against cash growth!

I chose not to wear my conference badge as I had surmised that with 35,000 people on the streets of Manchester there was no telling whether this would tip over in to something more than a gathering of like-minded souls. As I walked past the scattered and somewhat drilgy looking protestors staggering back to their lairs I heard them mutter 'Tory tosser', or some such other insult which they considered would upset me. This led me to wonder later about the position of political discourse and whether the nature of politics is now reverting to that happy place where those who govern best are governing and those who do opposition best are in opposition. Demonstrations and insults are clearly the preserve of the Left whilst reform and change is the preserve of the Right. As for the Lib Dems they like neither.

Putting aside the Lib Dems, something which both main parties could obligingly agree we should, then the simple fact is that the history of the past 150 years of Parliament indicates that the Conservatives are those who sort out the economy, legal and social system whilst the Left are those who come in and destroy it again with their noisy sophistry. Thus, the circle begins again.

The left are not great reformers. Even with the NHS, something which the left whine on about interminably, it was the case that the work for its introduction had been done two years before the Government of Atlee came to power in 1945. In fact there had been debate within the cross-party War cabinet as to whether they should even publish what was seen to be an ambitious proposition laid out in the Beveridge report. Despite Labour rhetoric today their party actually opposed the idea of the NHS and Beveridge showed a great deal of frustration at the stance of Ernest Bevin who called it a 'social ambulance scheme' and wanted it delayed.

I digress, but the point is that the Labour party are not radicals and they are certainly not innovators. It is now difficult to know where they stand in this current crisis. If they believe in slower cuts then surely all they are suggesting is that this crisis would drag on for considerably longer - twice as long by their reasoning. This is also precisely the same thing they said in the early 80's when they ranged against the Lawson budgets that reduced expenditure and they were proved at best wrong and at worst dangerous.

The recent changes to the shadow cabinet seem to bring only youth into their front-bench but does little to assuage to commentariat that they understand the need for rationality in a crisis. Labour seem to not have grasped that this is a serious crisis that could easily topple into the need for a Government of national unity if the implosions forecast in the EU were to even partly materialise. This would leave them not only bereft of policy but also naked in the eyes of the public.

Back to the Conservative conference? well it lacked everything that you could imagine it might lack. There was no debate and there was no place for activists at what has become a somewhat media dominated enterprise where the media hacks discuss late in to the night who is in and who is out and those MPs who can be bothered to attend greet each other as long-lost friends. The Parliamentary party is clearly not connected in a way which ordinary members and voters would imagine but then I suppose there are 300 of them and organising that many people in the tunnels and vestibules of Parliament is a job worthy of only the finest shepherd.

I think the Conservative party needs to be radicals with their conference. Let us change the conference so that they do not waste the time and money of the membership and are open to the greater public. The party needs to stop treating members and activists like fools.

• move conference to a bi-annual event
• in the off-year hold regional conferences where MPs can meet the public and there is no closed shop
• open up a youth camp on the Glastonbury scale - there were many more young people at conference then I can remember
• make the secure zone a real secure zone where party members can engage with politicians and ban journalists and lobbyists - to be fair the party did try something like this in Manchester but it needs to be expanded
• stop making announcements to the press before they are announced in the conference hall.
• hold them in places that have cheap accommodation and don't seem to ramp up the costs because the 'Tories are in town'.

Like many things in life the best time to change them are when the economic circumstances force change, maybe this is just another example.

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I stayed up till 3.00am GMT to watch the results come in and have now had a time to think about what the significance of the Obama victory is. Here are the six thoughts I take from this.

• Race was only part of the story. Freshness and change is a much more powerful election story than experience.
• It ends Brown's cheap jibe about "This is not time for a novice" - it clearly is. In fact his comment is now seen to be as empty as "No more boom and bust". It embeds the idea that 'change' is a force and that this Government is on its way out. What does what Brown said teach us? Well, that probably we all need to be careful about what we promise and that Obama will now learn that the hard way.
• That actually no party has a monopoly on the progressive tag. The progressives are those who best articulate the fears, wants and needs of the people - regardless of political party.
• That John McCain is a good man who was caught in a squeeze between Obama's colour and GW Bush's car crash of a Presidency.
• That what all politicians can learn is how we can better use the internet to connect with voters and the public. It is time for there to be a new way to engage young people so that they can get involved. Political parties of all colours are getting older and older and the young are frankly disinterested. It just might be that building an online movement might be the best way to tackle this. I for one will be giving a lot of thought about "the wisdom of the crowds". What the Obama victory proves is that it is nonsense to say the young do not vote, they just need a reason to get engaged.
• That the BBC is completely rubbish at serious election coverage. I turned over for a short while yesterday and it was frankly embarassing. I am told they had over a hundred staff in the USA covering the elections. I can see no reason why they were even there, it would have been better to get a feed from a US TV network. I watched CNN and Fox and took the interenet through MSNBC who had a fantastic interactive map.

Finally, for me, I have to say that I am becoming more convinced that the US election system is one of the best in the world. Tony Blair has neutered our system and change needs to come about. I was in the USA for the 2000 election and followed the hanging chads to Florida. Despite all that nonsense I came away from that experience with a real sense that Americans are proud of their system and whether they vote or not they feel empowered - Obama's victory has certainly made that clear.

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So, our esteemed Prime Minister and is devilishly eye-browed side kick the Chancellor have decided that they want to be Keynesians as spend more money when the country is in recession. That is all very well, except they appear to be wanting to pick the bits of Keynes they like and leave the stuff that is unpalatable.

Of course it is correct that Keynes said that Government should spend more when the economy goes into recession. However, he also argued that hen times were good the Government should be spending less and saving more - something any prudent household should do, as Margaret Thatcher so eloquently agreed with.

Instead, as Cameron and Osbourne pointed out this Government overspent and over-borrowed even when times were good.

So what became of Brown's ludicrous claim to have ended boom and bust because if the last ten years were not a boom then this is certainly a bust!

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Mandelson has had a wretched time at the hands of the press. His personal vanity has always seemes to have got in the way of his maintaining a high profile in UK politics - certainly money and vanity led to his previous downfalls.

He has had a torrid relationship with Brown - why would they get on?

He equally had a high powered, well paid and influential job as EU trade commissioner.

So why would he give all that up to come back to a failing Government?

I wonder, does the Prince of Darkness spot an opportunity? He may be in the Lord's but I wonder what he might do were Brown to fall on his sword? Does he fancy being leader of the Labour party, or is that a thought too far for the comrades?

BTW - that jumper and jacket look really has to go!

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So, your party is languishing in the polls and the General Election is looking like being a disaster. Members of your own cabinet are resigning and then deciding you are so useless that there is no point them even fighting the next election so decide to stand down from their seat.

Who do you send for?

Peter Mandelson. What a mess! To make it worse British business now has championing their cause an arch-eurocrat who has been as much responsible for the spurious business regulation as the EU itself is. This man has ‘red tape’ written across his heart.

To many people they will see this with dismay and wonder whether, like that famous Yes Prime Minister sketch, they have given the peerage to the wrong Peter Mandelson.

The only good thing about Mandelson is the joke about him walking into a constituency fish and chip shop in Hartlepool and asking whether he could have some of that guacamole with his cod and chips – it was, of course, mushy peas.

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Firstly, there are always rumours of a cabinet reshuffle but more importantly what was a person who professes to want to spend more time with her children, doing up at 3.30 in the morning issuing press statements.

It seems to me that Ruth Kelly's resignation is indicative of the quickening pace at which this Government is falling apart. It seems almost impossible to find any senior Labour politician to give a straight answer. The latest in this position was Geoff Hoon who on Newsnight last night seemed incapable of answering the question put by the Paxoman.

Getting to the truth of all this is going to be tough for the press.

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Blogging has been a nit light the past few weeks. mainly through work pressures and awful lot going on. Now the political party season is here things should start returning to normal.

Some weeks ago I thought the position for Brown looked bad but that did not mean I expected much too happen and I expected him to cling on. However, as time goes on and the pressure builds you begin to wonder what might happen next. Could this really be the beginning of the end?

There is a part of me that wonders whether Brown's titanic anger might turn itself on his own party if they do try to oust him. How much would the wounded beast 'damn them all' rather than take away the prize he has treasured for so long.

Are there there constitutional circumstances where a Prime Minister can ask the Queen to call a General Election even if his party do not want it? Now that would be a fit of pique.

BBC NEWS | Politics | Minister quits in Brown protest

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However, what has struck me is the incredible sense of decay that is now settling in over the country.

Whether it is house prices, food prices or the sense that there is simply nothing more that this Government can do the sense of ‘the end’ is palpable.

Can it really be that we can wait 18 months before we can lance the Labour boil or will be those who move against the Brown one – probably the most downbeat and incapable PM this country has known. Unlike John Major I do not believe history will treat Brown well for we are now reaping 11 years of his failure to create a more secure economy – now ranked by the OECD as the one most likely to go into recession.

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So, the Brown fightback has begun and the first place he has started is Stamp Duty. Raising the threshold at which the duty starts from £125k to £175k is a pretty pathetic attempt at a recovery plan. The fact is there are a small number of people who are buying houses for whom this is a welcome change. Is saving a couple of thousand pounds on the purchase really going to 'make' people go out and buy houses - of course not.

The real problem is that first time buyers (who will dominate those who benefit from this change) need to get mortgages and if, as is likely, their loan-to-value rate means they only have a 5% deposit then they have a low chance of getting a mortgage.

So, this is not going to make up for the blundering and housing market anarchy that this Government has bought to the UK.

Even if you believe that Brown's attempts to buck the market are a good thing - and I am not sure I do - then he is going to have to a do a good deal better than this.

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