We're off to Blackpool. It's only Saturday, and the Liberal Democrats' party conference doesn't start till tomorrow - but Blackpool is a long way away! Councillors Robert Thurston and Chris Millington, local deputy party agent David Wright and myself are attending conference from Harlow.

It's fourteen years since the Liberal Democrats last held a conference at Blackpool; the place was so bad as a conference venue that the party voted not to go back for at least ten years.

(The Labour Party voted not to go back to Blackpool 'until it improved', and haven't been back yet. The Tories will be there in two weeks' time.)

Having lost so much conference trade over the last decade and a half, it will be interesting to see whether the Blackpool conference industry has pulled itself together.