A lot can go wrong in eight months

Each of the three main parties has a lot to lose or win.

Each has planned a careful, disciplined week on the English south coast parading their principles and vision for the viewing, watching and mouse-clicking public.

But it won't work out quite like that for any of them. It never does.

Hearing, not listening

Tony Blair clearly has more to lose than anyone else.

Surprisingly, perhaps, the fuel price revolt hit his government out of a clear blue sky; ministers had been hearing the complaints for months, but had not really been listening.

Is it all serious enough to delay the election? I doubt it

The events of the past few days will hang over conference season now, giving the Opposition a major fillip - speeches will be being hurriedly rewritten - while the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, now has to defend himself on two fronts, pensions and petrol.

It has not seemed the in-touch, Middle-British government that Tony Blair wished to portray just eight months or so before a likely election. He now has a much harder speech to draft if he is to start to win back the trust of swing voters who backed the protests and remain furious about fuel prices.

And, of course, everyone knows the pre-Budget report comes only a few weeks after Labour's week at Brighton. Everyone will be watching intently for the faintest hint of a policy U-turn.

Is it all serious enough to delay the election? I doubt it.

Underlying confidence

When Mo Mowlam announced her retirement from politics last week she suggested the election will come in May. Whether it was a slip after her conversation with the Prime Minister that morning, or her own guess, May is when most politicians still expect him to go.

[Mo Mowlam] will be a smiling, jovial figure, regarded by nervous party aides as walking incitement to messy, unpredictable dissent

Until the petrol revolt, Mr Blair had enjoyed a remarkably easy summer after a very tough spring, which saw embarrassing reverses over Ken Livingstone's campaign in London and the Dome; the leak of panicky advice from his adviser Philip Gould; a one-way slide in the euro and public support for it; rising ratings for William Hague, no longer mocked by the chattering classes.

Even before the fuel crisis, Mr Blair was privately stung by criticism that New Labour had degenerated into a government of style and swagger, not substance and reforming zeal.

Back in campaigning mode, he has a formidable agenda of policy announcements to unveil, beginning with his attack on "old-style comprehensive schools". But events will continue to distract him - and conferences remain forums for the unexpected.

Mr Hague has the stamina and optimism for this business of skiing uphill through treacle

Many teachers will be livid about that schooling speech, for a start; unions and leftwingers are rallying to commit the party to a large increase in the basic pension.

And then there's Mo herself, arguably the country's most loved politician, a heroine to the party faithful, and someone many of them think was knifed by Number Ten.

She will be a smiling, jovial figure, regarded by nervous party aides as walking incitement to messy, unpredictable dissent.

Beyond the fuel crisis, there remains a basic confidence in the Blair and Brown camps that they are trusted as economically competent and have the money to deliver better services.

Against that, it will not have impressed anyone that a government so flush with revenues misjudged things enough to face a tax revolt; and the Conservatives believe indirect taxes are becoming as sensitive now as income tax became in the 1980s.

Skiing uphill through treacle

Even so, the economy remains William Hague's great problem. It is appallingly hard for any Opposition to make real headway against a government when the economy is growing well and inflation and unemployment are low.

Is anger over indirect taxes enough to turn this mood? Do voters trust the Conservatives to cut them? Those too are serious questions for conference season.

Hague shows tenacity

Mr Hague has the stamina and optimism for this business of skiing uphill through treacle and his grit has earned him respect where, a year or two ago, there was mostly mockery.

He has stopped his party falling apart over Europe, regained the interest of the Tory core vote and begun, at least, to develop policies to attract the middle ground.

In his darker moments he knows that at the very least he is way ahead in the argument about whether to ditch the pound for the euro - something which will be barely mentioned at the Labour conference and discussed incessantly by the Conservatives.

Labour will use its week to attack Mr Hague over what it calls the "�16bn Tory cuts promise" - though most of that would be a "cut" in money that has been committed by the government, not yet spent, and the Tories hotly dispute the figure.

Mr Hague, by contrast, will run an unconventional gathering, with rallies to save the pound and support the British countryside, while roundly mocking New Labour for croneyism, high-profile failures like the Dome and the fuel crisis and its inability to make more progress on schools, health or crime. With less to lose, he will probably be more daring in what he says and how he says it.

Lib Dems' hearts on the left

Expect, too, some surprisingly vehement attacks on the Liberal Democrats, now the party which looks most leftish on economics.

Kennedy is looking for election success

Under Charles Kennedy the Lib-Dems have launched proposals for higher income taxes to pay for more generous pensions and other social spending.

This is bolder than any other mainstream party, and perhaps riskier too: Kennedy has to win scores of seats in Tory-leaning middle England to make a breakthrough, and is fighting a tough battle in the South-west where his vehemently pro-Europe policies don't always go down well with farmers and fishermen.

Nevertheless, with their hearts on the left and a new young leader, the Liberal Democrats will probably have the most unified and consensual of the party conferences.

There will be lots of impassioned attacks on New Labour timidity and Tory xenophobia and a warm sense of conviction politics.

Crufts for politicians?

But a good conference has to be more than a rally; a good conference is one where hidden dangers in a party programme are exposed early, where necessary arguments are settled and where there's enough real, unpredictable politics to show who can cut it, and who can't.

Will we get real politics this year in Bournemouth and Brighton, or merely a display of preening, well-groomed platitudes - a kind of Crufts for politicians?

My guess is that as the pre-election tensions rise, the 2000 conference season will be a vintage, snarling dog-fight instead.

Mind you, I have to think that. Like the hundreds of other journalists packing bags of briefing papers, socks and aspirin for the weeks ahead, it's only the thought of mayhem that keeps me so cheerful.