 It will be hoops of performance fire for Sir Ming... |
You'd think after clocking up 20 years attending political party conferences, I would have seen it all.
And yet, as I prepare for my 21st round of autumn trips both to the seaside and this year to Manchester, there is a unique situation in prospect.
Never, in the past 20 years, have all the party conferences been so devoted to concerns about leadership.
True, there have been notable years - like 1990, when the rumblings about Margaret Thatcher's popularity began the inexorable process that led to her eventual tearful departure from Number 10.
And 1994, when the new Labour leader, Tony Blair, dropped his bombshell about re-writing "Clause 4" and began to define New Labour.
All change in the blue
 A man with much to prove at his first party conference |
Even last year, the Conservatives held an initial hustings of their leadership candidates to replace Michael Howard, catapulting young David Cameron into the spotlight.
But never have all the conferences coincided as testing grounds for their top dogs.
David Cameron will give his first leader's speech to an annual conference, continuing to demolish old Tory assumptions, flattening old traditions under the steamroller of fledgling policy, force-fed on innovation and trying desperately to prove the new Tory mood is closer to hip hop than hip operation.
The yellow perils
At last year's Liberal Democrat Conference, the whispering increased about party leader Charles Kennedy.
Ostensibly there was concern about his political performance but the sub-text, a drink problem well-known in the Westminster village, was to explode over the front pages in the New Year.
His safe-pair-of-hands replacement Ming Campbell seemed an obvious choice for a party reeling from the shock of seeing such a respected yet affable icon brought low by human failings.
Yet within a few weeks, doubts were being raised about Ming's performance, especially on the floor of the House of Commons.
 Will Farage keep the UKIP united? |
This year's conference will be a tough test for an accomplished politician who knows he must improve, though he could do without the high-intensity spotlights and magnifying glasses of the unforgiving media.
UKIP united?
Just to show what a strange year it is, even the United Kingdom Independence Party have a new leader. MEP Nigel Farage was elected in time for their party conference later this month in Telford.
It has been an acrimonious leadership battle and students of Roman circuses could do worse than prowl around the Telford International Conference Centre for a weekend in the hope of a bust-up.
Seeing red
But back to the mainstream and, of course, the Labour conference.
At the time of writing, Tony Blair is still Labour leader and UK Prime Minister, but by now, when you're reading this, it could all have changed, such has been the dizzying tumble of breath-taking events defining the Blair retirement.
Why, John Prescott could even be the interim Prime Minister.
No joy is impossible once a Whitehall farce gets underway.
Pity then, poor Lord Tyler, the former Cornish Liberal Democrat MP, Paul Tyler.
 A virtual conference for all from Lord Tyler |
He has launched an alternative party conference for a month on the internet. It consists of a website where anyone can take part, not just political party members.
You can discuss the nature of our democracy and where it is going wrong. It is a worthy cause and exactly the kind of serious discussion our politics needs.
But what's the betting that, as always, our appetite for sensation will get the better of us and it will be an uphill struggle trying to get anyone to discuss proportional representation in the virtual world if there's the prospect of Blair and Brown slowly tearing themselves apart in full colour on another channel.
If you would like to try some sanity, however, you can go to www.takingpower.org until 6 October.
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