The Police are letting me go to Liberal Democrat Conference

Last night I was reminded by e-mail that the deadline for registering for Autumn Lib Dem Conference in Brighton at the cheapest rate runs out at midnight tonight. Seriously, it's cheap if you do it now, so don't bother reading the rest of this post right now - go ahead and do it here.  It is literally the most fun you could ever have with or without clothes. It's wild, intense, it's like a family reunion, there is just everything to love about it. I missed it for 13 years and now I'm back. You can even hear Tim Farron sing the same song and Paddy Ashdown tell the same joke every single year. All this and you get to make policy for the leadership to ignore if they feel like it to shape our party's future. 

Yes, accreditation sucks. It is offensive to any liberal soul. I take the view that I don't want our policy making to be confined to only those who are ok with it. Good old fashioned liberal bloody-mindedness insists I go.

I am particularly annoyed that the only reason I get to go is because the Police say I can. What surprised me was that the process was so fast this year, though. It literally took weeks for the Police to give me the all clear last year. This time it took hours. And the accompanying e-mail was a bit more tactful. Last year I literally heaved as I read that the Police had approved me. This year, somebody's learned a lesson. The e-mail simply says:

Dear Caron
Thank you for registering for conference. We are emailing you to let you know that your registration has been fully processed and the accreditation process has been completed.If you haven't booked your accommodation yet click here to book via our accommodation partner Visit Brighton.

The conference agenda and directory will be sent to you in two separate mailings in August. Your conference pass will be sent to you in late August/early September. Please contact us on the email address below if your pass has not arrived by Wednesday 12th September.

A bit of me is disappointed though. I wanted to see what would have happened if I'd been turned down. Would the Three Wise Men, Farron, Wiseman and Gordon, have let me in? Would you lot have run a campaign to get me admitted? Or would I just have had to stay at home and watch it on the telly, crying into my chardonnay?

The accreditation controversy is not over yet, not by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm looking forward to lots of fun in Brighton, but also lots of intelligent, passionate and reasoned debate about where our party should be going. 2015 will be upon us before we know it and we'd better be prepared. If you're a party member, come and join in and be part of that. Them in the Bubble need to listen to and take note of the party grassroots - and we need to listen to them too and try to grab their ankles and gently pull them back to reality when they need it. Conference is where we do that and we need you there. Don't forget the cheap rate ends at midnight.