Conference Gazette - Articles
A milestone in Brighton
By Lord Rodgers
To anyone growing up in the North of England as I did, Brighton was a raffish and even dangerous place. Amongst seaside resorts, Eastbourne was staid, Blackpool was vulgar and Torquay inescapably posh. But Brighton had a distinct flavour of wickedness about it.
Perhaps it was Graham Greene's seedy novel (and film with Richard Attenborough) or its reputation as a rendezvous for weekend assignations. The Brighton Belle was almost as famous as the Flying Scotsman although apparently loaded on its sixty-minute journey from Victoria station with gin-soaked City gents.
My own favourite for conferences used to be Scarborough because I loved the smell of the fishing port and enjoyed its well-kept civic gardens. Then there was the Yorkshire coast to explore up to Whitby and beyond. But Scarborough was restful which Brighton is certainly not. Scarborough was for lazy days and armchair politics. Brighton is for excitement and the real world of political deals and decisions.
It is also a very civilised place for a major Conference. At Blackpool it was a struggle to get into the one decent restaurant three miles out of town and there was no pub worthy of its custom. Brighton has four entries in the Good Food Guide and a number of pubs that a reasonably respectable Liberal Democrat would be happy to be seen in.
Then there are bookshops and antique stalls and, of course the irresistible Pavilion, an Oriental pleasure dome that we owe to the Prince Regent and John Nash. Brighton has missed a few tricks. It has no Symphony Orchestra (unlike Bournemouth) and no film festival (unlike Cannes) for which it would be ideally suited. And I have no idea in which division Brighton FC plays.
On the other hand, Brighton is a very cosmopolitan place. Stand on the beach, look out over the Channel, and on a very clear day and with a little imagination there is the coast of Normandy whence the liberation of continental Europe began in 1944. Look upwards into the blue Sussex skies and there are vapour trails and puffs of smoke as Spitfires and Hurricanes fought the Battle of Britain four years earlier. At critical times in our country's history, Brighton has been witness to great events.
Annual Party Conferences are strange occasions. We approach them with enthusiasm tinged with apprehension. It is good to call the party leadership to account and occasionally defeat the platform. But the important spectators, the real audience, are outside watching how the party performs, prepared to take it seriously only if it takes itself seriously first.
Every party looks back with horror on the debates and votes that lost it public respect, left it divided or opened old wounds. With the Liberal Democrats now firmly part of the political geography of Britain and main players at Westminster and in countless local authorities, combining freedom with responsibility is a critical test.
So Brighton is a great place for what must be a great Conference. In 1962, Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell's 'a thousand years of history' speech marked his hostility to Britain's entry to the European Economic Community and divided him from most of his friends. In 1984, the terrible bombing of the Grand Hotel almost removed the Conservative Cabinet at a stroke.
We are a different party in different times. Brighton 1998, with its fringe events, friendships made and friendships renewed, must be a week to remember, a milestone on our onward march.
Lord Rodgers
Liberal Democrat Leader in the House of Lords
Copyright The Liberal Democrats 1998
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