Michael White arrives in Blackpool for the Conservative conference to find the Empress Ballroom in disarray. Will William Hague save the situation? Will Boris be upstaged? And will Theresa May stick with those leopard print Wellington boots?
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12.30pm Winter Gardens, Blackpool
Thank God for William Hague, the Conservatives' million-dollar man. At least he's a pro, and a few minutes ago he rescued the 2007 conference from spectacular humiliation as the microphones failed for 45 minutes amid cries of "Can't hear," and "Can't hear over here either."
"Try switching your hearing aids on," murmured a reporter from one of the Tory papers, standing at what passes for the back of the Empress Ballroom. Did I say ''passes for''? Yes. So far this conference feels like the TUC conference does nowadays, thin and undernourished like an old friend recovering from a nasty cancer.
Even before the conference chairman, the appropriately named Simon Mort, had declared, "We are going to have a fantastic week" - and the mics died - old hands were in shock to see what they had done to everyone's favourite conference hall.
The high-barrelled ceiling and chandeliers, evocative of an inter-war cruise liner, have been festooned with ugly TV lights. A raked auditorium has been installed on three sides, shrinking the hall and hiding the pillars on the colonnade at the back.
The minimalist set, a reworking of last year's "trees" theme, is underwhelming. Overall it looks very ugly, as if designed to disguise the fact that there are far fewer delegates - representatives in Tory-speak - present in this difficult and divided year.
Leaning against one of the few pillars still visible, I find Steve Hilton, David Cameron's gnomic backroom guru, the kind of adviser Norman Tebbit has been sounding off about. Steve insists the new layout actually creates seats for 350 more people. I take his word for it.
Ever the optimist, Hilton explains that the conference's purpose is "clarity and inspiration", by which he means that public opinion is volatile and waiting to be "led and inspired". Gordon Brown failed in Bournemouth last week. It is up to Dave - his friends really do call Mr Cameron Dave - to provide some here on Wednesday.
After a few more minutes of "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6..." from the mic technicians, Mr Mort introduces the shadow foreign secretary, who seizes the fast-demoralising conference by the scruff of its neck and tells the delegates they have had a brilliant year.
Hague then weighs into the prime minister and soon has them roaring: violent crime, abandoned targets, squandered budgets, broken promises, not least on that EU referendum, fake tax cuts... The list is endless and much enjoyed.
Gordon Brown has apparently stolen £100bn from Britain's pension funds which is - I think - double the figure usually cited since his £5bn a year "pension raid" in 1997 to fund the New Deal. Brown's withdrawal of tax concessions was started under the Tories, but never mind. It's what they need: to be cheered up.
Hague is especially harsh about GB ''fawning at the feet'' of Margaret Thatcher, whose policies the PM savagely opposed at the time. Unlike some Tories, he does not make the mistake of attacking her, only Gordon.
"Some of us stood here 30 years ago with Margaret Thatcher, we backed here..." says William. It's his way of reminding the conference of the speech he made at the precocious age of 16 in the Empress Ballroom, the speech which fatally fixed him in the public mind as a bit of a nerd. I was here then too. As I recall it, William did not quite support her, he hectored the future prime minister on what was expected of her.
I am told that most officials advising David Cameron believe that No 10 will announce a November 8 election on Wednesday October 10, two days after parliament returns. Steve Hilton is a rare exception. "In my guts", I don't see how he can do it, he tells me. I agree.
Either way Cameron will use this week, as best he can, to explain what a Conservative government would do to address issues that concern voters, how things would change to improve schools, health, law and order, the environment. Brown hasn't persuaded people that he represents sufficient change after Tony Blair.
I have not yet had time to check out Blackpool. Most reporters hate it and complain vocally. I always admire its pluck and insist that every year it gets a bit better. But slow progress may be too late for the party conferences. Labour abandoned it years ago and now the Tories are going too: next year to Birmingham, 2009 to Manchester.
"Good," say colleagues, as they start looking for fresh fruit or salad. "I'm going to get scurvy at this rate," one said in Bournemouth after one too many conference sandwiches. In Blackpool, M&S have a store just across the street from the Winter Gardens. That ought to be enough, but hacks nowadays don't do stoicism.
4 p.m. : Boris Johnson can usually assume he's the main attraction of any event for which he chooses to turn up. Not today, he wasn't, not in the Empress Ballroom inside Blackpool's Winter gardens. He may have got most applause, but he wasn't the star turn.
The MP for Henley and Conservative candidate for London mayor, was in head-to-head competition with Michael Heseltine. The former darling of the conference and ex-MP for Henley can still show the kids how to do it.
If that wasn't enough to get Boris to raise his game, there was an also video appearance from Arnie Schwarzenegger, who is turning out to be a shrewd governor of California, and one (in the flesh) from Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York.
Hezza was pretty good even at 74 . He's done it all, made a great fortune off his own wits and also managed to be deputy prime minister. He has experience. Yet Boris was greeted with hysterical cheers and a standing ovation, more than Hezza or Arnie.
He proceeded to make his standard stump speech,
attacking ''King Newt'' and ''The Great Newt Fancier'' and outlining policies - on crime, trees, bicycle theft, community support officers. As usual he sounded a little demented and what he said didn't stand up to much scrunity.
As with a standard Boris article it was feel-good too, fun but not serious. He sounded as if what he was saying was new to him too. Bloomberg was funny too, but his speech also had serious things to say about how to be a big city mayor. Let's hope Boris took a copy home.
5 p.m. Interesting that David Cameron ducked saying that he expects an early election on TV - I'm not a mind reader.'' But Tory MPs here are as divided as Labour ones were next week.
Reading the Sunday papers outside the ladies loo, I talk to Anne Main ( St Albans) who thinks Brown will ''go long'' until 2009. So does Sir Robert Atkins, ex-MP and John Major's self-styled mate. What issue would Labour fight on, he asks?
As the James Purnell doctored photo row illustrates, phoney though it was, anything can happen in a campaign and often does. Purnell didn't doctor the photo, the deceipt perpetrated for an in-house NHS photograph was marginal. They shouldn't have done it, but it hardly warranted digging out photos of Trotsky being airbrushed out of pix with Lenin, did it ?
7.00 p.m. : Late flash. Theresa May arrived at the conference wearing leopard print Wellies before lunch. This afternoon she switched to black jewelled pumps with matching glasses and handbag. It is all part of the Tory drive to re-connect with the lives of ordinary people.
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