DAY three and the conference continues bubbling – both over and under.

The bubbling over is the atmosphere in the hall (mostly), the packed fringe meetings and the mood in the bars and restaurants as delegates re-charge their batteries.

The mood was summed up by front-bencher Rebecca Long-Bailey who ended her platform speech with the words: “This is our time, now.”

But the bubbling under could also be heard as the delegates debated a series of proposals calling for more involvement for the members in how the party is run, in the selection of MPs and in the election of the party leader.

However, it was the issue of anti-semitism that attracted the strongest feelings.

The party leadership, supported by Momentum, had agreed a new policy.

But delegates came to the rostrum to say that they opposed the policy because they didn’t believe anti-semitism was a major problem in the party.

There were also lighter moments. a young man from Wrexham said that not only was this his first time at conference – it was also the furthest south he’d ever been.

And no debate can be taken too seriously when, between every speech, delegates wave a range of objects to attract the attention of the chairman, including flags, items of clothing, umbrellas, and particularly noticeably, a plastic parrot and a bright red dragon.

Indeed, the session chairwoman, Claudia Webbe, will perhaps go down in conference history for having uttered the words: “I’ll take the red horse as the next speaker” (in fact it was that dragon).

Though for one delegate, this was no laughing matter.

No doubt outraged he hadn’t been called, he wanted the organisers to guarantee that at next year’s conference “parrots and dinosaurs” would be banned. Dinosaurs? It was that pesky red dragon again.

  • Ivor Gaber is professor of political journalism at the University of Sussex