Labour Conference Review: Ed Balls Goes Fastest in Brighton!

We’re now getting towards the end of conference season, having just returned from Brighton where we’ve spent the week mingling with senior representatives from the Labour Party, as well as their activists who travelled down to the south coast for their annual party gathering.

Once again our conference stand game was the subject of much interest – so much so that we were awarded a prize for the second best stand, which was kindly presented to us by Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls MP.

But Ed’s visit to our stand didn’t stop there. After winning CAF’s conference game last year he was determined to repeat his success, and he stormed past Paul Burstow MP – the quickest MP in Glasgow last week – to sit atop our leaderboard as we head north to Manchester for Conservative Party conference. It’s a safe bet to say many Tory MPs will be keen to beat him, - keep an eye on our leaderboard to see if they are successful! Take a look at our Parliamentary leaderboard on the right…

In addition, our stand was visited by a number of senior figures in the Labour Party such as Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Rachel Reeves MP, Hilary Benn MP, Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, and Harriet Harman MP, Deputy Leader of the Opposition. We were also joined by party General Secretary Iain McNicol, who was delighted to beat the fast times set by his children!

We also held another fascinating fringe event, with some great ideas on how we can get more people involved in charitable giving. We were delighted to hear from speakers including Shadow Minister for Civil Society Gareth Thomas MP, as well as David Babbs from campaigning organisation 38 Degrees, and another packed room showed us that many people are keen on developing the concept of people power to support good causes.

It’s been a great couple of weeks in Glasgow and Brighton so far, and we’re looking forward to our visit to Manchester and taking our people power messages to politicians and activists from the largest party of government. As well as our stand we have a great panel lined up from our fringe, and we’ll be hearing from the Minister for Civil Society Nick Hurd MP who will be able to tell us what the Government is doing to harness people power for good causes.