I hate Brighton. The last time Labour’s conference was here I accused Keith Waterhouse of being a traitor to Yorkshire by living in this over-expensive, snooty, southern wine bar by the sea. He raised his glass and invited me to go back to Grimsby and procreate, though being a master of prose he didn’t put it quite like that.

Brighton is the perfect place to try out Vince Cable’s million quid mansion tax, an impost I welcome because it would hit London and the fat South, not Grimsby and the hard done-by North.

I said to Lord Yarborough only the other day that he’s probably the only local who’d have to pay it in our area. He didn’t turn pale and we haven’t got him on our voter ID list as a Labour supporter, but I don’t think he’ll now vote Liberal. He did, however, indicate that he didn’t like new Labour despite our efforts at universal inclusion, because of what we’ve done on fox hunting. I replied that this was, in fact, a masterly piece of legislation. We’ve pleased opponents by banning hunting but not alienated supporters by actually stopping it. He replied simply that his hounds had a longer pedigree than me and are certainly better bred.

Mitchell’s law of Labour conferences states that they are never what the commentariat says they’re going to be. Every year the pundits build up the tension. Indeed, Polly Toynbee has already written Gordon’s resignation speech for him. They forecast a make-or-break conference, Gordon’s (or Tony’s or Neil’s or Jim’s) last chance, a final explosion or death throes.

But every year the rank and filers amble along, unaware of the prophecies of doom and the media demands that they should storm the dais and pull the mighty (or corrupt, or incompetent — for the media dislikes us for different reasons at different times) from their thrones.

The secret is that the trade unionists, party delegates, candidates, and rank and file attenders are here for an annual knees-up; a reunion and fun by the sea, while members of the commentariat have to hype up the tension to justify their expenses. They come like a coagulation inspectorate to see blood, inspect it and comment on its redness. Then failing to find much, go home and claim their expenses.

This year will be boredom but no blood. The days when I could write home “come on in the blood’s lovely” are gone, killed by new Labour’s obsessive top down management. This has eliminated conference influence on policy. Now they want to eliminate its last vestiges in the ability of local parties to raise topical issues, a fight I hope they’ll lose this year.

The end result is that conference is now a kind of trade fair with an inspirational speaker flown in from abroad. This year it’s Gordon, back from leading the world to give a last-chance repeat of last year’s speech, supported by his main asset: Sarah.

It’s make but not break for him because we’re a loyal lot. The plots discerned by the commentariat are so subterranean that I can’t even see them, though I do hear much muttering.

So Gordon’s job is to revive the will to live, which is fading among MPs and Cabinet ministers (the only groups who listen to the pundits) but certainly not among the rest.

The result of turning conference into an expo is that it’s also become a money-raising machine. MPs don’t have any role at conference. We used to come to sit in the dock on raised seats to be singled out for abuse. Now we have to pay £l40 to get in, on top of the 2 per cent of salary we pay to belong to the party in the first place.

Delegates cough up £l00. Even the enthusiasts who want to sit in the gallery rather than watching it all on telly are charged £59 and without even the right to shout, after Walter Wolfgang. Meanwhile, the businesses pressure groups, lobbyists and dodgy cause pushers who want stalls and exhibits are charged through the nose for the privilege.

Sadly Labour’s recessional means that the great days are gone. The long march through the lobbyists we must make to get into conference is shorter because there are fewer exhibitors. They’re transferring their affections to the Tories.

The late-accreditation office, always usually crowded, is quiet this year, visited only by old stalwarts such as Tony Booth. A Geordie steward there told my wife that it was because Labour had become more efficient, but also that demand had fallen off a cliff.

The fringe meetings used to be the best part of conference. Even that has been castrated. Most meetings are now sponsored by think-tanks and businesses. They always want big names on the platform so Cabinet ministers pontificate about their plans for the next five years of new Labour (pale pink in gum and carefully manicured cuticles) unaware that we’ll probably be in impotent opposition.

We should be announcing a programme for the next six months, splashing out money on a bigger stimulus, starting stalled projects, increasing benefits, launching a huge council-house building drive and proffering goodies such as an end to student fees, a doubled winter fuel allowance then challenging the Tories to take it all back.

Since we don’t have either the guts or the boldness for that, we proffer pilot projects for things that will never flame, dreams that won’t happen and plans that depend on efficiency savings that can’t be made.

Boldness is now our only way out. Sadly we’re too respectable and too serious for that.

Most of our (diminished number) of delegates have now arrived. Conference has lumbered into half life. As usual the Fabian Society has provided the best fringe meetings — What Next for Progressives? (no mention of rigor mortis) and Could Labour Win?

A myriad of Milibands, lots of Balls and a rebel chorus from Clarke are to come, though much of their contribution may well be escapism or tunnelling out via Europe.

Sadly, having been dispirited by meeting, as I got off the train on Saturday, one of the MPs I most respect going home, then further depressed by being told that Tony Benn, the star of every conference I’ve ever been at, can’t come this year because of doctor’s orders, it may be that there’s little excitement on offer.

So I’m having to look forward most to the New Statesman party (always the best orientation point). There the attendance is bound to be bigger than the readership, though this year the first will be down, the second up.

Yet at least if I talk to the politicians, not the pundits, I’ll get a clearer idea of what the real mood of this conference is.

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