An Interesting Sense Of Priorities

I'm looking forward to some stimulating debate at Conference this week. There are nine groups of contemporary resolutions, of which delegates will vote to prioritise eight to be debated. As this means that the lefties will have to vote against something as a matter of simple mathematics, it will give me and my friends a great opportunity to poke fun at them for excluding whichever issue they happen to prioritise last.

One thing you can be sure of - we won't be having any of the scenes of dissent that we saw at previous Conferences. We've already ruled out all resolutions put forward by CLPs on the trouble-making and quite frankly irrelevant topics of Iraq, the council housing "fourth option", nuclear energy, trade union laws, Venezuela, incapacity benefit, school admissions policy, party political funding and Thames Water. These are clearly bourgeois deviations from the class struggle.

Gordon surrounded by adoring Manchester Labour students yesterday

Another area we've managed to put the lid on already is Trident replacement. Kate Hudson has had her knickers in a twist over this, shouting foul, but I'm 100% behind the decision to prevent discussion of the issue. We can't have something as important as nuclear weapons and the expenditure of £billions of tax-payers' money decided by the riff-raff at Labour Conference. As I argued before, Attlee and Bevin didn't even tell MPs they were building an A-Bomb, let alone consult them. The Government - as ministers of the Crown - are there to take non-legislative, executive decisions like whether we have a new generation of strategic nuclear deterrent and whether we go to war. If Labour Party delegates don't like those decisions they can always remove the leadership in a confidence vote, ha, ha! It isn't the job of little people to take part in Government decisions on matters of national security.

The nine topics that delegates will be able to vote on for debate are:

1. Should Gordon Brown's Prime Ministerial car be a Daimler or a Bentley and will David Miliband keep the Prius after the changeover or dump this PR stunt in favour of a real car?
2. The role of the Women's Institute in contemporary society.
3. Development support for the Solomon Islands.
4. Should further controls be applied to the sport of hand-gliding?
5. Refuse collection services in the Outer Hebrides (composited with resolutions from Scottish Assembly delegates).
6. Daisies, buttercups and other endangered flora.
7. Labour Party logo - have we selected the correct shade of puce?
8. Should next year's Labour Party conference be by the seaside?
9. Should Tony be appointed "Leader For Life"?

I know where my votes will be going!