Another guest blog from John Laity.  Keep em coming John….

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So following a “packed” pre-launch speech yesterday, we get some interesting openers.

“The pull of coming back to serve this Prime Minister, our leader, Gordon Brown – who was gripping this financial crisis, leading the fightback against it when so many others seemed caught in the headlights.”

He’s back !!!  Mandy’s Here !!!

Yes, Peter brings some enthusiasm to a lack luster and tired looking conference so far. A welcome and entertaining relief from those sentenced to a week in Brighton.

Amongst some classic Mandelson Vandalism’s were the following gems:

“I did not choose this party.  I was born into it. It is in my blood and in my bones.”

And like Jesus the party faithful ate his body and drank his blood…but then came my predictions from yesterday:

“A Labour Government has never been more needed.
- Needed to fight back against the recession.
- Needed to build and secure our future economic strength.
- And needed to ensure we pay down debt in a way that is fair and protects jobs, homes and our frontline public services.
And yet, we must face facts. Electorally, we are in the fight of our lives. And, yes, we start that fight as underdogs.”

Now this is worrying, the spin master has laid down the rules. We will now face an unrelenting unmoving non-wavering line upon these issues. Labour are fighting back you know!

But there is hope…In some gutter slinging we now have “Boy George” and “Shallow David Cameron”…Good news, as such slinging is bad news for Votes…

But note that it will come from Lord Mandelson, not from Gordo…No the spin machine is too good for that.

But what of the other speakers?

Hilary Ben, a past Labour big hitter stepped up, quoting Roosevelt and the great Depression and then drawing down from Obama: “It is with hope that we can – and we will – change the world for the better.”
Eddy Miliband, a past contender to the crown, “David Cameron is good at green stunts. The huskies. The bike – with the car and driver following behind. The wind turbine on the roof.”
Lord Adonis, “Join Labour on this great journey. Let’s not go down the Tory dead-end street. do so.”

My interest was most peaked by Tessa Jowell, who quoted Obama and then compared the general public (that she meets traveling around the country) to Olympians, “They may not mount the podium to receive a medal, the adulation of a nation ring in their ears.”…Bronze medals for everyone then!

But certainly we started to get a feel for what the big hope really was for Labour…Don’t let the Conservative wield Obama style “Change”!

Lord Mandelson laid some traps:

“Well, the Tories may have skimmed the headline summary of the New Labour manual.  But they never bothered to read the book. If they had they would know what real change involves.  They would know what a painful process it is. We in this hall know what it took to make the change. Show me what has really changed in the Conservative Party.”

But the real speech today to listen to was from Gordo’s Number 2. The reluctant resident from number 11 gave a good account of what Labour have done to stem the global thermonuclear meltdown of the world finance system. He told us how Gordo had single handedly stopped us from dying in the nuclear winter caused by the collapse of (Northern Rock?) our entire monetary system…Impressive stuff…

But in the impressive list of godly monies spent to help us recover were some interesting omissions:

No monetary account of the billions handed out to the banks…as to do so would have eclipsed the monies quoted as being spent on Jobs and Industry

No mention of what was being spent to win the war in Afghanistan…to bring home troops safely. I suspect we will get that from Gordo tomorrow.

So all eyes will now turn to Gordo, who now not only wants a televised debate now (apparently)…he wants a whole load of them…See he was never scared of Cameron, he just didn’t want Nick Clegg involved.