Some pictures from the New Statesman Party. Got one of an elder statesman chatting with the editor of Holyrood magazine.

Citigate Public Affairs MD Rex Osborn proudly displaying his Terrence Higgins Trust sticker.

Sorry this is taking so long to get all my pics and stuff up. Between catching up with work and having a 36 hour server crisis, I'm a bit behind. Anyway, here are the pics from the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform do. It's good to see Austin Mitchell off his sticks.

Environment Secretary David Miliband met with "Official Labour Blogger" Jonathan Roberts, Cramlington Village blogger Gareth Davies and Alex of Labourhome.

International Development Secretary Hilary Benn kindly took ten minutes to chat to me about his experience in government

Leadership candidate John McDonnell looks to be in a bit of trouble. I have bumped into numerous "players" on the left who are decidedly uncomfortable with his unilateral declaration of candidacy without having consulted in advance many of the backers a left-wing candidate would be expected to secure.

The BBC reception last night was an exclusive event. Sadly, I had already blagged my way in, when I discovered my name really was on the list.

Gordon started off with a lot of effusive praise of the PM and no less than six mentions of Tony's name in the first ten minutes of his speech to Labour Conference.

Quite surprisingly, he made no mention of his brief, the economy, until some time into his speech, concentrating first on foreign affairs and then education.

It's now very late (4.30am after hours of blogging) so I'll just mention Peter Hain as the funniest turn of the evening.

Peter said, "As the Northern Ireland Secretary, Rev Ian Paisley has asked that I send his solidarity - and as a member of the Cabinet, Ruth Kelly sends her apologies"

The event took place in the AXM bar on Manchester's Canal Street.

Here are the pics!

By tomorrow, I'm sure I won't be able to blog each event individually, but we'll see how it goes.

OK - so conference doesn't really start until tomorrow - but a special kind of diligent party member arrive on the Saturday, traditionally hosting the London Reception, which I attended and the delegates reception which I did not.

Just a quick update on the journey.

So I was on the Virgin train to Manchester this afternoon when I met Lee Barron, Leader of Northampton Council Labour Group, a pretty straight talking guy with something to say about his expectations of conference.