I’m settling in to day 2 of watching Conference. I’ve already spent more time “in the hall” than I have in the past 3 in person conferences. I’m uaually to be found on the Lib Dem Women or LGBT+ Lib Dem stalls, or flitting about the place from meeting to meeting.

And how gorgeous is this stage set?  When I saw the purple, I wondered at first if our Jennie Rigg had had a hand in it. But, seriously, if she had, it would have had a lot more purple and Libby would have been turned into a bat.

What I really like is that we are wearing our heart on our sleeve. Right there, the quote from the preamble to our constitution closest to our hearts:

No-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.

On the other side of the stage, “Liberty, Equality, Community.”

And that’s not all. I usually avoid the rally for two reasons. First of all, I can watch it on You Tube any time. I get the chance to catch up with my friends and Lib Dem family twice a year. Secondly, the rally can be a bit of a vomit inducing cringe-fest.

Last night it was an assault on the emotions as speaker after speaker spoke about what motivated them as Lib Dems. Anton Georgiou from Brent talking about his grandparents arriving from Cyprus with £20 and working hard to make their lives here and how that has inspired him to do all the work he does to support refugees.  Wendy Chamberlain talking about how her mother caring for her Grandad and her husband caring for his mum inspired her to achieve her Carer’s Leave Act.

I wonder if all this values-forward stuff has anything to do with James Holt, our excellent head of media during the coalition years who has returned as our Director of Political Strategy. I am sure that he will understand the need to make sure that our actions match up.

Yesterday, I listened to debates dealing with ending the mortality of children in temporary accommodation which I wrote about here and on tackling horrifically unsafe maternity services. The motion set out that nearly 2/3 of maternity units did not have safe staffing levels, which is incredibly worrying. Rebecca Bell and Laura Gordon spoke eloquently on the “rooming in” policy where mums are expected to look after their babies full time immediately after traumatic births or c-sections with their birthing partners.

In days of yore, when I was born, babies were whipped off to the nursery and their mums were left on their own. I’d have hated that. I didn’t want my baby out of my sight for a second and I’d never advocate their return. However, one benefit of those nurseries is that if you were breastfeeding, you’d likely meet other mums doing the same thing, some of whom may well be more experienced than you and that could be really helpful. When you and the baby are together you don’t mix as much with the other mums, and, often, you’re out of hospital in 6 hours anyway. The notion called for a review of the rooming in practice and it’s an opportunity to look at also creating a space where women can get help from each other.

Our friend and regular commenter and contributor Mick Taylor did a brave thing. He got up to speak against the motion because it didn’t say anything about home births. I think he had a valid point and that’s something we should think about in the future.

I missed a lot of the international security debate in the afternoon but I was back online for the debates on the benefits of health visitors. I had no idea that they had been cut back so much in England. They were a vital support for me.

The debate on family courts was really interesting and sobering. To read that almost 50 children had been killed on contact visits with their fathers in recent years according to reports was horrifying and we need proper assessments of risk. Sometimes it is very obviously not safe for children to have contact with a parent and no court should order that they should and they should listen to the parent who has suffered the domestic abuse. That’s often the mother and often she does not have the financial ability to counter a wealthy ex-partner. Access to justice is really important.

The motion mentioned proper regulation of therapists who give evidence in family hearings.

We Scots get everywhere – I was really impressed by the speech of Cllr Lisa Spivey, the leader of Gloucestershire County Council since last year.

I missed the debate on local candidate safety but will watch that back later.

It was great to see so many excellent speeches and to see us pass policy based on evidence and grounded in our liberal values.

It was also good to be able to vote for the things that mattered to me.Though you do actually have to remember to cast your vote and keep an eye on it opening. By the time the chair of the sessions asks people to vote in the hall, it’s too late.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social