After an extended sojourn in Greece courtesy of a piece of dodgy souvlaki, a fire in the channel tunnel and the bankruptcy of several package holiday tour companies I finally find myself be-fish and chipped in Bournemouth.

Owing to the somewhat frenetic nature of this transfer I am superbly equipped with flip flops, sun cream and a purse full of euros. If you see someone in snorkelling gear in the bar, be sure to come and say hello.

Anyway, to business, and of course the unignorable question on everyone’s lips is… who will be the first journalist to use the phrase “And of course all the talk in the conference bars is of how the controversial tax package will be received by members…”

If you spot it, or say five words amiss from it, let us know in the comments.  In fact, just tot up the tallies in the papers for the following words:

Controversial

Shift

Reluctant

Unhappy

Struggling

I will be keeping my personal tally of my own use of the following:

Morons

Hackneyed

Lazy

Status quo

Basic comprehension and reading skills

Meanwhile on the conference floor, Ed Davey’s motion in support of the Security and Liberty policy paper has been clearly passed. I managed to catch some of his move speech en route – he does get a bad press among political hacks, doesn’t he. Strong delivery and powerfully commonsensical in a way that I can’t help feeling must appeal to, you know, ordinary people.

The paper itself, I feel, suffers presentationally from having seven or eight excellent ideas melded into one. The unifying theme does work. “Security and liberty” relates as clearly to nuclear disarmament as it does to the intriguing idea of a local citizens force and devolution of powers to tackle the climate of fear in people’s neighbourhoods. But I fear that’s going to be a little too clever for the press to swallow all in one go. What I’d like to see is each idea in the paper thumped out over the coming weeks, now that it’s been passed.

But I must awa’ to grab a free drink before the rally, courtesy of, oh, someone…