Tom Harris MP: Why I refuse to go to Labour Party conference There were even demonstrations - about women's representation (or lack of it) about black representation (or lack of it), about the refusal of the Conference Arrangements Committee to schedule a particular debate on an emergency resolution (usually about Nicaragua). These demos were so anarchic, created such bedlam, that even their participants looked a bit confused as to why they were taking part. And they took place on the actual conference floor! While the conference was happening! While the TV cameras were on! Good times. Things had calmed down a tad by the time I attended my first conference (in Brighton, as it happens) in 1989, when I was a fresh-faced young delegate from the constituency I would go on to represent in the Commons. It was an important conference because it would vote on whether to accept Neil Kinnock's policy review which included the party's new defence policy, retaining Britain's nuclear deterrent. In the event, we met the challenge and made the change. Since then the only conference which seriously defined the direction the party was going was in 1993, when then leader John Smith faced down opponents of his plans to introduce one member, one vote, for parliamentary selections. There was a time when I could pretty easily understand the policymaking role of conference: it decided what was or was not policy. Even if a policy was agreed, it needed a two-thirds majority before it could be guaranteed consideration for the manifesto, and even if it achieved that threshold, it didn't mean it actually would make it to the manifesto. But now, to get your head around the two-year cyclical process, with its policy forums, consultations, workshops and interventions (probably), you need a degree in politics or business management. Which is fortunate because there seem to be an awful lot of people at conference with exactly those qualifications. The fact is that none of the parties any longer need their annual conferences. They need the publicity (although there's far less of it than in the past, and it's a lot more jaded and cynical, as befits our times) and they badly need the money they generate from selling passes and exhibition space. But the actual conference? The debates? The motions? The votes? Oh, please... In the modern age, conference is an anachronism, as is the three-week parliamentary recess to accommodate it. No one really sees the point of it any more, including most in attendance. But this is Britain, and of course the main reason we do anything is that we've always done it that way, so why change? Maybe we still need conference, if only as a reminder of a time when voter turnout and party membership were higher, when everyone knew which of the two main parties they were brought up to support, when speeches by Prime Ministers and Leaders of the Opposition were actually reported and not just used as a hook for a parliamentary sketch. Maybe we need conference to remind the country that democracy and politics, even if they're now a minority interest, are still important. And the money. We need it for the money too.