There were juggling acts, amazing on stage acrobatics and some very witty one-liners. I enjoyed the St Mary's Primary School Talent Show on Saturday in the Causeway....and it provided a good precursor to Conservative Party Conference!
Political Conferences are part rally but are also part ideas exchange. Issues can be debated across a wide array of (non party) viewpoints. Gone are the days when these events were solely held in out of season seaside resorts and I spent early this week in Manchester. Naturally a key theme of this conference was therefore the Government's drive to create a "Northern Powerhouse". The reminders of Manchester's Victorian grandeur and civic pride are all around. However so is the evidence of how, over a hundred years, influence and affluence has been sucked down to London. Putting in place better infrastructure between the northern cities to make them work as a cohesive "hub" is one driver for the future.
Another is the devolution of power - ensuring that on many issues (including health and social care working together) there are local people delivering effective local solutions. This may seem an odd theme for a Sussex MP to write about in a Sussex newspaper but it also matters to us that the "Northern Powerhouse" thrives. I visited a housing development being built within Horsham last Friday, it's being built to time and 40 per cent of the houses will meet the Government's definition of "affordable". Horsham has a growing economy and in relative terms low unemployment. There are plenty of reasons why people wish to move here - increasing demand for housing and the critical infrastructure we need to support a growing population. Sussex however and the UK as a whole will both be more successful places in the longer term if we can secure balanced growth across the whole country.
Manchester with its increasingly good communications and brownfield development opportunities can and should offer an alternative magnet to London. If so both the South East and the North would be delighted by the results.