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A manic month of conferences has seen us travelling from Torquay in the south to Liverpool up north.

There have been lots of speeches, quite a few debates, a handful of controversies - but has anything really changed after this year's round of party conferences?

Quite often the answer is "No". But this year's gatherings of the party faithful have been landmark occasions.

Labour has a new leader - the wrong leader in the eyes of most from our region - but that aside, after four months without any clear sense of direction, Britain's main opposition party can now get on with the job of opposing the government. And we now know that Ed Miliband is very firmly in the "cut more slowly" camp.

The Liberal Democrats always like to flex their muscles at conference but this year they realised that in coalition, people take more notice of them.

That may embolden a few more of their MPs to speak out over issues like academies, free schools and spending cuts. They won't bring down the coalition but they know that if they speak out it may just persuade the coalition to go a little easy on a policy.

The Lib Dem leadership also did a good job of selling the coalition to those in the party with lingering doubts. It appears the party is firmly behind the idea - for now at least.

And then there are the Tories. The proposed child benefit changes shocked many delegates and brought home that the forthcoming cuts will be nasty and affect everyone - even them.

As the week wore on there appeared to be a new sense of realism in Birmingham and a sense that the next few years could be harder for them than they thought.

By the end of the conference some delegates were even talking about losing seats and losing lots of them in the east at next year's local elections. So the Lib Dems are not worrying alone.

Labour probably went home the happiest because they feel they'll be the main beneficiaries in our region of the coalition's unpopularity. The Lib Dems and Tories had a good time celebrating being in government but left their conferences knowing that the next few years will be hard.

And let's not forget UKIP and the Greens who kicked off the conference season. The Greens celebrated another win on Norwich City Council but know they will have to work hard not to be squeezed by any Labour surge. Meanwhile UKIP is now going through what appears to be, if their conference is anything to go by, a bitter leadership campaign.

The two main candidates, eastern region MEP David Campbell-Bannerman and former leader and South MEP Nigel Farage, offer very different styles of leadership. The outcome will determine what sort of a future the party has.

Yes, this party conference season has been a landmark year and will cast a long shadow.

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