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How do you make sure your conference hall is brimming with delegates?

Halve its stize with black drapes, put out fewer seats than needed and bingo, instant standing room only at the back. The old ones are the best (I mean tactics obviously, not delegates ...)

How do you turn a set that is Union Jack heavy into one that's acceptably Welsh? You put daffodils in vases and stick them on perspex tables right next to the speakers.

And how do you fend off obvious questions at your Welsh conference about the Conservative take on further devolution for Wales, or how a Conservative government would change the present system of LCOs and elbowing that the party says isn't working?

You turn it inot "an open dialogue" and fiddle a bit around the edges. A future Conservative Welsh Secretary would come to the Assembly four times a year - not once. You suggest forming a committee of MPs with constituencies along the border to "smooth out the wrinkles" caused by devolution and wait for it, the Welsh Grand would meet in Wales regularly.

Alun Cairns got 'em going with his speech on the economy. "There is a way out of the recession - the Conservative way!"

Harking back to "the dark days" of slogans on prudence and education x 3 had them rolling in the aisles. "It would be funny if it wasn't so serious" had them stopping abruptly.

Did George Osborne spot the mistake in his introductory caption? 'George Obourne' sounds more like a distant relative of the Welsh leader than "the next Chancellor of the Exchequer". Mr Osborne aspires to sound like - and be - the next Chancellor. Did changing lines like "Any public body that wants to pay someone more than the Prime Minister of the day gets paid will have to come and justify it to me" to "justify it to the Chancellor the Exchequer of the day" suggest he has any doubts? Maybe not. "They'll get short shrift I can tell you!" got the loudest burst of applause of the morning.

A lot .... of promises not to shower us with statistics - mostly broken
more stalls than in the past
lines like "You couldn't make it up"

Not a lot ... of empty seats
work for the translator
fury at the Hain/Morgan/Davies-backed video. It looks more like delight
from where we're sitting

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