When Blair was elected leader of the party 400000 members stood ready and waiting

When Blair was elected leader of the party, 400,000 members stood ready and waiting. John Prescott waxed lyrical about a future “mass membership party”. For June’s elections to Labour’s once-powerful National Executive Committee, 190,000 ballot papers were posted out – and some of those members had probably lapsed. Clappers are attached to the diminishing band of the party faithful, to make sure that the leader gets an appropriate ovation. In New Labour’s case, the speech-writing unit will be on hand to assist anxious delegates.

Policy will long ago have been decided by ministers and largely rubber-stamped by a National Policy Forum that meets off-camera. Even the Liberal Democrat conference, a last vestige of occasional activist-based free thinking, has become corralled into a narrow consensus of what the spin-doctors and strategists believe plays with Middle Britain.Even the commentators have realised they are being sold a pup – at inflated conference prices. Usually, at this time of year, the newspapers are full of heady predictions of a “worst week yet” for Tony Blair or Michael Howard. The rebellions against the Prime Minister tend to start out as late-summer brush fires. By the time Blair prepares to read from his autocue, they have been put out. A worst week becomes a triumph.And what of the party members, the footsoldiers? In Labour’s case, the rank-and-file has largely filed away.

Politics lite is the order of the day, with debate restricted, without hint of irony or shame, to the fringe Nothing is left to chance. COs and others must no longer be allowed to cover up mistakes or atrocities so the public never knows what has been done in its name, or victims’ relatives never assured that lessons have been learned.Phil Shiner, of Public Interest Lawyers, is a specialist international and human rights lawyer. The party conference season is almost upon us. Or rather the party convention season, as the main political parties ape the debate-free, balloon-filled rallies of the American Republicans and Democrats.