Thursday
The conference season has begun with a vengeance. Having recovered from the International Marketing and Purchasing Conference at University College, Dublin, I am invited to attend the Marketing Paradiso Conclave - the bi-annual post-modern marketing conference. Today I am at the Political Marketing Conference at Bournemouth University. Leading political lobbyist Leighton Andrews outlines how politicians are increasingly looking for advice from corporate interests. Privileged access and linear lines of vested interest into government are declining fast, he says. Now influence can only be gained by lobbying pro-actively.
Friday
Organise video recording of television coverage of all forthcoming political conferences for research purposes.
Saturday
Read conference publications of Liberal Democrats (Harrogate), Labour (Bournemouth) and Conservatives (Blackpool). Assess fringe meetings, receptions, exhibitions, speeches and people I want to see. Produce battle plan to survive the next three weeks.
Monday
First day of term. Vast hordes of freshers besiege me in corridor asking for directions to lecture theatres, buildings, departments, toilets ... This year the students seem refreshingly courteous. Meet new MA in public relations students at their introductory lecture and advise them (off the record) not to believe all they hear about spin doctors and political marketing.
Tuesday
Harrogate and the Liberal Democrat conference. Enjoying staying in a pleasant hotel, courtesy of a television company for which I am carrying out research. Attend the debates on education and go to Paddy Ashdown's last conference speech. I reflect on the points he makes about how we can maintain democracy in an increasingly global political world. Everybody feels uplifted by his speech.
Head off just in time for the Committee of Vice-Chancellors and Principals fringe meeting. Quite well attended, but CVCP chairman Howard Newby has cancelled - so meeting is a little dominated by politicians and policy makers. Pity. Feel that perhaps higher education is not taking the strategic political lobbying of government as seriously as it should. Liberal Democrat spokesman for education Phil Willis does not lift me out of this gloom as he points out that we have had a 36 per cent increase in students in the past ten years and a 30 per cent drop in salary in real terms.
Wednesday
Persuade Lord McNally to join the editorial board of the Journal of Public Affairs, which we launch next June. Record and photograph a number of fringe meetings and exhibitors and talk to the commercial organisations behind the conference. Begin to psyche myself up for the seven-day Labour conference, which will have over 20,000 delegates attending in Bournemouth. Phil Harris is co-director of the Centre for Corporate and Public Affairs,