Party is bridging troubled waters

This was my 32nd Labour Party Conference, and one of the most interesting. It is fair to say that the Government has been sailing in choppy waters of late, not least over the war in Iraq but also on some other issues, including public service reform.

But the debates were good ones and, on the whole, discussions were held without rancour or venom.

This is how it should be in a democratic party like Labour, although it was not always the case.

During my time as Barbara Castle's adviser in the 1970s, the debates at conference were somewhat more dramatic.

I always remember the 1976 conference in Blackpool when the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Denis Healey, had to wait with other delegates to be called to give a three-minute speech about the decision to call in the IMF to bail out the British economy. He was greeted with cat calls and boos.

How different today with the present Chancellor, Gordon Brown.

He made a commanding 40-minute speech from the platform which set out the Government's economic achievements and received a standing ovation in response.

I have painful memories of Party conferences of the early 1980s, after Margaret Thatcher came to power, when the arguments within the Party were dripping with poison and personal animosity.

Unsurprisingly, they cost us dear.

The British people took the view that a Party which could not govern itself was hardly likely to be suitable to govern the country.

I am glad to say that my own speech this year, during the Iraq debate, was well received and conference delegates voted to back the Government's approach.

Iknow that the decision to go to war in March was opposed by many Party members and others, and I understand why people were concerned.

But, as I told the conference I firmly believe that ridding Iraq of the most brutal of the world's dictators was the right thing to do - and the Blackburn delegate, Pat McFall, explained in the same debate that this was her personal view too.

Despite our past divisions, however, I believe the Labour Party is now coming together again in seeking to work with the United Nations to help the people of Iraq rebuild their country and create a bright new future for themselves.

That is something that everyone can agree with, regardless of their views of the merits of the decision to take military action.

Because I spent most of my conference week working on my speech, speaking at fringe events and meeting international visitors like President Karzai of Afghanistan and Prime Minister Racan of Crotia, there wasn't as much time as I would have liked to meet up with old friends in the Party.

But I still love these conferences, and I hope that I will still be attending them for the next 32 years.

In my attic in Blackburn I have a pile of files marked "New Hospital". Some of them are now 30 years old - I inherited them from Barbara Castle.

What they chart is the twists and turns, and what seemed like a struggle without end to get a new District General Hospital on one site for Blackburn and the surrounding area.

Tomorrow I am going to tie up the files and mark them "closed" (or, to be on the safe side "almost closed"). For tomorrow I will proudly be taking part in a formal ceremony to mark the start of the physical construction of the new hospital.

We have had to finance it differently - using, yes, the "Private Finance Initiative", or PFI. Some regard this as objectionable. I don't in the least.

Government has always borrowed money from the private sector to pay for capital investment like new hospitals. The difference with PFI is that the private sector lender has to share the risk too.

Above all, people in Blackburn and the surrounding area will get a new hospital service many years sooner than otherwise. In the jargon, it should be "win-win".