WHERE ARE THEY? Were they ever there? Or have they just been well hidden? Why were we told again and again that that they would be found? That’s the mystery of the missing WMD — Labour’s missing week of mass destruction. The conference pass I discarded this morning says I’ve been at a Labour conference. So do the leaflets I never quite got round to reading. And yet . . . and yet . . . it felt like a Tory conference. Or, to be more precise, a Thatcherite one.

I’m not talking about the content of the speeches or the policies. It’s trite to claim that there’s nothing to tell the parties apart. It’s the delegates who have morphed into one another. The New Labour Model Army is as instinctively hooked on power, as instinctively loyal and as instinctively hostile to the media as Thatcher’s ever was.

Listen to the conference previews and you’d think it would be a doddle to get a handful of delegates to stare down our TV lens and attack the war on Iraq or the Prime Minister. Far from it. “You in the media think you can tell us what we’re annoyed about” was the constant refrain. Ever so politely, party activist after party activist told me that we in the media were getting it — getting them — wrong. They were determined to prove us wrong.

It reminded me of the time when Weekend World — the old current affairs programme — was making an edition about the bitter split in the SDP. Its team was waiting to film David Owen enter what was sure to be a hostile and divisive meeting. To the producer’s horror, he was cheered to the rafters. The chair of the meeting had found the producer’s filming notes on the floor and read them out to the assembled activists before letting the camera in. The note read: “David Owen walks in to boos and jeers.” You can't trust political activists to stick to the script.

WE WEREN'T alone in misjudging the party. Jack Straw looked positively bemused when his speech received a standing ovation. The Foreign Secretary — a man who relishes a fight — was almost disappointed. He told me that he’d worked out in advance which lines would provoke shouts from the floor and was looking forward to responding in kind. Straw, remember, is the only minister who still takes a megaphone to the public square to take on all-comers.

NOW THE BLAIRITES would have you believe that this outbreak of loyalty is thanks to their revolution. If so, it's as much about organisation as inspiration. Votes at the conference are now whipped like votes in the Commons. One Labour whip told me the tricks of his trade. Conference delegates are identified by party officials as much as a year before they attend. Many are conference novices, thanks to new rules which ensure that each constituency sends a woman at least every second year. These freshers are invited to regional meetings before the conference. They make buddies — their unofficial whips. Once at conference, they are invited to meet the minister the day before a critical vote. Some are won over to the cause — of, say, foundation hospitals — but are unwilling to defy the opposition of their local party. No problem. Their buddy advises that “everyone would understand” if they just happened to be in the loo when the vote actually came. After all, it was a heavy last night at the Association of Health Providers party. Naturally, the Blairite line is that they’ve brought real people in and kept the more ideological party hacks out.

MY NEWSROOM GOT a call at the beginning of the week before a single speech had been delivered. They were asked tartly by a party official whether we were set upon reporting the week entirely through the prism of Tony versus Gordon. We were, of course. Later that night I spoke to the Downing Street complainer. I noticed that he’d not repeated his complaint. “What’s changed?” I asked. “I’ve read Gordon’s bloody speech,” came the reply.

AN ENJOYABLE week in Bournemouth was marred only by the funeral of Gareth Williams — the Leader of the Lords. Principled, passionate, committed and courteous, but mischievous and funny. A committed republican, he told me with relish of the time he’d gently mocked the Queen — a woman whose position he wanted to scrap but whom he personally admired. He’d been telling her about youth crime and the case of a 17-year-old who had three children by different mothers. “Was he black?” she asked. Considering this a less than enlightened question, he replied waspishly: “No, your Majesty, but he did come from a dysfunctional home. He had a difficult relationship with his father, a mother who was always out at work and he’d never had a proper job.” Ouch.

The author is political editor of ITV News

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