Didn’t really blog from Lib Dem conference over the weekend – reckoning that the world wouldn’t end – I just carried out my duties and enjoyed the debates. I did tweet! But not a lot.

Ironic really – that one of the highlights was Howard Dean’s speech to Conference – and even more – his private session with me and my burgeoning army of coders et al – who will develop (I hope) into a problem busting, tool improving, development force for the Lib Dems.

What was so interesting about Howard Dean’s description of the birth of real political net campaigning, was that the key message was that it was a communication tool to form relationships and that the net was about communities AND that none of it was a substitute for going out door knocking! That said – net political campaigning is key to any modern campaign!

The substance of the debates this conference was children and families – particularly education. Brand new and visionary is our policy of giving parents the choice of parental leave between them up to 19 months – followed by filling in the black hole of child care by extending the right to free early years education to 20 hours a week from the age of 18 months – if the parents want it. Particularly for disadvantaged children – this will give them far better life chances – as according to current thinking it is basically all over by the time you are six! Well – what I mean is that studies show that children from disadvantaged backgrounds are already a year behind by the age of three. Such children are exposed typically to about 400 words a day – whereas their better off contemporaries are exposed to 3-4,000 words per day. You can see my point!

When your child then gets to school – they will find all class sizes halved – bringing that infant school education into line with the sort of numbers in private schools. That ratio is critical to what comes next.

And next – as a child progresses into secondary education – Liberal Democrats propose a ‘pupil premium’ which is basically a sum of money that goes with the child so that schools have the resources to deal with challenges and therefore don’t suffer when they have an inclusive policy.

Going on into further education – Liberal Democrats continue their commitment to scrap tuition fees. Hurrah! And this is now extended to part-time courses as well. Basically – everyone will have five years of post-16 education free – and they can choose where and when they take it up. Flexible and suited to the person -not regimented and forced down your throat by central command!

And of course – there was Nick Clegg’s speech. The content was brilliant – but I will let you read the speech for yourselves. It was strong, radical – and basically the proposition was if you vote Labour or Tory you will get the same old same old that led us to this current destruction. Liberal Democrats are genuinely different. So – if you believe we need change (and personally I can’t see how anyone can think that changing to a Tory Government or keeping the defunct Labour one will deliver anything decent or different or new) then bring in the Liberal Democrats.