Sunday 21 September

Jenny and I headed up to Manchester for the Labour Party's annual conference in the morning. The recent financial crisis and leadership rumours had threatened to overshadow wider policy issues, but we arrived in Manchester to find a vibrant conference with a fringe programme full of debate, and plenty of opportunities for useful networking and discussion. That afternoon I raised the issue of Central and Eastern European homelessness with Liam Byrne, the Immigration Minister, at a fringe on Migration, while Jenny had a useful discussion with Nicky Gavron and Len Duvall from the Greater London Assembly

Monday 22 September

The day kicked off early with our fringe event on Central and Eastern European Homelesness. Claude Moraes, MEP for London; Janie Kidston from ur4jobs at the Upper Room; and Sir Steve Bullock, Mayor of Lewisham were our speakers and a helpful discussion followed on both practical and policy issues. The Manchester Evening News covered the event. Click here to read the article.

In preparation for Conference we had designed a leaflet highlighting our campaign to end rough sleeping by the time of the next Olympics. We spent the time before lunch handing these out, including to Hazel Blears and James Purnell.

Over a lunchtime fringe Jenny and Janie secured the promise of a visit to the Upper Room from Liam Byrne, who had also received our campaign information leaflet.

I attended an event on London 2012, asking the panel, which included Lord Coe, Tessa Jowell and Ian Clements, Deputy Mayor of London, if they thought ending rough sleeping would be a fantastic legacy for the Games? Tessa said that 2012 provided a real timeline to realise such ambitions and promised to raise the issue with Caroline Flint. The entire panel left with our 2012 leaflet and Homeless Link will be following up with them all.

Fighting tiredness from the very early start, we headed to the early evening fringe sessions, choosing two on housing and design related issues. I gave Caroline Flint a copy of our campaign leaflet, and made the link to Tessa's comments earlier today.

Finally, we attended the Citizen's Advice Reception where Jenny discussed homelessness and transport issues with Transport for London, before both heading to the conference bars to carry on networking well into the evening.

Tuesday 23 September

Today began with more publicity on our campaign to end rough sleeping by 2012. Both David and Ed Milliband took a leaflet.

Jenny attended two fringes, one with Caroline Flint on housing and worklessness and another on Improving Skills, where she raised the benefits of the Places of Change approach with the panel, including John Denham.

After a lunchtime fringe on housing at which Caroline Flint was speaking, I offered Homeless Link's support to arrange some visits for her to Places of Change projects. The aim would be to look at how schemes that actively enable people into work in homelessness settings could be easily transferred to run in social rented housing settings. Another one for us to follow up!

At 2pm it was time to gather by the TV screens for the Leader's Speech. Gordon Brown spoke on the themes of 'a new settlement for a new time' and 'a fair Britain for a fair age'. He remarked that fairness included developing 'all the talents of all the people' though he made no specific mention of homelessness.

You can read epolitix's summary here.

You can read the full transcript of the speech here.

The speech finished, the race to the station began. Most conference-goers on the train are looking decidedly sleepy, but many, including us, will be getting ready soon for the next event, the Conservative conference in Birmingham, next weekend.