WITH the Labour Party conference just ending in Blackpool, and the Tory one about to begin in Birmingham, we look back on Diary stories from previous political shindigs, including political reporter Ian Hernon once telling us of the Labour conference where the Glasgow trade unionist chairing the session was trying to pick out the next speaker from the delegates holding their hands up. He managed to either horrify or amuse those present by declaring: "That lassie in the red frock. No, not you, hen, the pretty one in the next row."

AND a Labour Party member from Glasgow once told us he returned from conference to be told by his wife: "I've got a surprise for you in the bedroom." Sadly his first thoughts on what she meant were cruelly dashed when she added: "I've put the winter duvet on".

FORMER Scottish Tory leader Annabel Goldie once told an early-morning fringe meeting at a Tory conference in Bournemouth that she saw some graffiti which combined both the southern seaside town and the more easterly international ferry terminal of Harwich. Someone had written on a wall, said Annabel: "Harwich for the continent. Bournemouth for the incontinent."

FEISTY Lesley Quinn, who worked her way up from typist to general secretary of the Scottish Labour Party, said her farewells at a Labour conference after 27 years' service. She told delegates that a branch in Ayrshire had sent her a letter wishing her all the best in the future, helpfully adding that the ballot on whether to send her good wishes was passed by 13 votes to nine.

UNIVERSITY Challenge presenter Jeremy Paxman once asked a question about Glasgow's open-air market The Barras, but put the emphasis on the second rather than the first syllable, which led to much criticism from Scots. He said he was then attending the Labour conference when then Home Secretary John Reid bore down on him, clapped him on the shoulder and said, "If it's not my fellow Glaswegian."

Incidentally, John, later Celtic chairman, told Mary his secretary to keep his Diary for that night at the conference clear as he wanted to watch Celtic playing a European tie which was televised. Mary wrote in his diary: "7.45pm: Defence, future goals and Europe."

WE heard from the STUC's Women's Conference in Dundee one year where Unison's admirable equality officer from Glasgow Eileen Dinning, chairing the conference, was telling the delegates about the Scottish woman on trial for murdering her husband who was asked by the judge why she had shot him with a bow and arrow. "I didn't want to wake the weans," she replied.

WE always like the humour of former Glasgow Lord Provost Alex Mosson who, when LP, had to officially welcome delegates to a conference in the city on energy conservation. After his welcoming speech he sat down, but one earnest anorak stood up and ranted about how he had cycled to the conference while the Lord Provost had arrived in a big, flash gas-guzzling limousine. The chairman apologised for the breach of protocol in attacking an invited guest, but Alex said he was quite happy to respond. A hushed audience waited in anticipation. "Eat your heart out," replied Alex.

MY own memories of attending such political conferences are hazy due to late nights and, well, alcoholic excess, but I do remember attending a Scottish delegates night at a Tory conference when Lady Thatcher arrived and was besieged by folk wanting to shake her hand. I stood back from the throng but Mrs T bore down on me, perhaps thinking I was shy and shook my hand. Caught unawares, my insightful question to The Iron Lady was: "How are you?" In her seventies, she replied: "Fighting fit. I'm more worried about Denis's health than my own."

And our old chum Tom Shields walked into a Labour Conference where one of the first delegates he saw was a woman wearing a T-shirt with the striking statement printed on it: "Dip me in honey and throw me to the lesbians''.