It was a different thing to do this year but it seems to work well

It was a different thing to do this year, but it seems to work well.TuesdayBy now I think the conference has the atmosphere I wanted to achieve. Tony’s speech is an emotional moment for me, and tonight’s “Welsh night” cheers me up when a few old lovely ladies kiss and hug me. I meet Gerald Hancock, who has been with Labour for 59 years. He told me he joined the day he was demobbed from the war!WednesdayI take delegates to Salford to have a look at our regenerated area, called Langworthy, which has won the Britain In Bloom Award because of the lovely flowers planted in the area. My biggest highlight of today is shaking Bill Clinton’s hand! And if that is not enough , I also get to dance with the ITV chief executive Charles Allen tonight!ThursdayI head to the Kath Locke Centre, a primary healthcare clinic, which is celebrating its 10th birthday It’s very inspiring for me to see how the locals run it. After listening to the John Reid speech, I hand out awards to two community heroes.

We usually do conference at the seaside, but I realise that the idea of having it in a city really works well too.FridayI am going to visit a school this afternoon to speak to children who are having their own elections today. Saturday, I just want to go the countryside with my husband and take long walks and relax.Interview by Marlijn Folkers. Bertie Ahern does not look or sound like the Republic of Ireland’s cleverest and most capable politician: he is not a forceful speaker, would never describe himself as an intellectual, and is not an inspirational figure. Yet he is the most formidable operator on the Dublin political scene, which he has dominated for years. He has the antennae to sense looming crises, the expertise to manage the economy, and the savvy to remain Prime Minister for almost a decade.

The mystery is how someone who has weathered so many crises with such skill should suddenly find himself mired in one which, he admits, has tarnished his stature This one could yet bring him down. Even if that does not happen, it will inevitably harm his chances of leading his Fianna Fail party to a third victory in the general election, due next year.
It is not as if he lacks experience in coping with the issue of surreptitious payments to politicians, for many of his crises have arisen from this issue. Not only did two senior Fianna Fail men go to jail but his own one-time leader and former mentor, Charles Haughey, was disgraced after it was proved he had taken millions.As part of coping with these events, Ahern said repeatedly ministers should be under no financial obligations and should not be taking money: “We must draw a line under bad habits that may have grown up,” he intoned. Yet before making these public declarations he had himself benefited from monies quietly donated by 12 business figures, in 1993 and 1994, amounting to nearly fifty thousand euros.For years, he acted as if the payments were not a potential smoking gun that could do him great damage. This was despite the fact that powerful anti-corruption tribunals have been investigating deeply into the financial affairs of politicians. Nobody is saying that the Prime Minister has done something illegal. He is widely regarded as being, if not actually a pretty straight kind of guy, then at least one having higher-than-average personal standards.Some of the donors were appointed to public boards, but they were mates of Bertie’s, and he would probably have appointed them anyway.

Such is the Irish way: such things may be widely regarded as cronyism, but that is legal whereas corruption is not. A mystery is why Ahern’s fabled antennae did not transmit warnings that the payments might be uncovered, and could be highly injurious to him.In the Dail this week he insisted he had never taken a bribe and had done nothing wrong, though he admitted with rueful hindsight that his actions “could be made to look wrong”. It has been a rare lapse of judgement on the part of a man steeped in politics since he joined Fianna Fail at the tender age of 14, winning election to the Dail when he was 26. His long career has had few serious reverses.His Fianna Fail pedigree is impeccable, both his parents having been active in the republican campaign to drive out the British. His father fought in the 3rd Cork brigade of the IRA, while at his mother’s knee the young Bertie heard tales of how the Black and Tans ransacked their farm and shot their turkeys.All that got him off to a good start in Fianna Fail, but it was his fascination with politics, coupled with striking organisational ability and a legendary work-rate, that ensured his steady rise through the party ranks.

Only 55 today, he became Lord Mayor of Dublin at an early age, and reached the Dail in his twenties. There he was spotted by Charles Haughey and others as a coming man, performing well as minister for labour and finance minister.His relationship with the corrupt Haughey was not a natural pairing: Charlie affected a patrician air, exuding grandeur and power, while Bertie was a man of modest habits, concentrating on getting the job done. Where Charlie wore fabulous suits and lived the high life, Bertie’s standard garb was a dishevelled anorak; he was always being photographed with his tie loosened and shirt-sleeves rolled up. Where Charlie was elegantly groomed, Bertie’s hair was long and untidy. Sunday

It’s my big day and I am nervous I start the day with a church service and read a lesson Tony [Blair] reads the other lesson. Ahern was at Haughey’s side through these turbulent years, loyally helping fend off the repeated party “heavies” against him.The vehemence of these struggles was unprecedented: some in the Haughey camp were particularly nasty bits of work who did not scruple to employ low tactics.