THE party conference season is over for another year. The remarkably mild autumn meant the conferences at Birmingham(Lib Dems), Liverpool (Labour) and Manchester (Conservatives) were filled with more hot air than usual.

First up were the Lib Dems – a party which loves to blame anyone but itself for the austerity cuts.

The “oh no you didn’t”, “oh yes you did” routine was classic panto stuff.

Political parties adore coalition governments. If things get rocky just blame your coalition partner, especially if your poll rating has dipped.

Labour came next. The “addicted to debt” party briefly flexed its monetary muscle by promising cuts in VAT and temporary tax breaks for small businesses. Admirable, but still scratching the surface.

Ed Miliband’s “new bargain” speech also lacked credibility, promising to end a culture that has rewarded “the wrong people with the wrong values”.

This, remember, is from a party which created an extra 800,000 public service posts, mainly in jobs of no value whatsoever, and allowed bankers to run riot with our money.

But it was left to the Tories to bring the curtain down at Manchester.

At least after David Cameron’s speech, it is crystal clear where this party is heading: boom time for the rich and recession for the rest.

Mr Cameron’s speech resembled the captain of a sinking ship handing over the wheel to his passengers.

The keynote address was particularly ironic from a party which says it will never buy the country out of a recession.

But hang on, is that the sound of a printing press I hear? For the second time this year the Bank of England is set to print another £75bn of funny money.

Stephen Dixon, Redcar.

MEMBERS of the Big Society are a little bit upset after hearing David Cameron’s dismissive attitude to Nimbys in his closing speech to the Conservative party conference. It seems that a lot of people are members of both groups and it looks likely that they are going to be kicked in their own back yard, possibly when doing their Big Society thing.

The consequence will be a mass resignation of membership or, at least, a mass realisation that political patronage is anything but desirable to anybody with self-respect.

Chris Pattison, Richmond.