Fighting Fit: Labour Party Conference

Britons have a reputation for drinking and fighting and talking about the weather. The annual conferences of Britain's three largest political parties traditionally provide ample opportunity to indulge in all three pursuits. They take place in sequential weeks of September and October, mostly in out-of-season resorts where the cheap hotels are accustomed to tipsy guests, and amusement arcades are open from morning to night.

But some members of the governing Labour Party, which convened on Sept. 23-27 in Bournemouth, a town on England's southwest coast, are disappointed. Drink was taken in copious quantities, and the weather put on quite a show: there was sunshine, dramatic cloudbursts and even a rainbow over the convention center as Prime Minister Gordon Brown made his speech. Yet something was missing: the chance to blow off steam by trading insults or even blows with colleagues. An unfamiliar spirit of universal amity took the edge off debates that in earlier years might have degenerated into cathartic screaming matches. Sheltering from a sudden downpour in the lee of a seafront pub, one Labour old-timer joked to another: "Now that's what I call rain — good and honest, just like Gordon."

Labour is entranced with Brown, and like lovers who have just discovered their affections are reciprocated, they can't quite believe their luck. Before the former Chancellor of the Exchequer became Prime Minister in June, large swaths of the party faithful viewed him with trepidation. He'd made a good fist of his 10-year tenure at the helm of the British economy, most agreed, but wasn't he too brainy, too dour to win over the wider electorate?

Recent opinion polls have allayed those concerns. Labour's standing has been boosted by Brown's competent handling of terror attacks in London and Glasgow and an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. The Prime Minister's stolidity, perceived only a few months ago as weakness, now reads like strength. "Not flash, just Gordon," runs Labour's latest slogan. In his convention speech — a doggedly uninspiring hour-long sermon bracketed by emotional ovations and punctuated by endearing verbal stumbles — Brown played up to his new image. "People say I am too serious and I fight too hard and maybe that's true," he said, but "things don't always come easy and there are some things worth fighting for."

A year ago, at the party's 2006 convention, many delegates sounded battle-ready: they were squaring up to their own colleagues. Supporters of Tony Blair, then still Premier but openly planning his departure, were at loggerheads with the adherents of his rival, Brown. "It was a pretty toxic event," Jon Cruddas, an MP on the left of the party, told a meeting in Bournemouth. He said he feared that Labour "was approaching free fall."

Now those divisions have healed and Labour looks unbeatable. That has fueled speculation that Brown might call a snap election as early as next month. Insiders say a decision has not yet been made and point out that an election isn't due until 2010. But there's a clear temptation to secure a new five-year term before global financial turmoil can do too much damage to Britain's economy, and while Conservatives and Liberal Democrats flounder. Brown has wrong-footed his opponents who expected him to move Labour to the left. Instead he has co-opted advisers from across the political spectrum, strengthening Labour's claim to the center ground. Liberal Democrats spent much of their own September conference, in the south-coast resort of Brighton, locked in private debates about whether they would fare better with a younger, more charismatic man at the helm (LibDem leader Sir Menzies "Ming" Campbell is 66). Yet youth and charisma have not enabled Tory leader David Cameron, 41, to unite his fractious party. Traditionalists are outraged by his efforts to rebrand the Conservatives as a more caring, green-tinged party. The Tory conference, which starts on Sept. 30 in Blackpool, a resort in northern England, promises the internecine warfare so conspicuously absent at Labour's jamboree.

That won't help Tory fortunes. Blair's 1997 election victory was based in no small part on his repudiation of such infighting. He could be entrusted with running the country, voters decided, because Labour had the discipline to pull together, unlike the Tories. Under Brown, that discipline has been restored, further bolstering Labour's dominance of British politics. Yet some party stalwarts yearn for the bad old days of red-faced brawls on the conference platform. Former Labour minister and veteran firebrand Tony Benn grimaced as his well-mannered colleagues dutifully filed in for a placid afternoon session. "It's been a lovely week, almost free from politics," he says. "This is really a pre-election rally. I should have brought balloons."