A conference by the sea? Haven't they spent enough time talking to each other?

The Liberal Democrats held theirs this week, managing to actually fill a conference hall. Presumably there weren't any phone boxes available.

Part of me wonders what the real point is of Labour even having its conference. It's just spent four months talking almost exclusively to itself in what started out as a self-indulgent leadership contest before turning into a self-destructive one. If it doesn't know after all that what it should be doing it never will.

But this is Jeremy Corbyn's chance to explain just how he intends to turn his clear and impressive mandate for the leadership into one to govern the country.

David Winnick knows a thing or three about elections, having fought and won every single one since 1979.

And while the MP for Walsall North is no fan of Tony Blair, he also knows that the former leader happened to lead Labour to three out of its five comfortable election wins since 1945.

Labour ended up in government after nine general elections since the war. But in 1950, 1964 and the second election of 1974 their majorities were thinner than any book Nigel Farage might publish entitled What I Like About the European Union.

People at the think tank Demos crunched some numbers and after they brushed away the crumbs they found that Labour needs to win over people who voted for the other parties in May.

Jeremy Corbyn is pretty popular among young people but Demos found if every young person registered to vote did so and backed Labour, they'd still only have a majority of one, which is basically as good as naff all.

But while the conference season is the time to find out what the parties might want of themselves, there are those who would rather be doing something more useful.

Rob Marris, the MP for Wolverhampton South West, is going to stay local rather than join the big Brighton talking shop.

His party could do worse than learn a thing or two from him. He was one of only a handful of Labour candidates to unseat a Tory in May. Mr Marris is obviously doing something right, without lurching that way politically.

Free M6 Toll to cut congestion? What a jam

The West Midlands Combined Authority wants to use public money to subsidise the M6 Toll to cut its prices or even make it free.

On paper it makes sense. After all, the road is there and isn't used to anywhere near its capacity.

Cut the congestion and the emissions you make the West Midlands a more attractive place to invest and you win a few brownie points from the government and the EU.

But I can't see George Osborne going for it.

Taking a private business and giving it public money to do what it was already doing without it doesn't really sit that well with a message that we're still 'all in this together'.

The only thing we're all in together is the queue of traffic on the M6.