Steerpike

Most Secretaries of State tend to lay low the night before their big conference speech, redrafting and practising. Not so Theresa May. The glammed-up Home Secretary was working the party scene hard last night, flanked by a bolstered entourage. After losing her Special Adviser Fiona Cunningham in blue on blue briefing row, May has brought in former Mail journalist Liz Sanderson to handle her media. If it looks like a leadership campaign... May’s speech this morning was steely. She talked about freedom and a free society. With her smart new haircut, it was not long before obvious comparisons were being made to a the last strong woman to dominate the Conservative Party.

No Mark Reckless, no Brooks Newmark and now no Bow Group.  The oldest conservative think-thank has announced that they are boycotting this year’s Tory conference. It seems, for Dave at least, bad news really does come in threes. The venerable think tank, founded in 1951 and counting Lords Howe and Heseltine among its members, has charged the Conservative Party Conference with being 'a corporate venue for press and lobbyists' rather than 'a genuine forum for conservatism and Conservative Party members'. With MEP and Bow Group member Dan Hannan refusing to attend and Lord Tebbit worrying that CPC was no longer 'anything to do with Party members', the Tories might have reason to worry.

The Conservative conference pub is back again this year, with its usual bitter jokes about Labour. Mr Steerpike had an exclusive peek at the posters they're using to poke fun at Ed Miliband's party. The pub this year is called the 'Tax & Spend'. Funnily enough, they've decided to remind the Labour leader of the deficit, just in case he's forgotten: Perhaps someone could set up a Campaign for Real Deficit Reduction.

First we had Mrs Miliband redefining her role from elusive lawyer to political campaigning wife; now we have another once shy 'leader's wife' tweaking their public profile. The Liberal Democrats get very grumpy if you refer to Miriam González Durántez as Mrs Clegg, but the Dechert LLP lawyer is described as the 'wife of Nick Clegg' by Mumsnet for the launch of their Mumsnet Book of Animal Stories. None of the other contributors to the book - including Anthony Browne, the former Children's Laureate and Mumsnet founder Justine Roberts - have been defined by their spouse. Brave...

The hall may have been half empty during his speech, but New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said lots of nice things about Ed Miliband during the closing session of Labour Party conference in Manchester. And the similarities between the two politicians are copious. They're both metropolitan lefties who are far more ideologically radical than they let on. Both face hostile media and talk about the rising cost of living. But that's mainly because Ed’s strategist are ripping off large parts of the winning Democrat’s playbook: Ed even recreated de Blasio’s widely mocked campaign gaffe of being photographed eating awkwardly.

Having spent four years sticking to a wave at the end of conference and the odd photograph together with her husband, Justine Thornton has burst onto centre stage at Labour's conference. Mrs Miliband - and she uses her Miliband name today - has written to Labour activists pledging her commitment to getting her man into Downing Street: 'Honestly, as a young lawyer who wanted to change the world, I never would have believed that I would become a politician's wife. It's not a role you apply for, nor one I've found easy to understand. Just after Ed won, I Googled a few terms to see if there were books I could read on the role of a politician's spouse. All that came up was references to 'the good wife', and that wasn't quite what I had in mind.

Upon leaving the Celebrity Big Brother house, Benefits Street star and Spectator contributor White Dee - also known as Deirdre Kelly - threatened to give ‘David Cameron a run for his money,’ and she's true to her word. Fresh from this year's Channel Five finale, Dee is about to enter a different sort of mad house full of self-obsessed prima donnas: Tory Party conference. Tory MP Mark Hoban has been nominated to debate Dee, after Esther McVey - another former telly star - chickened out of the showdown organised by Policy Exchange. Unlike McVey to dodge an opportunity for publicity.

Ed Balls playing football each year at Labour conference is almost as big as Ed Balls Day. The Shadow Chancellor always participates enthusiastically in the annual hacks vs MPs match. Sometimes, he's a little too enthusiastic. Like today, when he accidentally wounded lobby journalist Rob Merrick. Still, the pair made up by the end of the match. Those who predict the General Election campaign will be a bloody battle were more correct than they could ever have imagined.

There is a certain irony in the fact that Miliband is protecting his party’s Scottish advantage by accusing the Prime Minister of allowing ‘this moment to be used for narrow party political advantage’. Rejecting Cameron’s plans for English votes for English laws, Labour have rushed out plans for ‘a full Constitutional Convention rooted in our nations and regions, to address the need for further devolution in England and political reform of Westminster.’ Form an orderly queue.

Former Newsnight correspondent Paul Mason seems rather happy to be free of Auntie, especially since the Scottish independence referendum campaign sent the establishment to panic stations: ‘Not since Iraq have I seen BBC News working at propaganda strength like this. So glad I'm out of there,’ he writes on his Facebook page, to the consternation of former colleagues. ‘It's on my friends-only Facebook page so not meant as any great statement other than weariness,' Mason tells Mr S, 'it says what it says.' Lucky, then that he is now at Channel Four News – that famed bastion of slant free news.

Don’t they know there's a war on? Given that the government has finally woken up to the very real threat of a ‘yes’ victory, Mr S was rather surprised to hear where the Secretary of State for Scotland has been. Spies report that Alistair Carmichael spent the day in London yesterday. Presumably someone had to be in charge of handing out the Saltires. Witnesses reported him ‘loafing’ around Portcullis House, and he was even papped popping out for a casual coffee: I'm not quite sure what Alistair Carmichael Scotlands Sec found so funny this morning maybe Cameron losing the Union! pic.twitter.