Apparently I'm involved with a charm offensive, and yes I know that doesn't sound too likely. According to PR Week "the Conservative Party is trialling a local blogger charm offensive at its annual conference in Birmingham". Which means they emailed me and asked if I wanted to go.

I've never been to a party conference before, so I said yes. It does help that it's only a short bus ride away too.

It's an interesting idea really, one that's already got people talking, at the very least it's always nicer to be asked if you'd like to go to something than not. Unless it's a gathering of people who need to do something about their BO.

Once we (there are apparently ten local bloggers, I know who about 5/6 are I think) were asked then there was a complex system of security to get through to get the required ID. It was tougher than getting a passport -- not least because you needed your passport to fill in the forms. Then you had to get someone to vouch for you, which was hard because it meant explaining why you were going to the Tory conference -- which is as complex as explaining Twitter, without being able to get Boris Johnson to say hello over the interwebs to prove it's a communication tool.