Gordon Brown could test drive his latest crackdown on excessive drinking on his home turf. At Labour’s annual conference in Bournemouth, the wine starts flowing at lunchtime fringe meetings and the parties and bars are packed until the early hours. The bar at Marriott Highcliff hotel is the place to be once all the parties empty out. The booze keeps flowing there until after 3 am. If delegates are lucky, some talented piano player will liven up the proceedings with an old-fashioned singalong.       

Fringe meetings - unless they can boast a big-name speaker - are a flop without free booze or a good plate of bangers and mash, and parties get a bad name when they run out of wine.       

No such hiccups at Tuesday night’s News International bash. As usual, it pulled in all the big names from media and government but it was guest list only - and no arguments. Uninvited journalists hovered around the entrance, hoping to slip in on the coat-tails of more illustrious colleagues or as part of the entourage of Sarah Brown. Without success. There was to be no gatecrashing at this party and the disgruntled journalists left off the list found themselves jostling for position by the door with a retinue of assorted bodyguards, all talking into their ear pieces and wishing their respective ministers would call it a night.      

Brown may have admitted to being too serious but over the past few nights he made sure he paid a visit to all the major parties, particularly those hosted by the all-important newspapers. Whether he calls an early election or not, Brown wants the papers’ editors on side.      

By Wednesday, the parties became much less exclusive as many ministers jetted off for important engagements and bleary-eyed delegates started to slope off home, leaving jaded journalists to party on, apparently safe in the knowledge that Brown’s speeches are now done and dusted and there is little sign he will catch them out with a surprise election call.