The Labour Party conference in Brighton is crucial if the party is to start a revival that could give it a fourth successive term in office. As well as covering Gordon Brown’s big set piece on Tuesday, our team of three reporters will try to gauge party morale and give you a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes beside the seaside.

You can follow our Twitter and video updates via our live blog, which will appear in the box below.

After more than a decade of railing against a Labour government that they feel has betrayed their shared socialist roots, British trade unions are now starting to fear what a future with a Conservative government will be like.

“They’re going to come after us like rabid dogs,” said Brian Caton, general secretary of the Prison Officers’ Association said — dubbing the Conservatives “the enemy”.

Activists may be disenchanted by a Labour government that they believe has pursued a pro-business agenda and failed to roll back anti-union legislation, but that is suddenly starting to look a whole lot better than a Conservative administration.

“God help us,” said John Thompson, President of UCATT, the construction workers’ union. “We’ll have never seen anything like it if this mob do get in.”

And a fear of more restrictive regulation and big public spending cuts is not encouraging the movement to offer an olive branch to the centre-right Conservatives, who are well ahead of Labour in opinion polls with an election due by mid-2010.

At a fringe meeting at the Trades Union Congress conference, GMB union chief Paul Kenny called Conservative leader David Cameron, pictured, a “clown”.

Even the most powerful of the union bosses are not afraid to admit that a Conservative government looks likely.

“You’d have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to see that Labour is in a great deal of trouble,” said Derek Simpson, joint general secretary of Britain’s biggest union Unite.

But no matter how bleak the future looks for the unions, they are not yet resigned to a Conservative future and are rolling up their sleeves for the fight.

“We’ve always fought for everything we’ve got,” said Kenny. “A poor Labour government is a hell of a lot better than a poor Tory (Conservative) government”.

Where can you get the cheapest pint in London? In a bar in parliament, according to David Cameron.

Cameron said a pint of Fosters in bars sells for only 2.10 pounds in Westminster, little over half of what you would pay outside the confines of parliament.

But it will be farewell to cheap beer and subdisided salads if Cameron gets into power.

That may go down well with voters but is unlikely to win Cameron many new friends among MPs, officials and, dare I say it, journalists working at Westminster.  

Ministers’ salaries will also be cut by five percent and then frozen and the number of MPs cut from 650 to 585 if the Tories get their way. 

Cameron himself conceded that the measures he plans are trifling when compared with the size of the government defict of 175 billion pounds. But he reckons it is vital for government to set the tone for the new era of austerity we face.

The whole debate on public spending has an air of phoney war about it. We all know there will be spending cuts — but neither Labour nor the Conservatives are really nailing their colours to the mast.

So are the Conservatives setting the right tone with their planned assault on Westminster’s pay and perks, or is just cheap populism masking the failure to tackle the real issues?

Television host, journalist and reality TV star Esther Rantzen is to stand as an independent candidate in the Luton South constituency at the next election.

Rantzen’s interest in running for office was sparked after the seat’s Labour MP Margaret Moran was caught up in the parliamentary expenses scandal.

According to the Daily Telegraph, Moran claimed 22,500 pounds for dry rot repairs for her second home in Southampton, nearly 80 miles from her constituency.

One small snag for Rantzen is that Moran has already said she plans to stand down.

“If you’re going to stand as an anti-sleaze candidate surely it would make more sense to stand against an actual wrongdoer,” said the Conservative candidate for Luton South, Nigel Huddleston.

Rantzen, 69, insists she is standing because of the local support she has received in her attempt to take advantage of a “new wind blowing through the world of politics and maybe bringing some fresh air with it”.

Writing in the Guardian newspaper, former independent MP Martin Bell warned Rantzen to expect a rough ride in the coming months.

“She can expect to have her record gone through with the finest-toothed of combs,” said Bell.

“I hope that she joins the handful of independents - most of them local heroes rather than celebrities - who have an unusual chance of being elected to the Commons. Our dishevelled politics needs them.”

What do you think of Rantzen’s decision to stand? Will it help clean up our “dishevelled politics”? Can independent candidates make an important contribution to the running of Parliament? Or is she jumping on a publicity bandwagon?

At 27, the Conservative candidate in the Norwich North by-election Chloe Smith becomes the youngest MP in the Commons.

She turned Labour’s 5,000-plus majority in the seat into a 7,348-vote winning margin and keeps the Conservative bandwagon rolling. The election had been forced by the resignation of Labour MP Ian Gibson, who claimed almost 80,000 pounds in second home expenses on a London flat which he later sold at a knock-down price to his daughter.

What do you make of the result? Was this a clear message to Labour about its policies and its leader Gordon Brown or a protest against the ruling party in the wake of the MPs’ expenses scandal?

Vows by Labour and the Conservatives to protect the NHS from spending cuts will require tax hikes or cuts to other areas, a new report shows.

Promises to “ring-fence” health spending in the lead-up to the next election — to be held before June — might lead to cuts of about 8 percent in other departments over the next six years, say researchers at the King’s Fund and the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

Alternatively, sizeable tax hikes could be in store as the next government tries to tackle the largest public deficit since the Second World War.

The deficit, forecast to rise to 175 billion pounds this year, has put public spending at the forefront of political debate.

In its equation, researchers posit that the government would have to raise the equivalent of 340 pounds for each family in the country if it were to restrict spending cuts to other departments to 2 percent, while freezing the NHS budget.

Despite being in the midst of a deep recession, the two main political parties have said they will “ring-fence” most spending.

Does this make sense in the current economic climate? From which departmental budget would you cut public spending?

Gordon Brown is counting on a swift economic turnaround. It’s probably his Labour Party’s only hope of avoiding a humiliating electoral defeat to the Conservatives next year.

The latest news on the economy has certainly got people in Downing Street smiling. The housing market is stabilising and some commentators are even talking about Britain becoming the first major country to pull out of the recession.

Treasury forecasts of reasonable growth that were derided just two months ago suddenly don’t look so bad.

The Number 10 dream scenario is that the economy recovers strongly, Brown takes the credit and the polls turn in time for a May election.

But what happens if the economy does turn around by the end of the year and the polls don’t get any better?

If that happens, some party strategists are wondering whether that might be a good time for Brown to step down, say in January.

He could say he did what he set out to do — get Britain through the recession — and it was now time for a new face.

The honeymoon bounce could end up being Labour’s only hope.

Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) meetings are usually drab affairs. The leader turns up, listens to a few grumbles from backbench MPs, a few reporters hang around outside hoping to grab a half-decent quote and in the end a Labour apparatchik puts a rose-tinted spin on proceedings.

Not so on Monday night, one of those rare “crunch time” events for a party leader that creates such a frenzy inside and outside the venue. Parliament’s committee room 14 was so full one MP of robust stature tried to force not one, but two doors in an attempt to get in, and ended up with a sore shoulder. Veteran party member Greville (now Lord) Janner, a member of the Magic Circle, gave up trying to get in and instead entertained reporters with a couple of magic tricks. His skills may have been of more use on the other side of the door.

Gordon Brown, we were led to believe, faced being sawn in half by his own party after a disastrous showing in local and European elections. However, as so often is the case, the reality did not live up to the hype and the prime minister slipped away via a trap door, but not before making a speech telling everyone how humble he was and how he promised to listen in future. This is a classic leader’s smoke and mirrors trick, show them you’re listening, come out with a few “reform” initiatives in the ensuing days and when the air has cleared go back to whatever it was you were doing that upset them in the first place.

Leaders are not unseated at PLP meetings, despite how many times you read that these events are a firing squad. In fact, Brown strolled down the long, dark committee corridor, beamed at reporters and threw them a cheery “hi guys”. His predecessor Tony Blair used to do the same thing ahead of a tricky PLP, the final time with his suit jacket casually thrown over one shoulder like a model from a menswear catalogue.

Brown knew what he had to do, and for now he has bought himself some time. He also knows that the odds of a full blown rebellion are slim. It’s easy to go on television and say “Gordon must go”, it’s another matter to get that anger and dissent distilled into something more potent and then pour it down the throat of a potential challenger. The point is not lost on Labour members. They know they are on the rack, but any change of leadership now will only hasten electoral defeat. The public won’t tolerate another unelected prime minister installed at Number 10 and nor should they. Brown may still be in one piece, but it will take more than magic tricks and humility to save him if he doesn’t make sure his party is in the same state fairly soon.

The unfolding crisis in British politics makes for fascinating viewing for the populace and great work for journalists, but it also of course has potentially far-reaching implications in the financial sector.

As cabinet ministers resign and Labour MPs call for Gordon Brown to step down, several outcomes now distrinctly possible -- Brown stays, a new Labour prime minister emerges or a general election is called and (if polls are correct) the opposition Conservatives win. The future direction of UK government policy is far from clear.

And while it may not exactly be topping the main contenders' manifestos or dominating the discussion on the doorsteps, the future regulation of the hedge fund industry is also likely to be affected by any change in leader.

This week executives from London's top hedge funds met with Treasury officials and the Financial Services Authority to discuss the UK's position on the (at least in Britain) widely-derided draft EU law on hedge funds and private equity.

However, privately, some hedge fund executives are already looking ahead to a possible change of government -- an election must be called in Britain within the next year -- and the change of policy and potentially greater willingness to fight the EU laws this may bring.

The hedge fund community has tended to have closer ties to the Conservatives than to Labour (ex-Man Group CEO Stanley Fink was earlier this year appointed election fundraiser for the Conservatives). If, as the opposition is now demanding, a general election is indeed called as Gordon Brown's authority is shaken then London-based hedge funds could find new support for a fight with Brussels.

(See also Draft chills hedgies and Politicians also to blame for crisis, say bankers)

The Guardian newspaper, normally a Labour supporter, has decided Gordon Brown must go.

“It’s time to cut him loose,” it declares in an editorial that goes on: “The public is calling furiously for a better system. People want an honest parliament. They want leaders who are prepared to act. They loathe the old system, and many of the people who are part of it.”

Brown, it says, has left it too late to change anything.

And yet it was only a few months ago that the same paper was carrying cartoons portraying this apparently now fatally wounded figure as Superman, as Britain took the lead in dealing with the world banking crisis. Few analysts dispute that he remains the master of his economic brief.

He may not have the political savvy of Tony Blair and his awkward mannerisms in front of TV (and YouTube) cameras do not serve him well but most observers agree he has always been a figure of moral integrity. Early on, he won plaudits for his opposition to the super-casinos plan, he was lukewarm at best about the 2005 extension of drinking laws and he is far from being one of the worst expenses offenders.

Are people being too hard on Brown, making him a scapegoat for the expenses crisis?

Can he, should he, stay on?