The Timeline: Modern party conferences

Never-ending Tory: A 16-year-old William Hague rails against the evils of socialism, with Mrs Thatcher looking on approvingly (Getty)

On the box, 1954

The post-war era saw Conference season – which this year starts tomorrow with the Lib Dem conference in Liverpool – became the political and media circus it is today. In 1954, the Conservatives invited television cameras to its conference for the first time, airing Winston Churchill's speech to the masses. While political parties have been holding conferences since their inception, it was arguably this event which gave rise to the current scrutiny of the annual meetings.

Hague vs the adults, 1977

It's hard to believe the Foreign Secretary gave his first conference speech more than three decades ago. But at 16, William Hague wowed the Blackpool crowd with his ferociously right-wing opinions. Of the Communist threat, he joked: "It's alright for some of you, you won't be here in 30 or 40 years." Margaret Thatcher pronounced it "thrilling".

What not to do, 1981

Eight years before the Liberals merged with the Social Democratic Party, leader David Steel urged conference delegates to "go back to your constituencies and prepare for government". The speech has become a lesson in over-confidence. Thanks to a shift in public opinion, the Conservatives remained in power for another 16 years.

The Brighton bombing, 1984

At 2.54am on 12 October 1984, a bomb planted by Patrick Magee of the IRA exploded at The Grand Hotel in Brighton, killing five people including Conservative MP Sir Anthony Berry. The intended victim was then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who was due to deliver her speech the following day. She escaped injury and insisted the conference must continue.

Enter the Lib Dems, 1988

Born in March 1988 of a merger between the Liberal Party and the Social Democratic Party, the first Social and Liberal Democrat conference was held in Blackpool in September of the same year. Top of the agenda? That clunky name. By October it was the Democrats, and by the following a year, the Liberal Democrats.

Clause IV, 1995

At a "special" party conference in the spring of 1995, the Labour Party voted to abolish its long-stated aim to bring into common ownership the "means of production, distribution and exchange." Thus repositioning itself as the "New" Labour of Tony Blair's ambition, the conference of 1995 proved a seminal moment in the party's electoral fate.

Moving inland, 2006

For the first time in half a century, a national party held its conference away from the coast. Tony Blair's final conference speech was given in Manchester. The following year, Gordon Brown returned to Bournemouth, though in 2008 Manchester was again the host. Liverpool will host the Labour conference for the first time in 2011.