"Labour must be party of the south"

This was a very important Labour conference.

Ed Miliband solidified his leadership. Last year in Liverpool many

party members were asking, "Did we pick the wrong brother?" Very few

are asking that now.

And it was the week Ed Miliband said Labour needed to become the party

of the south, not just the north. A one-nation party.

This is what delegates from our region have been waiting to hear. That

part of his script could have been - indeed might have been - written

by the Southampton Itchen MP John Denham, who has been one of Ed

Miliband's closest advisers.

Ever since he became an MP in 1992 Mr Denham has made it his mission

to make Labour electable in our region. The strategy succeeded

spectacularly in the 1997 landslide. But Labour's gains were wiped out

in 2010.

Mr Denham knows Labour won't win power until they can regain seats in

Kent, in Brighton, in Reading...and that was the message Mr Miliband -

and his deputy Harriet Harman - have been preaching all week.

It's one thing saying it, it's another thing doing it, of course. But

for now at least our region seems to be at the top of Labour's agenda.

As Ed Miliband to us outside the Rovers Return, just a few hundred yards

from the conference centre in Manchester - "Labour must be the party

of Coronation Street, and the party of the south".

Meanwhile the soap opera known as the party conference season moves on

to Birmingham. David Cameron will be hoping the Tory fightback starts

there.