THE party conference season, of huge interest to those who follow politics, is not much interest to everyone else. But important things that come up and Labour’s conference this week has a couple of things of interest.

The first is Labour’s position on Brexit. A bit clearer, it looks as if they will definitely vote down the Brexit agreement with the EU when it comes back to Parliament in November. Given rebels on the Conservative side, it looks likely that the Brexit deal will not go through parliament. So, Labour then want another referendum on Brexit, and they have said that will include a ‘Remain in the EU” option. In a Leave area like Wyre Forest, 63 per cent of residents will be concerned that the way they voted in a “one vote only” referendum may be reversed, whilst 37 per cent will be pleased that they get another shot at remaining. This whole thing is getting increasingly divisive as each day passes and I’m not sure a second referendum helps heal the social wound that Brexit is inflicting.

The second is their ideas on ownership of businesses. They want to re-nationalise the water and rail utilities. For those of us who remember the bad old days of nationalised utilities, this is a dismal prospect. However, it may be that a Labour government can get it right this time. We shall see, but the price at which they buy back the utilities is important. Pay too much and the taxpayer at large is ripped off. Pay too little and investors are ripped off. Given that your pension fund will be affected by this, it’s worth thinking about - and that includes all public sector workers.

Labour is also proposing worker ownership of up to 10 per cent of businesses they work for. This is a Marxist idea and not always a bad one. Employees are already, in many businesses, given options on their employer’s shares. This entitles the worker to participate in the increase in value they have contributed to. The new Labour plan, offering the workers a share of the exiting capital, gives them value going back to when the business was started. A lot more generous, it means those who put up the risk capital must give 10 per cent of it away. This may be more tricky to get going as it disincentives risk capital and so might result in fewer businesses being set up. We shall see. Conservatives next week!