TONY Blair's last Labour Party conference as Prime Minister was marred at the start by chaos as hundreds of journalists and delegates queued for up to three hours waiting to get their official passes to the Manchester city centre gathering.
No matter that accreditation forms and photographs had been submitted to the London Labour Party headquarters as early as June for processing, only a handful of senior journalists had received their documents by post in time for the start of the annual shindig.
Everyone else who did not have a pass was told to go to the Manchester College of Art and Technology, a 20-minute walk from the city centre and conference headquarters on the Gmex.
Soon long queues of weary reporters, delegates and exhibition stagers built up outside including Michael Cockerell of the BBC, Andrew Pierce of The Times and Independent columnist Michael Brown.
Two hours later and tempers were getting frayed. At times the scene resembled the Millennium night fiasco at the London Dome when Fleet Street editors were kept waiting in the freezing cold while officials gave them the go-ahead to get into a party they had been invited to months earlier.
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In Manchester the collective view in the queues was that Tony Blair's conference was in great danger of attracting some pretty unfavourable headlines.
Two hours and fifty minutes after joining the queue a Labour steward summoned me to produce my passport. Any thought I might have entertained that a pass would be handed over speedily was soon dashed.
"Sorry it will be 20 minutes and anyway the machine has broken," I was told.
Half-an-hour later I was handed a pass - the only problem was it was for somebody else.
A further 10 minutes passed and then at last a plastic entry card was put in my hand. The other journalists who were not so lucky were told to come back today. My advice: bring your sleeping bag.
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"Hacks" hacked off!? What about the ordinary people of Manchester who want to go about their business?
Many people have had to queue for over an hour just to get into work. Many have had to get off public transport and walk the last mile or so.
I can't believe the waste of resources I am witnessing in the city right now. Everything has to grind to a halt for a week or so? Don't these people have jobs - like running the country, perhaps? Can they not have their conferences during their summer break? At least it would disrupt fewer people during the holiday period. Or how about finding a nice country hotel to go to. It'll be easier to police.
How much is it costing to run this egotistical exercise? I've never seen so many police officers watching the tarmac dry. I'm sure they get a good view of it from the police helicopter.
If the labour party (or any party) want to get together to talk amongst themselves, fine, but they shouldn't be inconveniencing those of us who aren't interested.
If the reporters don't like the disruption, the reporters shouldn't report on it. That would soon put an end to it.
I am an ordinary person going about my business - my business being reporting on the Labour Party Conference. Mr Pickering should get a life and if he's so upset about the disruption the Conference is causing why doesn't he take himself off to a nice country hotel for a week and leave us reporters to get on with our jobs!