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By the time you read this, the party conference season will be over. Do they matter?

I dare say they pass most people by. It is part of the peculiar vanity of politicians that they are prone to the delusion that the rest of the world is waiting with bated breath on their every utterance. Some of us came to terms some time ago with the truth that this is not the case.

But party conferences do matter. They obviously matter to the parties themselves. A good conference leaves a party in good heart. A bad or humdrum conference leaves it downbeat and depressed.

And conferences can have very important consequences.

Four years ago the speech David Cameron made at the Conservative Party Conference propelled him to the Party leadership.

Two years ago the speeches at the Conservative Party Conference, particularly that by George Osborne, moved the opinion polls and caused Gordon Brown to pull back from the election he was about to call – a decision I am quite sure he now bitterly regrets.

This year’s conference will, I hope – and I am writing before it starts – help the Party to “seal the deal” with the electorate and mark an important milestone on the way to government.

Whether that does indeed prove to be the case will ultimately be up to you, the voter.

Closer to home I attended a meeting of the ‘Step Short’ campaign at the Quarterhouse in Folkestone on Saturday evening. This imaginative project, chaired by Damian Collins, seeks to reinforce the regeneration of Folkestone by making the most of our unique military heritage. It has, I believe, immense potential and deserves our support..