Day Two: your pets are safe with us

Another excellent day at conference although not much time for blogging before I have to crash. I shall leave aside detailed reports of our dear leader's speech (excellent), the executive hustings (highly amusing) or my masterly handling of a tiny workshop on a minor constitutional change - there's just no time.

But I do have time to say - bring me your kittens. Bring me your puppies. Bring me your bunnies, your hamsters and your ferrets. They are all safe with me. More specifically they are all safe with the proposers of motion C15 who are proposing an NHS for pets.

An excellent idea in my view, although the workshop detailed to scrutinise the policy did have some friendly notes of caution. We shall see if we get to vote on it as it might just fall off the end of the agenda on Sunday.

It's actually more of a state sponsored insurance scheme for pets really that would ensure that basic health care provision could be provided to pet owners for a small annual fee (or free for those on low incomes). Partly it's also a scheme to help reduce stray dogs and cats and roll out a program of neutering and animal health checks, it also doubles as a way to monitor trends and encourage best practice when it comes to animal breeding etc.

I still have some concerns that the policy needs tightening up on the detail although, to contradict myself, it's probably a good thing that it painted a simple aspiration rather than attempted to create the entire blueprint for the part nationalisation of veterinary practices across the UK.