IF the SDLP conference at the weekend tended towards blandness and predictability, it was no different to any of the other party conferences this year.
The old concept that party conferences should be about a democratic process of policy formulation, that dissent and disputation should be expected and encouraged, that grassroots divisions should be manifested and argued and new ideas debated seems to have gone by the board.
Just last year, the Ulster Unionist Party conference was enlivened by a spirited debate when liberal Unionists questioned the party's links with the Orange Order. At this year's dull UUP gathering, the issue was hardly mentioned.
Last year, the SDLP had a lively debate about the possibility of electoral pacts or arrangements with Sinn Fein. This year, in case of a repeat, the issue was confined to a private session.
Sinn Fein and the other parties also go out of their way to prevent any manifestation in public of internal differences or doubts on policy. All of the conferences are being converted into mere vehicles for self congratulation and lauding approval on the leaderships.
Yet there are still occasional flashes of the potential that could exist for exploring new avenues. One would like to have seen at the weekend, for example, some elaboration and debate on the assertion by the SDLP's Mr Alex Attwood that there are substantial elements within unionism which are not actually closed to change.
"There are people of excellence within the unionist community who in due course will join with us in a viable peace process", he said. And he perceived also that the republican community "in general" does not wish a return to violence and no longer sees any advantage in an armed campaign.
Mr Seamus Mallon, too, demonstrated some healthy pragmatism when he asked for serious consideration of the unquantified and mysterious factor which this year had "turned middle class unionism into the insurrectionists of Drumcree".
"What was at the heart of that unrest among unionism that led people that I know into the belief that they had to challenge the authority of the state?" he asked, calling for a note of realism to be injected into the entire political debate.
Mr Mallon also risked the unfashionable comment that there would come a stage when the nationalist community in its entirety would have to support, join and even defend a system of policing in the North.
The process of seeking a political settlement, he observed, meant that they would have to "sit cheek by jowl with the Trimble of Drumcree".
Unfortunately, these ideas did not develop further into a stimulating debate from the floor, but at least they were voiced.
Mr John Hume, too, restated his "post nationalist" thesis, asserting that the SDLP had always "challenged and rejected the territorial mentality that has shaped the definition of patriotism and nationalism in this country for so long". But his lack of reference, in that context, to Articles 2 and 3 of the Irish Constitution seemed to leave a large contradiction hanging in the air.
There is, of course, an election pending. Elections, it is assumed, require an adversarial rather than a conciliatory approach to one's opponents, and with Sinn Fein at its shoulders, the SDLP will have to repolish - at least superficially - its old nationalist credentials.
In spite of Mr Hume's observation that the media had "strangely exaggerated" the issue of an electoral pact, there is no doubt that it is a central and highly divisive question within the SDLP.
It will have to be resolved well before polling day, and there is a keen awareness that the resolution of it either way will involve sacrifices and sharp internal differences within the party.
In the wake of Drumcree, the possibility of some arrangement in Mid Ulster which could oust the Rev William McCrea of the DUP will carry enormous incentive. However, whether one or two local arrangements could be contrived to vitalise on natural nationalist majorities, without conceding Sinn Fein's clear demand for a broad electoral pact across the North, is very problematic.
The predictable decision by the conference to "refer back" the whole matter to the party executive leaves Mr Hume, as he prefers, holding the strategic and tactical command switches. B he will have a delicate balancing act to perform.
Several powerful figures in the party, including Mr Seamus Mallon, have made a pre emptive strike by deeming it unthinkable that any pact with Sinn Fein could be contemplated in the absence of an unequivocal IRA ceasefire. That principle, at least, could not be contested.
If it actually helps to bring about such a cessation, few will risk complaining - even if they lose out individually in the deal. But it is somewhat ironic that it leaves Mr Hume, in the coming months, apparently obliged to deal primarily, and in more tough and pragmatic terms, with the republican movement than with the grassroots of his own party.