Roy Hattersley has been attending conferences of the British Labour Party, Old and New, for 40 years. On Tuesday afternoon he said he could not remember when a prime minister's speech to the party faithful had been interrupted to give a standing ovation to another member of the cabinet.
That was what happened in Blackpool this week when delegates erupted in applause for Mo Mowlam. Even before Tony Blair reached the passage where he referred to "our one and only Mo", it seemed that the Secretary of State was close to tears. That was understandable.
The whole section in the Prime Minister's speech devoted to Northern Ireland was unashamedly emotional - when he described the final stressful hours of the negotiations that led to the Good Friday agreement, paid tribute to the politicians who had striven to make it happen and, most affecting of all, spoke of the courage of ordinary people who have endured so much and come through with their shining hopes for peace undimmed.
The reaction from the delegates was primarily a tribute to Mo Mowlam for her personal courage and the dogged, cheery commitment she has brought to the task. But it also demonstrated the immense pride which these political activists take in the fact that New Labour has succeeded, where so many British governments have failed, in helping Northern Ireland to find its way towards a fair political settlement.
The applause was, at least in part, a recognition of the fact that politicians, spurred on by the deep yearning for peace among so-called ordinary people, can effect change in the most hopeless and intractable situations. The people of this island, North and South, have already been given the opportunity to assert their ownership of the Belfast Agreement, when they voted for it in overwhelming numbers last May.
The Labour party conference gave a substantial section of British political opinion a chance to express its pride and satisfaction at the victory of dialogue and compromise over confrontation and violence.
It is a message that will not be lost on politicians from Northern Ireland who were present. There will be no forgiveness, in Britain or Ireland, if they fail to overcome the hurdle of decommissioning which seems so difficult just now. You could see it on the faces of David Trimble and Seamus Mallon who sat on the official platform with British government ministers last Tuesday. There was understandable pleasure at the warmth of the applause. But both men must know that what people want now is to see them work as a partnership to push the process forward. That means desisting from public squabbling. The same goes for Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern. It would be very damaging indeed if the two prime ministers were seen to be divided on this latest problem, rather than perceived as working together to overcome it.
Dr Mowlam spoke last week of the need for "space" to allow the politicians in the North time to gain confidence and trust in each other. But there is also a crucial need for the unionists and Sinn Fein to show the kind of political courage which each has had to summon in the past.
We have heard that the decommissioning issue is uniquely difficult. But there is some room for manoeuvre. The agreement provides for decommissioning of weapons to be completed within two years, and unionists are entitled to be given some guidance as to how that will be achieved.
A number of formulae have been canvassed, for example that a timetable should be agreed with General de Chastelain's decommissioning body, or that the IRA and other paramilitary groups should volunteer to dispose of their own weapons, subject to verification.
If either of these things happens there will inevitably be those who accuse their own leaders of sell-out and betrayal. But increasingly, as the other provisions of the agreement are seen to take firm hold, it will be easier to face down these people. Some of these things are already happening - the release of prisoners, the scaling down of security, discussion of the future of the RUC.
What is needed now is an act of political courage so that the parties who support the agreement are seen to be working together to implement the will of the people. As Mr Blair said on Tuesday, we have been able to come this far only because politicians in Northern Ireland have had the courage "to close their ears to the prejudices of their own supporters and to listen to the prayers of the people for peace".
We are in a period of real danger. The signs are that attitudes on both sides are hardening. The unionists seem to be pulling back to a minimalist stance on the setting up of cross-border bodies and have been accused by the SDLP of acting in a way that is contrary to the spirit of the agreement.
Gerry Adams has reverted to a type of rhetoric about the British government's role in upholding the Union through repression and injustice, which is at odds with his party's signing up to the agreement. This may indicate the kind of pressure which the Sinn Fein leader is feeling from his own activists at the moment, or may simply have been inspired by the fact that he was speaking at a Tribune rally. If the Belfast Agreement is to succeed, there must be a perception on all sides that it is moving forward. A sense of drift will provide encouragement for those groups, on both sides, who want to see it fail.
At one stage in his speech Tony Blair described his emotions when he received a telephone call from President Nelson Mandela saying that "Northern Ireland had cast a beacon of hope across the world."
By coincidence, Archbishop Desmond Tutu was in Dublin this week and spoke about some of the very great and relevant difficulties which his people have faced in South Africa. The theme of his lecture, sponsored by Independent Newspapers, was Managed Transition - the Post-Conflict Situation. Archbishop Tutu spoke in the most moving terms of the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in helping the warring sides to come to terms with a terrible history.
As important, in our present circumstances, was the gentle way in which he reminded us that no problem is insuperable if the political will exists to resolve it. Politicians do not need to be particularly clever, or virtuous, but they must be brave. He ended his lecture by appealing to us to look to the experience in South Africa. "They used to have a nightmare called apartheid. That has ended. They had a problem that was described as intractable. They are solving it."