Even the leaflet pushers lurking outside Labour’s annual conference were looking respectable yesterday.

The delegates, staffers and volunteers dishing out material for their rallies, fringe meetings and factions have almost all been decked out in their Sunday best.

And the freebies being handed out are of a higher class — glossy copies of the Total Politics and House magazines no less.

It’s got nothing on the Gladiator’s-style gauntlet laid down at the doors of trade union conferences.

“Keep moving to the left,” a G4S security guard ordered as he shepherded delegates through security, oblivious of the political implication.

If only.

But I imagine the message was pretty similar inside the Unite union tent, where general secretary Len McCluskey was delivering a pre-conference briefing to delegates.

Others prepared for the first morning of conference at the Christian Left’s traditional Sunday service.

Those that missed it will though have plenty more chances to listen to a minister deliver a sermon this week.

Well, at least a shadow minister.

Labour’s annual conference has “degenerated” into a “preordained rally,” the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy warn delegates in their conference briefing.

These troublesome lefties might well have wished their own conference rally went a little more preordained however.

Unite member Adam Wright reported on Twitter that Diane Abbott’s speech was “interrupted by a gang of lads pressing their arses to the window.”

Welcome to Manchester indeed.

It could be a sign that not everything will go to plan for party bosses this week.