Take me to your (Welsh Conservative) leader(s)

Party conferences traditionally end with the leader's speech. Conservative conferences traditionally end with a spat between senior Welsh Tories over who speaks for Wales.

Tomorrow, in the main hall of Manchester Central, the prime minister will deliver what I won't call his keynote speech (on the grounds that everyone now describes their speeches as "keynote").

A short distance away, in what Lords might describe as the nursery ground but is officially known as the exchange auditorium, at 9.15am Tory members will listen to a discussion on the UK.

Who will lead this discussion? The conference handbook says the panellists include the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, the minister for Scotland, leader of the Welsh Conservatives and leader of the Scottish Conservatives. (No Welsh secretary).

This was news to the secretary of state for Wales, David Jones, whose team got to work. According to the updated online version of the conference handbook, the discussion will be led by the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, the minister for Scotland, and the secretary of state for Wales. (No leader of Welsh Conservatives)

This may have been news to the leader of the Welsh Conservatives, Andrew RT Davies, who had assumed he was the sole representative of Wales taking part. He was even making a special journey from the National Assembly for Wales, having interrupted his conference to take part in first minister's question time in Cardiff.

You might think this battle for third billing at the second conference stage is about as significant as William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith squabbling over the last comb at a Conservative awayday but it clearly matters greatly to both camps.

I'm told that after behind-the-scenes negotiations that unbelievably went close to the top of the party the inevitable compromise has been reached: both shall go to the ball. An extra seat has been found to spare the embarrassment of musical chairs caused by an invitation to the party's Welsh leader to take to the stage. The party's assembly leader will also get to sit on the conference platform alongside cabinet ministers during the prime minister's speech.

Mr Davies, who is known in one corner of the Wales Office as "the Welsh Conservative leader in devolved areas", is also floating the idea that the post of secretary of state for Wales could be abolished if Westminster transfers more power to Cardiff, although I suspect he won't raise that argument while sharing a stage with the man who does that job.

Let's hope it's a more harmonious occasion than Monday's Welsh fringe here, in which each of the three panellists took turns to berate the Welsh media publicly for various gaps in our coverage.

The "weak Welsh press" was accused of failing to hold the Welsh government to account, failing to report various unidentified stories or to cover European issues properly ahead of next year's EU elections. (This last complaint came from an MEP who had earlier turned down an opportunity of airtime because it wasn't on her subject).

There were the traditional comparisons between the Scottish and Welsh press, comparisons which ignored falling newspaper circulations everywhere and - surprisingly, you might think, in this gathering - appeared to be based on a lack of understanding of how markets work.

Luckily, none complained about a failure to report the prime minister's speech at a Welsh reception here on Sunday night. I'd like to tell you what he said but reporters were banned from an event reserved for party members and corporate lobbyists.