Last night I judged a political talent show. Iain Dale was the host, Jonathan Isaby of the Daily Telegraph - and soon to be of ConservativeHome - and myself, were the judges.

Iain billed himself as Simon Cowell and me as Amanda Holden. If I were Amanda I'd sue.

In true Amanda style, I promised myself I wouldn't cry. That lasted about 30 seconds.

The time flew, before we knew it was 9.15pm and time to finish!

Rupert Matthews, Euro Candidate for the East Midlands was the outright winner. Clever, funny, polished, relevant and real.

Alex Deane may have won, however, I disqualified him as from the judges seats at the back of the stage I noticed he had the back of his jacket tucked into trousers.

Graeme Archer almost spoke as well as he writes, but said some horrible things about Sarah Palin and I wasn't having any of that.

The main revelation for me during this event was that Jonathan Isaby knows absolutely every single person at conference and has memorised their full CV .

The most disappointing aspect, there were only three women.

Politics is still dominated by men in suits.

A fun event and well done to Simon Clarke and everyone from the Freedom Zone for organising the event.