Is the SDLP's decision to hold a second annual conference today, just four months after the last one, an indication of progress or panic? The party says it is progress, promising a "robust alternative" (to what?) and a new stage in its political life. The panic possibility is based on the premise that if Sinn Féin is Stormont's Fine Gael, the SDLP is its Irish Labour Party - and we know what happens junior coalition partners. The truth probably lies in the combined theory that the conference is an attempt at progress by preventing panic. (And with a loss of 80,00[...]