Politics is a bug. Once you catch the bug, it is rare a cure can be found. Even repeated electoral disasters cannot cure you of the disease (Ted Heath kept losing general elections but he was convinced he could have won in the late 1970s).

There will be times when you will wish you attended an event that you chose not to attend. Something else will have cropped up at work or in your personal life. You will have a diary clash, you won’t be able to afford to go or on a particular day you will decide you just cannot be bothered to go to whatever event it is.

And then you will discover that the event was truly memorable in some way and you will regret, sometimes to your dying day, that you didn’t go.

Since becoming politically active in 1990 I have been fortunate enough to go to some events that I had had second thoughts about attending. I got to hear Margaret Thatcher speak at the Despatch Box. I heard Enoch Powell speak at the Newbury by-election. I got to sit around the Cabinet Table when the Conservative Students National Committee went to see John Major. I got a private tour of the West Wing, including the Oval Office. Recently I got to meet Karl Rove. All events that I had weighed up going to – and that I am glad I did.

Similarly I’ve missed out. I never got to meet Jesse Helms when I could have done. I passed up the chance to hear President Bush speak. And as a result I kicked myself for choosing not to go when I could and should have gone.

This summer – as we do every summer – YBF is taking a group of young conservatives to the United States. After a week of training at the Leadership Institute (including three days in their state of the art television studio) and a week attending the Young America’s Foundation Conservative Student Conference (which incorporates a tour of Congress, the White House, the monuments and some shooting, and lots of drinking…). It is a truly memorable trip – and one that you will kick yourself if you miss.

Thanks to the generosity of some of its most supportive donors, the deadline for expressing interest in attending the YBF Summer Conference Programme has been extended to 28 February. If you want to go to the US, email Donal Blaney at donal@ybf.org.uk as soon as possible. It’s first come, first served…