What do they stand for?

The age-old problem, which existed when I was a member of the old Liberal party for three or four years in the 1970s, is what exactly the party stands for. In my day it was the avoidance of extremes, a middle of the way party positioning itself in the centre of politics.

The problem is that voters accepted this, and the party grew, but now the middle is the area which was occupied by NuLabour and now b y the Conservatives, and the LimpDems could find themselves squeezed out.

It never was a middle of the way party, of course, and when the Social Democrats merged the party took a decidedly centre-left stance, with some members to the left of most of the Labour Party.

The Conference this week has not made anything clearer, I fear, as typified by the utterances of the leader. At the beginning he was trying to outdo everyone else with spending cuts, at the end wanting to hit the (few) wealthy with big taxes to raise the basic tax threshold, and in between we had Uncle Vince miscalculating in his wealth attack on large houses.

For Clegg to picture Labour as doomed and the Tories as empty, wait for two more weeks until they have had the chance to present their (hopefully coherent) policies. Soundbite dismissals may wow the party conference, but will not do much to persuade wavering voters in the country.