THE Liberal Democrat "cockroaches" – in the words of party president Tim Farron, when he tried to – are on the march, according to their leader.
While the twin controversies of Lord Rennard and Chris Huhne hung over the yellow peril at their conference in chilly Brighton, Nick Clegg was keen to accentuate the positive following their by-election victory in Eastleigh.
Mr Clegg insisted the LibDems were no longer the party of protest but of responsible government, doing the right thing – getting in bed with political foes – to save the economy.
Normally, when Mr Clegg gets on stage the gripes and groans of delegates evaporate and the audience melts before its shining leader. Yet in a Q&A, there was, shock horror, heckling.
One delegate urged the Deputy Prime Minister to "stop apologising" and start shouting about how the LibDems had saved the nation from the worst excesses of the Tories. Mr Clegg nodded – apologetically.
And Mr Clegg suffered a stinging defeat when party activists overwhelmingly rejected so-called "secret courts" legislation for England and Wales, saying it went against "core" LibDem values.
Meanwhile, he insisted there would be no backtracking on cutting the deficit – slapping down Vince Cable, his Business Secretary, who has floated the idea of borrowing more to increase investment. However Mr Cable describes this as Plan A Plus, it looks remarkably similar to plan B proposals from Labour and the SNP.
While the political focus was on Mr Clegg and the LibDems over the weekend, the more worried party leader today must be David Cameron after a string of polls revealed a slide in Tory fortunes.
One snapshot suggested only 7% of Tories now believed their leader would lead a majority government after the next election while most thought Ed Miliband would be in No.10.
Another poll involving no fewer than 19,000 voters in 213 constituencies suggested the Tories would lose 93 seats and Labour would win an overall Commons majority of 84.
And then there is the open manoeuvring by Theresa May, who laid out her ambition to be the next Tory leader; hardly a ringing endorsement of Mr Cameron.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article