Former party leader says sterling will not join the euro during his career – and blames Tony Blair
• On BBC Scotland's sofa on Sunday Nick Clegg said constitutional reform was one of four Lib Dem major achievements since 2010. At least he did until Andrew Marr pointed out that it wasn't. But the one significant change the coalition agreement has managed to implement is transforming this year's party conference season. Normally at this stage in the cycle, MPs, activists and media would be obsessing about the date of a likely 2014 election. April? May? June? October? Thanks to the fixed-term parliament law we all now know it will be 7 May 2015. No fun in that.
• Resolutely unfashionable, Vince Cable wanders the conference hotel corridors hand-in-hand with his wife, Rachel. Despite the burdens of high office, coalition battles (with Danny Alexander) and ham-fisted Clegg-baiting by Vince's bagman, Matthew Oakeshott, the 70-year-old business secretary looks tanned and relaxed ahead of today's big economic speech. "He's like Dorian Gray, it's me who feels the strain," Rachel tells friends. In Oscar Wilde's novel Dorian's ravaged alter ego was kept in the attic, not taken to Glasgow.
• Chris Huhne's brainy ex-wife, economist Vicky Pryce, used an article in last week's Beast on Sunday to attack Lib Dem plans to impose a Cable-style 2% mansion tax on £2m houses (£20,000 a year for cash-poor Kensington widows to find). Huhne is not yet in Glasgow, but not forgotten either. In yesterday's bikes debate one delegate raged against leniency to those "who break the rules of the road"– such as cycling without lights at night (even within the speed limit). We take her point.
• The tenacious Gibraltar lobby, which always rents expensive stalls at party conferences to boost support for the Rock, held a reception for Lib Dems attended by Fabian Picardo, its fiery chief minister, and his Liberal deputy, Joseph Garcia. Their Lib-Lab coalition may be an inspiration for us in 2015, quips Andrew MacKinlay, ex-Labour MP and Gib booster who is helping out while attending his first party conference for years. Going to Labour's became a waste of time and money, says the old troublemaker. "I wasn't one of the glitterati."
• Former party leader Charles Kennedy addressed a fringe meeting on Europe, where he said sterling would not join the euro during his career – and blamed Tony Blair, who could, he said, have won a referendum in 1998 on the principle of joining. As distinct from the practice.
*Good day *Cambridge MP *Julian Huppert*, who won the U-turn vote on nuclear power, then championed a less controversial motion on bike power.
*Bad day Ed Davey*, the bruiser and energy secretary's puns about Tory colleagues ("badgering Owen Paterson) bombed so badly that even the politically neutral Press Association reported it. Reported by guardian.co.uk 5 hours ago.
• On BBC Scotland's sofa on Sunday Nick Clegg said constitutional reform was one of four Lib Dem major achievements since 2010. At least he did until Andrew Marr pointed out that it wasn't. But the one significant change the coalition agreement has managed to implement is transforming this year's party conference season. Normally at this stage in the cycle, MPs, activists and media would be obsessing about the date of a likely 2014 election. April? May? June? October? Thanks to the fixed-term parliament law we all now know it will be 7 May 2015. No fun in that.
• Resolutely unfashionable, Vince Cable wanders the conference hotel corridors hand-in-hand with his wife, Rachel. Despite the burdens of high office, coalition battles (with Danny Alexander) and ham-fisted Clegg-baiting by Vince's bagman, Matthew Oakeshott, the 70-year-old business secretary looks tanned and relaxed ahead of today's big economic speech. "He's like Dorian Gray, it's me who feels the strain," Rachel tells friends. In Oscar Wilde's novel Dorian's ravaged alter ego was kept in the attic, not taken to Glasgow.
• Chris Huhne's brainy ex-wife, economist Vicky Pryce, used an article in last week's Beast on Sunday to attack Lib Dem plans to impose a Cable-style 2% mansion tax on £2m houses (£20,000 a year for cash-poor Kensington widows to find). Huhne is not yet in Glasgow, but not forgotten either. In yesterday's bikes debate one delegate raged against leniency to those "who break the rules of the road"– such as cycling without lights at night (even within the speed limit). We take her point.
• The tenacious Gibraltar lobby, which always rents expensive stalls at party conferences to boost support for the Rock, held a reception for Lib Dems attended by Fabian Picardo, its fiery chief minister, and his Liberal deputy, Joseph Garcia. Their Lib-Lab coalition may be an inspiration for us in 2015, quips Andrew MacKinlay, ex-Labour MP and Gib booster who is helping out while attending his first party conference for years. Going to Labour's became a waste of time and money, says the old troublemaker. "I wasn't one of the glitterati."
• Former party leader Charles Kennedy addressed a fringe meeting on Europe, where he said sterling would not join the euro during his career – and blamed Tony Blair, who could, he said, have won a referendum in 1998 on the principle of joining. As distinct from the practice.
*Good day *Cambridge MP *Julian Huppert*, who won the U-turn vote on nuclear power, then championed a less controversial motion on bike power.
*Bad day Ed Davey*, the bruiser and energy secretary's puns about Tory colleagues ("badgering Owen Paterson) bombed so badly that even the politically neutral Press Association reported it. Reported by guardian.co.uk 5 hours ago.