Richard Baum

Monday morning found me unnaturally cheery, despite God’s unceasing gentle mocking of me from on high. I remained chirpy despite walking headlong into a spider’s web on the way to the car, and spending the next three hours finding bits of it in my hair. My sprightliness didn’t desert me even when Mac, our three-legged and vicious-toothed cat, refused once again to use the cat-flap we have had installed for him at considerable expense (he prefers to look sad by the patio door until we open it for him instead). And even as I left for work, safe in the knowledge that it will rob me of the next five days, I was still remarkably ebullient.

My aura of happiness started to desert me when I was listening to Five Live on the drive in. As part of the BBC’s commitment to broadcast at least eight seconds of Lib Dem conference coverage amidst the hours of froth on Labour’s self-immolation in the news, they dispatched a reporter to Bournemouth Airport to get the views of the man on the street. The aim of the exercise was to garner opinion on the Lib Dem conference and the merits of Nick Clegg. Unfortunately, the interviewees were clearly more interested in duty-free Pernod and whether their airline was seconds away from calling in the receivers than they were in politics, as nobody knew what was going on or who Nick Clegg was.

And whilst Nicky Campbell and the reporter guffawed at the general ignorance and offered such insights as “Well, he has got floppy hair, so it’s no wonder people think he’s David Cameron,” I hit my head repeatedly on the steering wheel, veered casually across a number of lanes of the M60, and almost caused a lorry to hit the central reservation.

Hopefully the debates and policy announcements at conference in the next few days will go some way to putting that straight. Today is the centrepiece debate of the week – “Make it Happen”, the party’s ‘vision and values’ paper, which will highlight the key areas of focus for the party.

The paper sets out the party’s vision and values as the basis for developing the next General Election Manifesto and campaign messages for the remainder of the Parliament.

Make it Happen includes plans to:

Deliver big tax cuts for people on low and average incomes paid for from taxing pollution and closing tax loopholes used by the rich

Invest more in the education of the most disadvantaged children

Deliver on an ambitious green agenda, including forcing energy companies to pay a large share of their windfall subsidy to help homes use energy more efficiently

Protect civil liberties, scrapping ID cards and introducing a Freedom Law to get government off people’s backs and keep personal data private

Clean up the political system and bring an end to the influence of big money on politics

Conference will debate an amendment to resolve that any reduction in overall levels of public expenditure should be a lower priority than measures to reduce inequality in British society, improving public services, including in particular health, education, child care and public transport, and making the urgent investments needed to tackle accelerating climate change.

These are exciting times for the party, as we define the core policies which will lead us into an election campaigning for a greener, fairer Britain. And with any luck the message will chime with the folk at Bournemouth Airport. Or at least give them an idea about who Nick Clegg is.

Obviously, despite such exciting policies, I returned to my default Monday-morning setting of anger and resentment at having to even bother with life soon after arriving at work – there was a two hour meeting of a group to which I have been press-ganged, the contents of which were so tedious that I wanted to plaster Whiskers over my eyes and let Mac the cat bite them out for me. Instead I just closed my eyes and wished I was in Bournemouth That’s where the action is.

Rick