Right, basically, I don’t have time to read Nick Clegg’s rather long pamphlet “The Liberal Moment” before Conference. I defer to my colleagues.

What I’ve read (about a third of it now) looks like an attempt at that elusive “Lib Dem Narrative” – I’d be interested to know what Neil Stockley and Simon Goldie make of it. It’s been far too long since I took an interest in how the Lib Dems ‘sold’ themselves. The short version is: “People are realising that Labour’s means are wrong, bad, failing and dangerous. Liberalism offers them a way to get the progress they want but in an effective, working way.”

I quite like this – it’s how I’d do it (finding the common ground in ends, talk them into accepting your means), but I have my doubts that Labour voters blame anyone but the individual personalities in the Cabinet, rather than the ideas or principles behind the terrible policies we’re seeing. This is why they’re switching to the Conservatives who are presenting themselves as a tougher, leaner, more competent version of New Labour. Nick’s right to be as dismissive of this strategy, but it’s still what The People Want regardless.

When it comes to enthusing Lib Dems though, it seems to have done the trick – probably not something to be sniffed at just before a Conference. Let’s face it, it’s unlikely Nick would publish something that would make me leap with joy, but it does seem to show the gulf between us an Labour. More of this, please.

The question is (policy considerations aside) can you boil this narrative down to about 50 words? Is it something that most people, not just lib dems, will nod and agree with, or is the world view expressed too unrecognisable for most people? A narrative isn’t something you can just write – it has to be believable, understandable and feel ‘real’.

Annoyingly, as I thought this morning, there is some good stuff in there hidden in all the rather off-putting language of ‘progressivism’ and Lib Dem friendly disclaimers and caveats, but there’s also some pretty strange stuff that I don’t really understand yet, which is why I’m frustrated not to have been able to analyse it in more depth.

Still, 92 pages on liberalism from Nick Clegg is probably worth a million pages from Gordon Brown on Courage. *snigger*