Most good political speeches on policy are made up of mood music, initiatives and core ideas. By far the best section of Nick’s manifesto speech was the serious attempt to refine and define core beliefs on public services.

I am therefore emboldened to distil out of it the essence of Cleggism with the hope that if I am wrong I will be corrected and so further enlightened.

As I understand Nick’s thinking on the matter of public services, the state remains the funder and regulator of services but not the exclusive provider i.e.  it can give money to individuals to secure services or non-state organisations to deliver them.

This is self-evidently what nearly every state on this planet does already - though to a greater or lesser degree.

What Nick also says is that public services should be delivered equitably to each citizen with the clear implication that it must do more for those communities or individuals less capable of taking advantage of services available (hence the pupil premium etc).

Again there is widespread but not quite uiversal acceptance of this across the political spectrum.

Rhetoric aside the USP of Cleggism appears to be the insistence that central government is not particularly good at delivering these public service objectives and elected governments (aka the state) should make fewer decisions about how they are met.

More decisions about how services are delivered should be made by communities,locally elected bodies and the recipients of services (aka citizens).

This is what people seem to mean mean by the buzz word ‘empowerment’.

Cleggism therefore functions like a political version of Occam’s razor.

Why let national and/or local politicians decide how to deliver a service if that can perfectly well be decided at a local or individual or generally lower level ?

Cleggism retains the traditional belief that what services are funded and the level at which they are funded and quality control should be a matter of collective agreement either at national or local government level.

All of which looks like very much like classic Liberalism.

However, Liberals have claimed equally vigorously that making executive decisions at national, European and even international level is not actually ‘disempowerment’ but pooling powers to great effect and therefore under Cleggism it cannot be argued that it is always smart  to pass decision-making powers down the line.

Doesn’t it really depend on whether passing power down or up or whatever frustrates or fulfills the general will of society expressed through the democratic process - and depressingly interpreted by political parties in increasingly similar ways ?

When in the game of ‘pass the power’ the music stops we still need to make clear how we want a truly liberal society to differ from what other parties propose and what we have now.

John Pugh is Lib Dem MP for Southport.  He is the Lib Dem Shadow Treasury Spokesperson.

I can claim to have encouraged Chris Huhne to stand for the leadership when Charles Kennedy stepped down, while simultaneously believing and saying for some time that Nick Clegg will be/should be the next party leader.

I can also claim to have opposed both of them over the anodyne and partly mistaken views of the Huhne Commission - remember when PFI was thought to be a good idea?

In backing Nick I have had my credentials as a definitely left-of-centre Liberal questioned by a few parliamentary and non-parliamentary colleagues - along the lines of, “Dont you realise he is a Trojan horse for Orange Book/Centre Forum takeover.” And it is that conspiracy theorist paranoia that has fuelled the ‘Calamity Clegg’ piece.

I console myself not only with the recognition that the party, not the party leader, decides policy, but also in the knowledge that Nick as a good Liberal will stand an argument. The balance of argument is tipping very decisively against the further marketisation of public services, and it is the very strength of those arguments which will over-power those very few hell-bent on making the party a Tory clone.

There is a battle of ideas ahead, but it is only those on both sides unsure of their argument and wedded to conspiracy who need fear a rational, intelligent, receptive leader. Never fear Trojan horses bearing the right gifts.

* John Pugh is Lib Dem MP for Southport.

For quite some time now I have been referring to Lib Dem News as “Pravda”. Did it coincide with the departure of Lord Greaves?

However this week it has excelled itself. I can cope with the consistently unfunny cartoons, tired rhetoric, pictures of people holding up placards and/or recanting their membership of other parties. Embarassing predictions of an election cancelled last Saturday only serve to tell us about ludicrously early print dates.

Perhaps the cartoon of Cameron lamenting his poll ratings is meant to be deeply ironic and there is a good article by Duncan Brack about John Stuart Mill’s over-inflated significance.

But am I the only one who finds the paper tribal, patronising, horribly on message in an unliberal way and above all - quite dull?

In current circumstance the party needs to do some serious soul searching and balanced stock taking and reflect the sceptical, mature rationalism that is so much part of Liberalism. I am not sure where Liberal Democrat News fits into that.

At the Brighton Conference a very well respected former BBC journalist described to me talk of an early election as ‘lazy journalism’. He argued that much of the media was losing interest in government and the effects of policy and preferred to cover events and personalities. They thus wanted an autumn election and will probably punish Brown for not holding one.

Closeted with the press pack for three weeks over the conference season few politicians dared express anything other than a macho enthusiasm for a fight - often expressed in pathetic schoolboy language - ‘wimp’, ‘bottle’ etc. - nothwithstanding the constitutional oddity and administrative problems involved in holding an autumn poll.

With characteristic genius the media bounced from one political source to another setting the agenda.

There is a serious and crucial debate to be had as to how political journalism can disable or improve political life, but Brown, by being drawn into the game, indifferent to the chaos and havoc he caused, has forfeited his right to appear as a “statesman”, and worse still - he has reinforced the press cynic who believes the grubby pursuit of power is always far more important to politicians than actually getting anything done.

Democratic politics takes another hit.

* John Pugh is Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Southport.