The first thing to note, says Mark, is that some of the most contentious political issues of recent weeks such as the reforms to the NHS and to the welfare system don’t appear on the conference agenda as it was drawn up some time ago:

There is a slot for emergency and topical issues to cover this eventuality, but with only time for one motion, not all of the controversies can be aired. Unless a procedural trick is pulled or events change markedly, I expect that an NHS motion will win out in the ballot of conference representatives for that slot as the people behind it have the bigger, more organised network to mobilise the vote.

Mark does pick out one of the items certain to be debated in Gateshead:

proposed changes to the party’s so-called “triple lock”, which procedural experts know in fact contains four steps and governs how the party should go about making decision on going into coalition in a hung Parliament.

Although seen to have generally worked well in May 2010, it was not a perfect mechanism for party democracy and an update version to account for those lessons and a ruling of the party’s Federal Appeals Panel is being presented to conference.

The rest of Mark’s article can be read here, in advance of what promises to be another Spring conference full of lively debate.

* Newshound sets the agenda, as you would expect from a Red Setter

The Conference Agenda has been finalised and is now available online. For those members who registered for conference before 31 January, hard copies will be arriving through the post very soon and your pass will follow at the end of the month.

If you haven’t registered yet then it’s not too late. Rates start at just £21 for a one day pass and concessionary rates are available too.

To find out more and to register, go to: www.libdems.org.uk/SpringConference

We have planned an interesting agenda with a variety of debates. As well as discussing policy motions, there will be a Q&A session with Nick Clegg, set piece speeches from both Nick Clegg and Vince Cable, a full programme of training, together with a wide and varied fringe programme. There will also be a number of popular ministerial surgeries where members can raise issues directly with our ministers. But most importantly, it’s a fantastic opportunity to network, socialise and catch up with fellow members from across the country.

Every motion in the agenda is open to amendment, and the deadline for amendments, and also for emergency motions and questions to reports, is 13.00 Tuesday 6 March. A standard form for emergency motions and amendments is available to download. If you would like help drafting your amendment, the Policy Unit staff are happy to provide comments and advice (on drafting only, not on political content). Send draft amendments to by 13.00 Tuesday 21 February for advice.

I hope to see you in NewcastleGateshead.

Andrew Wiseman is Chair of the Liberal Democrats’ Federal Conference Committee.

For the first time, conference will be hosted by NewcastleGateshead. The Liberal Democrats have a proud history in the North-East. We control Northumberland County Council and Ian Swales MP, Sir Alan Beith MP and Fiona Hall MEP represent the Region in London and Brussels respectively.

Fiona said, “Conference is going to be a great boost for the area ahead of vital local elections in May. The region is gearing up to make it a fantastic weekend for everyone. I hope representatives also take the opportunity to visit some of the tourist sites throughout the North East. Wherever you go, the welcome is guaranteed to be warm, even if we can’t promise the same about the weather”.

Nick Clegg added, “The North-East has a well deserved reputation as a welcoming region, and I am looking forward to holding conference there”.

We are unique in having a truly democratic conference. We want to see motions on all topics from tax to the green agenda, civil liberties to crime, and from young people to the economy. This is our chance to influence government policy and our next manifesto; we should grasp it with both hands. Motions must be submitted by 13.00, 11 January 2012 to , or, if you want drafting advice, by 13.00, 3 January 2012. Standard motions forms are available to download here and for more information about submitting a motion, visit our Democracy in Action pages. The Federal Conference Committee use this guidance in selecting motions, so please read and use it!

We will be continuing the popular ministerial surgeries where members can raise issues directly with our ministers. There will also be the usual varied fringe and training sessions, exhibition and opportunities to meet other Liberal Democrats. This year all events, including training, official fringe and even Glee Club, will be taking place under one roof at The Sage Gateshead.

Online registration is now open at www.libdems.org.uk/conference. There are some major early bird discounts if you register before the end of the year, so move quickly! We have also changed the way joint registration works in 2012. Rather than pay the total rate upfront for both conferences, we are going to take the fees in two instalments. To register jointly, register for spring as normal (but before 31 December 2012) and pay the single registration fee of just £52. Anyone who then registers for autumn conference within the first three weeks of registration opening next April (reminders will be sent) will pay just £39, making the total amount payable for both conferences just £91 – the same savings you would have made under the old system, just in two installments.

We hope to see you in NewcastleGateshead.

Andrew Wiseman is Chair of the Liberal Democrats’ Federal Conference Committee.

I am not usually one to pick at scabs, but I thought that once the dust had settled on conference season I would ask each of the police forces responsible for security at the three main conferences for some hard numbers. Thanks to the Freedom of Information Act I did just that.

What were the figures for the Lib Dem conference? West Midlands Police told me that 6,550 people were approved by them and three failed their checks (a failure rate of 0.05%). Of those three, the party allowed one in anyway (making the failure rate 0.03%).

How does that compare with the other parties? Well, according to Merseyside Police, 11,580 people were approved to attend the Labour conference, meeting in Liverpool the week after us. Twenty-five people were however refused (a failure rate of 0.22%).

Greater Manchester Police gave me slightly more detail for the Conservative conference. In total, 12,337 people were approved following checks. That’s made up of 10,754 delegates, 1,388 ancillary workers (staff at the conference hotels and the like, I am guessing) and 195 security personnel. Twenty four people failed: five delegates, 15 ancillary workers and four security personnel (a failure rate of 0.19%). Oddly therefore the highest failure rate was amongst security staff.

Presumably, police checks are the same whatever the constabulary. The checks made on people who might bump into the Deputy Prime Minister or another member of the Cabinet are surely at least as tight as those on people who might happen across Ed Miliband. It is a puzzle therefore why we do so much better, with a failure rate of a quarter of the other two parties. Any ideas?

While I enjoyed the Lib Dem conference, I don’t think the journalists did. Whenever I passed a well-known TV presenter, they had a face like thunder. They were looking for factionalism and controversy, but all they found was Lib Dems facing up to a difficult situation with determination and loyalty. That makes dull TV, so they must have been tearing their hair out.

The Tory conference was more entertaining.

Theresa May’s remark about cats, and the more recent problems of Liam Fox, are uncomfortable for the Tory party, but they aren’t a fundamental problem for Cameron. A couple of months ago, some were suggesting May as a possible future leadership contender, and Fox too. To varying degrees, both are weakened, and that will ease pressure on Cameron’s right flank.

Of course, a public spat between the Home Secretary and the Justice Secretary is hardly good news for the Tories, but it doesn’t undermine their core message: that you can’t fix a deficit with a bigger deficit. Much more serious for the Tories, and for us, is the slow motion car crash that is the Euro.

With the US economy faltering despite its Keynesian stimulus, it’s not surprising the UK has had anaemic growth, but if the Euro collapse does lead to a repeat of the Great Recession, the Coalition may get the blame. However, this will only happen if there is a credible opposition.

Labour’s problem was less a poor speech by Ed Miliband, or the jeering at Tony Blair’s name, but an underlying problem. After a decade of healthy growth, the western world is facing a decade of retrenchment. No-one believes we can return to the days when a Labour government ran a deficit in a boom, and could throw money at public services like confetti.
So if Labour cannot credibly go into the next election promising more spending, what can they promise? If it’s more efficiency in the way our taxes are spent, will anyone believe them?

If they’d been out of power a decade, their members (and the unions) might have accepted the idea of a new “iron chancellor”. But would that work? Look at what the last Labour “iron chancellor” ended up doing.

Their conference was a chance for Labour to start to answer that question. But Ed Miliband’s attempt, arguing for a government that picks ‘good’ and ‘bad’ companies, only reminds us of past government failure to interfere in business. Would a Labour government succeed in using policy to encourage innovative wealth creators, or would this be another disastrous attempt to ‘pick winners’?

What Labour desperately needs is to distance itself from the mistakes that contributed to the current deficit. Blaming the bankers isn’t enough. Deep down, even the most ardent Labour supporter must know that it wasn’t just the banks fault: that Labour overspent, and that much of the pain we’ll suffer is down to a false assumption that the boom would go on forever, so they could carry on overspending forever.

Labour don’t seem to have a problem with the ‘sorry’ word. They’ve apologised for Iraq, for not regulating the bankers, they’ve even apologised for Tony Blair. But they seem incapable of admitting, even to themselves, that they overspent. And until they do, how can anyone believe they wouldn’t do so again?

My guess is this can only begin to happen if Labour ditch Ed Balls, but I can’t see that happening any time soon.

Another politician would realise he was in a hole, and stop digging. But Ed Balls’ political credibility is so tied to that of Gordon Brown, and to running a deficit in a boom, he can’t help himself.

Every time Ed Balls argues for a cut in VAT, calling it a “plan for growth”, many voters must be thinking: ‘Do Labour think we’re stupid? After their overspending got us into this mess, how dare they claim increasing the deficit will get us out of it?’

Labour conference was up first. As the only major party of opposition this should have been a conference to remember for them. A year of riots, phone hacking and a poor economy gave them more ammunition than most opposition parties get in an entire parliament. And yet Labour delegates slumped around the Liverpool docks as if every single one of them had just been dumped.

True, Ed Miliband’s speech was a train wreck, particularly the opening “I’m not Tony Blair” – muted applause – deer in the headlights bit. And not everything was rosy in 2011 for Labour: the Scottish elections in May were for some a possible foreshadow of electoral embarrassments to come. Nevertheless, a decent lead in the polls and three and a half years to get themselves together should have provided at least some optimism. As it was, not even Polly Toynbee could get excited about it all.

But Labour conference was probably an unmitigated success next to the horror show that was Tory conference in Manchester. Right, let’s start off with the setting: why the hell did the Conservatives think that holding their conference in Manchester was a good idea? The Socialist Republic of Mancunia is possibly the least Tory friendly place in the whole of England. Greater Manchester has four Labour MPs and one Lib Dem; the city’s 96 seat council contains not a single Conservative councillor. So was this like when FIFA held the World Cup in 1994 in the USA, a kind of reaching into new markets sort of thing? All they had to do was send one intern from Millbank up to Dean Street for an evening to see that was never going to work.

The Tories at their autumn conference this year were a lethal combination of unprofessionally useless and unforgivably dull. There were the gaffes, Theresa May’s cat remark being both the most notable and the most hilarious. I actually felt sorry for Andrew Neil having to cover the thing for the Daily Politics. There were times where you could see in his eyes the thought flashing, “I have to fill a whole other hour of television using only these boring sods?”

I know, conferences mean little to anyone outside the Westminster bubble. However, they do tend to act as early warning signs for where the parties are heading to in the next year or two. Perhaps we’re better off than sometimes people give us credit for.

Have you ever come into a Conference debate having left your Agenda in your hotel room, by accident or through not wishing to add five minutes to your ‘physical security check’ by bringing a bag? Have you ever forgotten to pop by the information stand and pick up the Conference Daily sheets? Or have you ever watched some of Conference on TV, in which all of those items are conspicuously missing from the screen? Then rather than looking down at us as if we’re all insufficiently committed, perhaps the powers that be should consider admitting reality and making it easy for people to find out what’s going on at a glance, or in a sentence. And most of the work is already there – it just needs bringing together.

There is already an @LibDemConf Twitter account that announces the name of each debate as it starts. And there is already a supply of all the Conference papers online, if you know where to look and can navigate through all the many screens to get to them. But no attempt is ever made to bring these together. Why not tweet a bit.ly link to the appropriate policy paper with the announcement of the start of each debate? And another, with a link to the Conference Agenda, also telling you on which page to find the motion under debate? And again, a link to the relevant Conference Daily to find any amendments, again highlighting the page number? All of this paperwork is already available online in pdf form, and it would be the work of moments to actually show people how to find it when it’s needed.

The same could be done within the Conference Hall, for the aid of representatives there and of people watching at home (or in their hotels). Perhaps BBC Parliament might be frosty about putting up non-BBC links, but it’s worth asking; if not, each debate speaker has a ginormous screen behind them onto which the Party projects their image and information about them. Why not add a web address and the simple message, ‘If you want to know what’s going on in this particular debate, enter this and it’ll tell you’?

You may well argue that every representative should assiduously read every bit of paperwork, that no-one should vote on an issue without hearing the whole debate, and that if proposers and summators of motions and amendments should be able to express clearly what their motions and amendments are about, and if they can’t, that’s their own lookout. But if you’re scrambling to find the bit of paper that would explain what line 4 of Amendment 3 says when the Chair of the session is briskly running through the votes, or if you’re at home without a steward standing by you to thrust paper into your hand, that’s not a lot of help.

So wouldn’t it be better if the Chair and Aide of each debate were not just to announce which website to go to, but to agree in advance a one-line factual description of each motion and amendment with their proposers? So that each debate could open not merely with a nebulous ‘Motion F72, More Regulation For A Freer Britain’, but with one scene-setting sentence that captures the main thrust – and, more importantly, the Chair could give those explanatory lines about the amendments at the end. Wouldn’t that blizzard of numbers make more sense if each vote on each amendment was preceded by one simple sentence that summarises in neutral terms what each contains? Particularly for all those debates where an amendment was not opposed and there’s not even a summator to remind you what you’re voting on. And for TV viewers, the combination of a simple guide from the Chair and a visible link to more information on the website would make the Conference a lot less incomprehensible.

These are simple changes, not time-consuming, with all the work of creating pdfs and putting them online already done. Why not just make them easier to find?

Of course, they all usually dry up sometime after each Conference, making it difficult to locate our policy once we’ve actually passed it, and there are no hyperlinking cross-references in the online papers (note the several just this year that referred to the excellent but long-deleted Policy Paper 50: It’s About Freedom from a decade ago, removed from the Party website and sold out from the Party publishers, as if we all have it kept by our bedsides as light reading matter). But making the current Conference paperwork more accessible would be a start.

Alex Wilcock blogs at Love and Liberty, on which he has just written a rather less positive Conference follow-up about the shortcomings of the Conference Hotel.

Any Conservative, including Iain Dale who attends the Liberal Democrat conference, remarks how impressed they are with the mere fact the conference is where party members openly and robustly confer on policy. The exhibition stands at the Liberal Democrat conference include dozens of party groups as well as the recent deluge of large companies and organisations desperate to suck up to the party they’ve proudly ignored until now. The agenda for conference is focused on policy papers with speeches for and against where the party leadership will frequently get involved in the debate. The party organises a comprehensive training and development programme that covers everything from canvassing techniques to developing education policy in councils. Fringe meetings are largely organised by party-affiliated groups. There’s absolutely no doubt that if you became a member of a political party purely because you had an interest in discussing politics and policy, the Liberal Democrats offer their conference attendees infinitely more politics and policy than the other two parties combined.

I also met up with some people in both Liverpool and Glasgow and managed to bend their ears about issues, as well as adding new and interesting people to Facebook. I attended some very interesting training session – including the very exciting software program used by the Obama Campaign CONNECT and an informative session on getting selected and time management with Liverpool’s own Erica Kemp. I didn’t get to spend as much time as I hoped in the main hall, but glad I took up the opportunity to use the training available. I also managed to go to a session run by ALDC with Tim Farron and Paddy Ashdown on the panel.

I found that the Conference was well run and am proud of the way Birmingham handled itself. I had heard of problems and even violence against Conference attendees when it was in Sheffield, but quickly felt at ease outside the main venues.

I did have a very interesting conversation after hijacking a lost lobbyist on the way to New Street Station on my way home to Liverpool. When I asked why he was at conference, he said he was talking to MPs and policy makers on landmines. You have to wonder if he would have been doing this at one of our conferences a few years ago. He also said he was probably more likely to vote for Nick Clegg after hearing him speak and do a Q&A.

It sounds like a cliche I know, but I am definitely fired up for Conference in Newcastle in 2012, and have already booked my accommodation. For anyone debating about whether to attend, do it. It is an amazing feeling to be part of the decision process, in a way only Liberal Democrat conference representatives are.

In one of the training sessions, we were asked to talk about any hobbies we had. I did comment that with work and politics, I don’t have any time for hobbies, and it was said that if you are doing politics properly, that is the way it should be!

I definitely have the conference bug!

That is why the autumn conference was both an opportunity to look to the future, and to celebrate Liberal Democratic core values and successes within the Coalition. Phoenixes of a feather flocked together in Birmingham last week, and immediately campaigners felt more at ease and more positive.

Despite valid concerns about levels of accreditation, increasing levels of security and the vast difference in numbers of lobbyists, politicians and press coverage than seen before, Liberal Democrats from all over the country embraced radical policy motions, gave standing ovations to ministers, and sought to redefine themselves in the new era of politics.

A position in government

As Nick Clegg said in his speech:

That is the liberal spirit and that is something we will never lose. The spirit that gave birth to our party a century and half ago, that kept us alive when the other two parties tried to kill us off. The spirit that means however great our past, our fight will always be for a better future.

As we watch the socially traumatic cuts being made in Greece and protesters take to the streets to defend their civil liberties, Liberal Democrats can take comfort that under the Coalition government deficit reduction strategy we will not be faced with a similar outcome in the UK. The strategy may be tough, and spark knee-jerk political reactions from the opposition, but it is necessary to stay strong and accept the necessity of our actions.

Radical Pluralism

Some consider it to be a radical position for the minority party in the Coalition Government to be proposing radical policy, voted on by his own party members, tackling significant social ills. In particular, the Liberal Democrat Conference took the risk of addressing legislation surrounding illegal substances, the emotive subject of violence against women, and repealing laws introduced by the Labour government that erode our civil liberties on the Internet.

Though there were hundreds of lobbyists present in the conference hotels every evening trying to influence government policy, it was the members of the Liberal Democrats ourselves who were actually doing so. I find it unfathomable that anyone would want to be a member of a political party where they are not able to leverage and influence their own party policy democratically.

Community Politics

My own local party is ready to pound the streets again and I hope that other local parties have been empowered by the recent Liberal Democrat conference. A hundred training sessions, the delivery of new campaign ideas, and a passionately determined ministerial presence has reinvigorated hope within the party.

Media Coverage
Instead of talking about how unfair it is that the media do not cover our conference more, there has been significant delight in the generation of publicity. The right-wing press may seek to present the party in a detrimental light, but in order to do so, they now give over double page spreads and entire pages of comment on why they consider us to be wrong! This can only be considered a success for a party whose autumn conference was usually largely ignored.

* Kelly-Marie Blundell is a Lib Dem member in Ashford.

This year at Birmingham I saw something new again – machine guns being carried by police outside the conference. This wasn’t by officers patrolling the streets outside the secure zone. No, it was inside, where people had already come past 3 separate checks that the face on the badge was similar to the face on the wearer – I say similar because passport standard photos are notorious for not looking like the real thing! Having passed those checks we then went through an airport style security gate and bags went through X-ray.

Then, and only then, were we confronted by armed police. They didn’t look very fierce, though they certainly looked young and strong and I wouldn’t have liked to have seen them in action.

I asked them why we had armed police inside the security zone. “It’s about your safety, Ma’am,” was the response. “But I don’t feel particularly safe having to walk past men with big guns to get into the building” said I. “It’s all about keeping you safe” was the response.

Eventually the information was volunteered that they were a deterrent to anyone contemplating wickedness from the buildings “over there”. Now maybe I’ve seen too many bits of action movies, but I’d have thought that anyone in the buildings “over there” would just lob a shoulder launched missile at us and be away long before the men with big guns knew what had hit them. Maybe not, maybe they’d just look out of the window, see pairs of nice young men in black carrying big guns and decide not to bother today.

This would be funny if it wasn’t serious. The Home Office pays for security for the Deputy Prime Minister. That includes a large part of the policing costs of such conferences. The police say what they think they need to do, then they get paid for doing it. Is there a conflict of interest here? Who checks the risk assessment? Could the same level of security be provided for less money, with fewer police?

Questions that many people have been asking this week and that I hope are answered properly before the Spring conference next year which comes to our own region. The Sage at Gateshead will be the venue and I want to look forward to the conference in my own region (which by the way contains the nation’s favourite building – Durham Cathedral) without men in black with big guns keeping me “safe”.

* Maureen Rigg is Stockton Liberal Democrats group leader, and blogs here.

In theory the answer should have been found in the conference packs handed out to people on arrival at the Birmingham ICC, for inside them was not only an “In government – on your side” leaflet but also three others from different Liberal Democrat ministers, all promoting the party’s work in government.

Even those simple numbers give a hint of the problems to come when you look at the leaflets in detail: why three other leaflets? Not one per minister or one per ministry with Lib Dems in it or one per Lib Dem Cabinet member. Instead three: as if it was a random rather than carefully thought out plan as to which ministers should have had dedicated leaflets. (It was Paul Burstow, Chris Huhne and an Ed Davey – Vince Cable double-header that made up the trio.)

Across the four pieces of paper there are also four different designs and styles. There is not even a common colour scheme to them all. Three do have a predominant yellow colour but contrive to use a different shade in each case. No common slogan either.

The best of the four is the general “In government – on your side” leaflet. Care has been taken over the detail of the artworking – note the use of at least semi-action photos, the range of people in the photographs, the use of clear headings and short paragraphs and so on.

But whilst the artworking of the leaflet was done to a high standard, it clearly was not done to a common message agreed across the different leaflets. When you compare the text in this leaflet with that in the other three leaflets – and speeches given at conference, not to mention Nick Clegg’s article in the conference agenda booklet – a lot of inconsistencies arrise.

Banning wheel clamping on private land gets a prominent place in the leaflet, understandably given that it is one of the policy moves which has generated the most positive media coverage and public reaction. However, it went almost completely unmentioned across conference (or indeed in other party communications since the original announcement from Lynne Featherstone). If it is seen as a strong policy to promote, why is it missing from elsewhere? And if it isn’t, why did it make its way into that prominent place?

The problems go on – such as the way the two key green policies mentioned are not one and two in the list on Chris Huhne’s leaflet or the use of a different apprenticeship figure from that regularly used by Nick Clegg. Ed and Vince’s leaflet then throws us a third figure. (I think they are all correct as they are all counting different things but three different numbers is not the way to a clear, consistent message which the public starts noticing.)

Most baffling of all, the main leaflet mentions taxes on banking but does not mention the massive issue of banking reform. Even the keenest anti-wheel clamper would, I think, put bank reform first.

Without belabouring the point with more examples, and even recognising that the presence of such leaflets is a step forward, the message is a simple one: there isn’t a message. That’s a problem.

I found out that I was, indeed, the 11th different pensions minister in the last 14 years.

However, a few Lib Dems have had chance to put finger to keyboard in response to Nick Clegg’s address to close the Liberal Democrat conference in Birmingham. Here are those I’ve spotted so far on the Aggregator…

• Go back to your constituencies and prepare for the long haul… (Yellow Tinted Spectacles)
• Clegg commits shared parental leave as Govt policy-Yay! (Mat Bowles)
• The Most Controversial Thing to Come Out of Nick Clegg’s Speech to #ldconf (Jennie Rigg)
• Nick Clegg: We will tear down every barrier our children face (Caron Lindsay)

And of course my Co-Editor Mark Pack blogged his reaction here on Lib Dem Voice earlier.

Apologies if I’ve missed anyone; please add links below for any I’ve missed or which are posted subsequently.

Oh, and here are a selection of Liberal Tweets:

meralhece Nick Clegg: ‘WE WILL ALWAYS DEFEND HUMAN RIGHTS- HERE & ABROAD- IT IS HERE TO STAY!!!!!’
strmrgn It feels like clegg is gearing up to fight for lib dem values…its about time! #ldconf
miss_s_b Cleggy being nicely rousing on the Human Rights Act. #ldconf
markpack Notable how @nick_clegg’s attacks are on Tory policies and not on Tory personalities #ldconf
meralhece ‘Labour has cowered before News International for decades’ – Nick Clegg. #LDconf
miss_s_b Hurrah for Cleggy giving a shout out to the fabulous @lfeatherstone
RockyLorusso Clegg: for liberals the only struggle worth having is an uphill one #ldconf
MShapland Great speech, be proud of what we’ve achieved as Liberals #ldconf
EnlightBystand A little slow and inward facing at the start, but really good at the end #ldconf
neilmonnery Nick Clegg goes with the children are our future line to end. Overall it was impressive I must say #ldconf
chrisjenkinson Top quality speech from Nick Clegg – so passionate about an equal start in life for all children #ldconf
malcolmbruce Nick’s speech the speech of a joint Prime Minister rather than the deputy.

Some will – rightly – quibble over the ‘against’ list in that but the essential point is a fair one. Liberal Democrat conference has been a lot about what won’t happen or isn’t the case: the coalition isn’t going to end early, the Liberal Democrats are not the same as the Conservatives and so on.

Traditionally, the main conference speech from a party leader – of any party – is the chance to set out the positive vision of what their party is for. And that is what Nick Clegg tackled in his speech today:

We speak up, first and loudest, when the establishment lets the people down. In the last three years, we’ve seen establishment institutions exposed one by one. The City of London, shattered by the greed of bankers. The media, corrupted by phone hacking. Parliament, shamed by expenses.

I was brought up to know that it is not polite to say ‘I told you so’. But I’m sorry: We did. In 2006 when Vince Cable warned that “bad debts were growing” and that bank lending levels were “recklessly irresponsible”. In 2002 when Tom McNally said: “The Government must guard the public interest as assiduously as Mr Murdoch guards his shareholder interests.” And in 1996 when Paddy said that Parliament had become “A rotten mess…a dishevelled, disfigured old corpse of what was once called the Mother of Parliaments.” Free to tell it like it really is because we are in nobody’s pocket…

I’ve also encountered fierce resistance from those who do so well out of the status quo. But for liberals the only struggles worth having are the uphill ones. Allowing schools to move poorer children up the queue for admissions. Making universities open their doors to everyone. Making firms work harder to get women on their boards. Breaking open internships. All controversial. All difficult. Not easy, but right.

That anti-establishment edge was not quite carried through all of the speech, for Nick Clegg also said that by being in coalition the Liberal Democrats would:

Anchor the government in the centre ground.

One theme that did come up repeatedly and consistently, however, was that of families, women and children: making life easier for families and improving social mobility (though, yes – it was that phrase again). So in amongst the usual list of Liberal Democrat achievements such as moving towards a £10,000 income tax allowance, the Green Investment Bank and 250,000 new apprenticeships we also heard about shared parental leave, an emphasis on how many women have benefited from the £10,000 policy already and Lynne Featherstone was one of the handful of ministers to be singled out for specific praise for her work. The combination of the party’s polling of female voters and the appointment of Collette Dunkley looks to be having an effect.

The one new policy announcement was on the same theme too, from the nexus where education and social mobility meet:

I’ve been leading the charge for social mobility – for fairer chances, for real freedom…

Too many of … young people had simply fallen through the cracks. Not just this summer but many summers ago, when they lost touch with their own future. So often the people who have gone off the rails are the ones who were struggling years earlier, not least in making that critical leap from primary to secondary school. So today I am launching a new scheme to help the children who need it most. In the summer before they start secondary school. A two-week summer school helping them to catch up in Maths and English, and getting them ready for the challenges ahead. We know this is a time when too many children lose their way, so this is a £50m investment to help them along the right path.

Nick Clegg also talked about what motivates Liberal Democrats:

Our party has fought for liberal values for a century and half: justice, optimism, freedom. We’re not about to give up now. This conference centre is on the site of the old Bingley Hall where William Gladstone stood a hundred and thirty years ago to found the National Liberal Federation. Gladstone observed that day that Birmingham had shown it was no place for ‘weak-kneed Liberalism’. No change there then…

And that takes a certain kind of character. One which we’ve seen on display over the last few months. And indeed the last few days here in Birmingham. Brave. Principled. Awkward. Resolute. Optimistic. Unstoppable. No I’m not just talking about Paddy Ashdown. I am talking about everyone in this hall…

Our values are strong. Our instincts are good: Reason not prejudice. Compassion not greed. Hope not fear.

That last comment notwithstanding, as with Vince Cable earlier in the week there was a fair dose of economic realism:

These are not easy times for the country. Economic insecurity. Conflict and terrorism. Disorder flaring up on our streets. Times like these can breed protectionism and populism. So times like these are when liberals are needed most…

The recovery is fragile. Every worker, every family knows that. There is a long, hard road ahead. In the last few days alone we have seen a financial storm in the Eurozone. Rising unemployment. Falling stock markets.

But there was also a fair degree of determined optimism about the sort of Britain the Liberal Democrats can help shape:

After the summer riots, message boards sprang up. They became known as ‘peace walls’.

And on the peace wall in Peckham there was a note that simply read: Our home. Our children. Our future. Six words that say more than six hundred speeches. Our home. Our children. Our future.

Britain is our home. We will make it safe and strong. These are our children. We will tear down every barrier they face. And this is our future. We start building it today.

So did the speech past the test put to it by that text message I received? Not quite, I suspect. It would be wrong to expect too much from a single speech and it certainly had the raw material for a good response to that test. But the choice of phrases and the party narrative are not quite there yet – as shown by the variation between different ministers during conference in their answers to questions of the form, “what’s your positive vision?”

But this very well received speech was a big step forward towards coming up with a powerful and effective answer to that question.

Full text of Nick Clegg’s speech to Liberal Democrat conference

Liberal Democrats, we have now been in Government for 500 days. Not easy, is it? None of us thought it would be a walk in the park, but I suspect none of us predicted just how tough it would turn out to be. We’ve lost support, we’ve lost councillors, and we lost a referendum. I know how painful it has been to face anger and frustration on the doorstep.

Some of you may have even wondered: Will it all be worth it in the end? It will be. And today I want to explain why.

But above all I want to pay tribute to you. Your resilience. Your grace under fire. I have been genuinely moved by your spirit and your strength. Thank you. Thank you, above all, for never forgetting what we are in politics for. After the May elections, Alex Cole-Hamilton, one of our defeated candidates in Edinburgh said that if losing was part payment for ending child detention then, as he said: “I accept it, with all my heart.”

That is the liberal spirit and that is something we will never lose. The spirit that gave birth to our party a century and half ago, that kept us alive when the other two parties tried to kill us off. The spirit that means however great our past, our fight will always be for a better future.

Down in Westminster we’ve been vilified like never before. The Left and the Right didn’t like us much in opposition. They like us a whole lot less in Government. The Left accuse us of being powerless puppets, duped by a right wing Conservative clique.

The Right accuse us of being a sinister left wing clique, who’ve duped powerless Conservatives. I do wish they’d make up their mind.

So yes, it has been hard. And adversity tests the character of a party just as it tests any person. We’ve shown – you’ve shown – immense strength. After being hit hard, we picked ourselves up and we came out fighting. Fighting to keep the NHS safe. Fighting to protect human rights. Fighting to create jobs. Fighting for every family. Not doing the easy thing, but doing the right thing. Not easy, but right.

And as for all those seats we lost in May, let me tell you this: I won’t rest, we won’t rest, until we’ve won every single one of those seats back.

These may not be easy times for us as a party. But much more importantly: these are not easy times for the country. Economic insecurity. Conflict and terrorism. Disorder flaring up on our streets. Times like these can breed protectionism and populism. So times like these are when liberals are needed most. Our party has fought for liberal values for a century and half: justice, optimism, freedom. We’re not about to give up now.

This conference centre is on the site of the old Bingley Hall where William Gladstone stood a hundred and thirty years ago to found the National Liberal Federation. Gladstone observed that day that Birmingham had shown it was no place for ‘weak-kneed Liberalism’. No change there then.

So we are strong. United. True to our values. Back in Government and on your side.

In Government you’re faced with hard choices every day. The question is how you make them. Some ask ‘how can we get a market to work here?’ Others ‘how can this win us more votes?’ A few ‘what will the press think?’ For liberals, the litmus test is always the national interest. Not doing the easy thing. Doing the right thing.

And that takes a certain kind of character. One which we’ve seen on display over the last few months. And indeed the last few days here in Birmingham. Brave. Principled. Awkward. Resolute. Optimistic. Unstoppable. No I’m not just talking about Paddy Ashdown. I am talking about everyone in this hall.

But I think people still need to know more about the character of our party. Not just how we govern, but why. We proved something about ourselves last year, when we faced a historic choice: Whether or not to enter Government in coalition with the Conservatives.

The easy thing would have been to sit on the opposition benches throwing rocks at the Government as it tried to get control of the public finances. It might even, in the short run, have been more popular, but it would not have been right. At that moment, Britain needed a strong government.

Alistair Darling’s recent book is called “Back from the Brink” – in reality Labour left us on the brink. Teetering on the edge of an economic precipice. So we put aside party differences for the sake of the national interest. People before politics. Nation before party. And while other countries have been riven by political bickering, we have shown that a coalition forged in a time of emergency could be a different kind of government, governing differently.

Because let me tell you this: You don’t play politics at a time of national crisis. You don’t play politics with the economy. And you never, ever play politics with people’s jobs.

Our first big decision was to clear the structural deficit this parliament. To wipe the slate clean by 2015. This has meant painful cuts. Agonisingly difficult decisions. Not easy, but right. Because handing control of the economy to the bond traders: that’s not progressive.

Burying your head in the sand: that’s not liberal. Saddling our children with the nation’s debt: that’s not fair.

Labour says: the Government is going too far, too fast. I say, Labour would have offered too little, too late. Imagine if Ed Miliband and Ed Balls had still been in power. Gordon Brown’s backroom boys when Labour was failing to balance the books, failing to regulate the financial markets, and failing to take on the banks. The two Eds, behind the scenes, lurking in the shadows, always plotting, always scheming, never taking responsibility. At this time of crisis what Britain needs is real leadership. This is no time for the back room boys.

Labour’s economy was based on bad debt and false hope. Labour got us into this mess. But they are clueless about how to get us out. Another term of Labour would have been a disaster for our economy. So don’t for a moment let Labour get away with it. Don’t forget the chaos and fear of 2008. And never, ever trust Labour with our economy again.

Government has brought difficult decisions. Of course the most heart wrenching for me, for all of us, was on university funding. Like all of you, I saw the anger. I understand it. I felt it. I have learned from it. And I know how much damage this has done to us as a party. By far the most painful part of our transition. From the easy promises of opposition to the invidious choices of Government.

Probably the most important lesson I have learned is this: No matter how hard you work on the details of a policy, it’s no good if the perception is wrong. We can say until we’re blue in the face that no one will have to pay any fees as a student, but still people don’t believe it. That once you’ve left university you’ll pay less, week in week out, than under the current system, but still people don’t believe it. That the support given to students from poorer families will increase dramatically, but still people don’t believe it.

The simple truth is that the Conservatives and Labour were both set on increasing fees, and in those circumstances we did the best thing we could. Working tirelessly to ensure anyone who wants to go to university can. Freeing part time students from up-front fees for the first time. Ensuring fairer repayments for all graduates. But we failed to properly explain those dilemmas. We failed to explain that there were no other easy options. And we have failed so far to show that the new system will be much, much better than people fear.

So: lessons learned. But the most important thing now is to get out there and show that university is for everyone. We should all take a leaf out of Simon Hughes’ book – who has been busting a gut as the Government’s Advocate for Access. Travelling the country, explaining the new system and finding ways to get young people from all backgrounds to apply to university. Simon didn’t like the decision we made, and for reasons I respect. But rather than sitting back he has rolled up his sleeves and got on with making the new system work. Simon, thank you.

Right now, our biggest concern is of course the economy. The recovery is fragile. Every worker, every family knows that. There is a long, hard road ahead. In the last few days alone we have seen a financial storm in the Eurozone. Rising unemployment. Falling stock markets.

So we were right to pull the economy back from the brink. It is clearer now than ever that deficit reduction was essential to protect the economy, to protect homes and jobs. Deficit reduction lays the foundations for growth. But on its own it is not enough. That’s why we’re already: investing in infrastructure, reducing red tape, promoting skills, getting the banks lending. But the outlook for the global economy has got worse. So we need to do more, we can do more, and we will do more for growth and for jobs.

Because we’re not in politics just to repair the damage done by Labour, to glue back together the pieces of the old economy. We are here to build a new economy. A new economy safe from casino speculation. That’s why a Liberal Democrat business secretary is putting a firewall into the banking system.

Protecting the people who have worked hard and saved. A new economy that safeguards the environment. That’s why a Liberal Democrat environment secretary is creating the world’s first Green Investment Bank, spending three billion pounds to create green jobs.

A new economy where the lowest-paid get to keep the money they earn. That’s why a Liberal Democrat chief secretary to the Treasury has put two hundred pounds into the pocket of every basic rate taxpayer and taken almost a million workers – most of them women – out of income tax altogether.

A new economy based on skills. That’s why one Liberal Democrat minister is creating a quarter of a million new apprenticeships, and another is investing in schools and early years education.

A new economy that works for families. Where men and women can choose how to balance work and home. That’s why Liberal Democrats are bringing in shared parental leave and more flexible working.

And a new economy run for ordinary people rather than big finance. After the so-called masters of the universe turned out to be masters of destruction instead. Which is why when we come to sell those bank shares, I want to see a payback to every citizen. Your money was put at risk. Your money was used to bail out the banks. And so the money made by the banks is your money, too. An economy for everyone: In Scotland, Wales, in every part of the United Kingdom. For women and men. Young, old. Town, country. North, South. A new economy for the whole nation.

Because as Liberal Democrats we act for the whole nation. In our long, proud liberal history, we have never served: the media moguls, the union barons or the bankers. We do not serve, and we will never serve, vested interests. We are in nobody’s pocket. That’s why we can make decisions in the national interest: not easy, but right.

That’s why we speak up, first and loudest, when the establishment lets the people down. In the last three years, we’ve seen establishment institutions exposed one by one. The City of London, shattered by the greed of bankers. The media, corrupted by phone hacking. Parliament, shamed by expenses.

I was brought up to know that it is not polite to say ‘I told you so’. But I’m sorry: We did. In 2006 when Vince Cable warned that “bad debts were growing” and that bank lending levels were “recklessly irresponsible”. In 2002 when Tom McNally said: “The Government must guard the public interest as assiduously as Mr Murdoch guards his shareholder interests.” And in 1996 when Paddy said that Parliament had become “A rotten mess…a dishevelled, disfigured old corpse of what was once called the Mother of Parliaments.” Free to tell it like it really is because we are in nobody’s pocket.

Of all the claims Ed Miliband has made, the most risible is that his party is the enemy of vested interests. While we were campaigning for change in the banking system, they were on their prawn cocktail offensive in the City. While we’ve led the charge against the media barons, Labour has cowered before them for decades. The most shocking thing about the news that Tony Blair is godfather to one of Rupert Murdoch’s children is that nobody was really shocked at all.

And today Labour is in hock to the trade union barons. After their government stipend, 95% of Labour’s money comes from unions. Most of it from just four of them. Let me be clear: The values of trade unionism are as relevant as ever. Supporting workers. Fighting for fairness at work. But I don’t think the unions should be able to buy themselves a political party. Ed Miliband says he wants to loosen the ties between Labour and the union barons who helped him beat his brother. Let’s see him put his money where his mouth is. Let’s see if he’ll support radical reform of party funding. Every previous attempt has been blocked by the vested interests in the other two parties.

We are all stuck in a system that we know is wrong. We’ve all been damaged by it. But if we learned anything from the expenses scandal. It is surely that if the system’s broken. We should not wait for the next scandal. We should fix it and fix it fast.

So whether it is securing the economy, sorting the banks or cleaning up politics, we are making the big, difficult decisions. Not easy, but right. That’s what it means to be a party of national government again. Not just making arguments, making change.

In a coalition, we have two kinds of power. The power to hold our coalition partners back and the power to move the government forwards. So we can keep the government to a liberal path. Anchor the government in the centre ground.

We were absolutely right to stop the NHS bill in its tracks. To ensure change on our terms. No arbitrary deadlines. No backdoor privatization. No threat to the basic principles at the heart of our NHS.

We are right to stand up for civil liberties. No retreat to the illiberal populism of the Labour years. We are right to insist on keeping the tax system fair. Asking the most of the people who have the most. And we will always defend human rights, at home as well as abroad. The European Convention on Human Rights and the Human Rights Act are not, as some would have you believe, foreign impositions. These are British rights, drafted by British lawyers. Forged in the aftermath of the atrocities of the Second World War. Fought for by Winston Churchill. So let me say something really clear about the Human Rights Act. In fact I’ll do it in words of one syllable: It is here to stay.

So we will always hold the liberal line. But much more important is the positive power of government: not just stopping bad things b doing good things.

Last year I walked through the door of No 10. But we all walked through a kind of door together. To being, once again, a party of national government. So we must move now beyond the reflexes of opposition to the responsibilities of government, and the opportunities of government, too. New social housing. Criminal justice reform. Fixed term parliaments. Keeping our Post Offices open. House of Lords reform. Better mental health care. Safer banks. Income tax down for ordinary workers. Capital gains tax up for the rich. Compulsory retirement scrapped. Pensions protected by a triple lock. ID cards: history. Child detention: ended.

Just look at what we’ve announced in the last five days. After decades of campaigning, and thanks to Lynne Featherstone: equal marriage, straight or gay. More power for consumers over the energy companies. Calling time on rewards for failure in boardrooms. Investing in education for girls in developing countries. New powers to turn empty homes back into family homes. A five hundred million pound investment in growth. Liberal achievements from a liberal party of government.

And we have stood by our commitments to act on the environment. The pollsters tell us that climate change has dropped down people’s list of worries. That people have more immediate concerns. I understand that. So the politically convenient thing would have been to put this off to another day. Instead we have acted immediately. Not easy, but right. Ambitious carbon targets. Energy market reform. Councils generating renewable energy. A Green Deal to make bills lower and homes warmer. Carbon capture and storage. Green buses, trains and trams. The world’s first ever green investment bank. Green achievements. From a green party of government.

I’ve learned quite a bit in the last 500 days. About the responsibilities of government. About the resilience of our party. The integrity of our members. About our determination to do the right thing.

In government, every single day brings hard choices. You can quickly lose your way unless you are certain of your cause. Of why you are there in the first place. Every one of us in this hall has strong political convictions: Civil liberties. Internationalism. Human rights. Political reform. Responsible capitalism. Fighting climate change. But every one of us has a political passion too. The fire inside that drew us to politics in the first place. Let me tell you what I care most about. My passion is ensuring a fair start for every child. I have a simple, unquenchable belief: that every child can do good things, great things if only we give them the opportunities they deserve.

Equal opportunity. It sounds so simple doesn’t it? Everyone agrees with it. But then we allow prejudice, tradition and class to crush a million hopes and dreams, watch young children’s lives go off track even before they go off to school, sit idly by while talent goes to waste. I know I have had all the advantages – good school, great parents. I was lucky. But it shouldn’t be about luck.

On Saturday I met a group of young people working with a charity called UpRising, here in Birmingham. All from really difficult backgrounds. One young woman, Chantal, told me that she only started to thrive when she found someone who believed in her. I want every child to believe in themselves. In terms of opportunity, we are a nation divided:

Children from a poor background a year behind in language skills before the age of five; more young black men in prisons than at Russell Group universities. And within one city, two nations: In Hammersmith and Fulham in West London, more than half the children leaving state schools head to a good university. Just thirty minutes east – down the district line to Tower Hamlets – and just 4 percent do. Odds stacked against too many of our children. A deep injustice, when birth is destiny. That’s why I’ve been leading the charge for social mobility – for fairer chances, for real freedom.

People keep telling me that it’s too hard. That it’s futile to push for fairness into the headwinds of an economic slow down, or that it will just take too long. And that I should find some politically convenient ‘quick wins’ instead. I’ve also encountered fierce resistance from those who do so well out of the status quo. But for liberals the only struggles worth having are the uphill ones. Allowing schools to move poorer children up the queue for admissions. Making universities open their doors to everyone. Making firms work harder to get women on their boards. Breaking open internships. All controversial. All difficult. Not easy, but right.

So I’m not backing down. I’m not slowing down. Because this will not be a liberal nation until every citizen can thrive and prosper, until birth is no longer destiny, until every child is free to rise.

This summer, we saw the consequences of a society in which some people feel they have no stake at all. Nobody could fail to be horrified by what we saw during the riots. These weren’t organised campaigns for change. They were outbursts of nihilism and greed. I’ll never forget the woman I met in Tottenham, who told me the clothes she stood in were all the possessions she had left in the world after her home was torched.

But in every city where trouble broke out, most people did the right thing. So many more people went out to clean up the streets than went out to trash them. In Manchester I met a café owner who boarded up her broken windows and started serving tea and coffee straight away to the people who were helping clear up. And here in Birmingham the community stood together in the face of disorder and tragedy. Or emergency services, our police and our courts all rose to the challenge.

But we have to ensure that the offenders become ex-offenders for good. hree out of four had previous convictions. So we have to push ahead with the Government’s rehabilitation revolution: Punishment that sticks, that changes behaviour. An end to the corrosive cycle of crime. And I want the criminal to look their victims in the eye to see the consequences of their actions, and to put it right. That’s why there will be community payback projects in every city affected. Why we are investing in drug recovery wings in our prisons. Tackling gang culture. Tougher community penalties. Effective justice. Restorative justice. Liberal justice.

But let me say something else: The rioters are not the face of Britain’s young people. The vast majority of our young people are good, decent and doing the best they can. Don’t condemn all of them because of the actions of a few. You know what really struck me? How so many of those who did join in the riots seemed to have nothing to lose. It was about what they could get, here and now. Not what lies in front of them, tomorrow and in the years ahead. As if their own future had little value. Too many of these young people had simply fallen through the cracks. Not just this summer but many summers ago, when they lost touch with their own future. So often the people who have gone off the rails are the ones who were struggling years earlier, not least in making that critical leap from primary to secondary school. So today I am launching a new scheme to help the children who need it most. In the summer before they start secondary school. A two-week summer school helping them to catch up in Maths and English, and getting them ready for the challenges ahead. We know this is a time when too many children lose their way, so this is a £50m investment to help them along the right path.

And that is why we have found the money, even now, to invest in education. Protecting the schools budget. A two and a half billion pound Pupil Premium by the end of the parliament. More investment in early years education: 15 hours for all three and four year-olds. New provision for the poorest two-year-olds. All steps towards a society where nobody is ‘enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity’. Towards a liberal society. These are investments that will take years or even decades to pay off. By the time the two year-olds we help next year come to vote, I’ll be 60. So why are we doing it, when it costs so much and takes so long? Because investing early makes such a huge difference, especially for the poorest children: Not easy, but right.

So hold your heads up and look our critics squarely in the eye. This country would be in deep trouble today if we had not gone into Government last year. And Britain will be a fairer nation tomorrow because we are in Government today. Never apologise for the difficult things we are having to do. We are serving a great country at a time of great need. There are no shortcuts, but we won’t flinch. Our values are strong. Our instincts are good: Reason not prejudice. Compassion not greed. Hope not fear.

After the summer riots, message boards sprang up. They became known as ‘peace walls’.

And on the peace wall in Peckham there was a note that simply read: Our home. Our children. Our future. Six words that say more than six hundred speeches. Our home. Our children. Our future.

Britain is our home. We will make it safe and strong. These are our children. We will tear down every barrier they face. And this is our future. We start building it today.

“Steve, you’re an above-average pensions minister!”

In a world where praise can be a bit hard to come by, I took that as a compliment.

But he quickly said:

“No, I didn’t mean that you’re good at your job, I meant you’ve survived longer than most pension ministers!”

And when I inquired, I found out that I was, indeed, the 11th different pensions minister in the last 14 years.

So it is hardly suprising that pensions policy has been a bit piecemeal and messy over the years.

Every change with the best of intentions, but put it all together and the whole isn’t as good as the sum of the parts.

Instead, we have a fiendishly complex system that no-one understands that doesn’t deliver enough either for today’s pensioners or tomorrow’s.

But being appointed a new minister at the start of a new Government is a huge opportunity.

A chance to set out a long-term vision of where we want pensions to be, and to introduce measures in both state and private pensions that move in the same direction.

So let me tell you what we’ve achieved in the last 16 months.

Our first priority is today’s pensioners.

For the last thirty years, the value of the basic state pension has fallen.

Since the link with earnings was broken at the start of the 1980s, the pension has fallen further and further behind the earnings that it is meant to replace.

We put a stop to that.

Labour only said they would restore the link by the end of the next Parliament.

But the Lib Dem manifesto said we would do it straight away, and I was delighted that this commitment was carried over into the Coalition Agreement.

Indeed, we have gone one step further.

We will increase the basic pension by the higher of the growth in earnings or consumer prices, so in times like this when wage growth is sluggish, we won’t seek to take advantage of this through lower pension increases.

And to go further still, if both earnings and prices are growing slowly, we will increase the pension by at least 2.5% – our so-called Triple Lock guarantee.

There will be no Gordon Brown 75p increases under this Government.

It is important that we communicate to people quite how dramatic the Triple Lock promise is.

We reckon that this new policy, compared with the policy of the last 30 years, will have put an extra £45 billion into state pension spending by the middle of the next decade.

At a time of austerity, this is a huge financial commitment to pensioners of today and tomorrow and we should make sure everyone knows the crucial role our party played in securing this guarantee.

As well as boosting the value of the state pension, we’ve had to look at the age at which it is paid.

One in six of us alive today in this country will live to the age of 100, and one in three girls born today will reach that age. So we’ve had to tackle the difficult issue of state pension ages – something previous government’s ducked.

The Government has already made it clear that the date when we reach 67 and 68 will have to be brought forward. But we also recognise that pension age changes need to be fair.

So although we stand by our plans to equalize men and women more quickly and to move to age 66 more quickly, I can assure you that we will do all that we can to ease that transition for the particular group of women most affected by the change.

And Labour left us some other ticking timebombs to diffuse.

Before the election they increased the Cold Weather Payment, payable to the poorest pensioners when it is freezing cold.

What Labour forgot to tell those pensioners was that this ‘special offer’ was a bit like a ‘closing down sale’ – available before the election but gone afterwards.

So when we looked at the books we discovered that the Labour spending plans – shockingly – slashed the Cold Weather Payment from £25 per week to just £8.50 per week.

We took the view that the money that is paid when it freezing cold to the most vulnerable pensioners and disabled people should be our priority.

So we reversed the cut, set the rate at £25 per week, and in the cold winter of 2010/11 made more than 17 million cold weather payments. That’s £400 million spent making sure the most vulnerable were kept warm last winter.

Conference, do you really think that would have happened if we weren’t in this government?

Real help to real people.

But as well as doing our best for today’s pensioners, we also want a pensions system fit for today’s workers – tomorrow’s pensioners.

The foundation of income in retirement has to be the state pension.

But at the moment, we recognise that the state pension is not enough to live on.

If all you have is a basic state pension of just over £100 per week, the DWP will top you up through complicated means-testing to an income of around £135 per week.

Wouldn’t it be better if people who had contributed through their lives, either through paid work or caring or in some other way, could be guaranteed a pension clear of the basic means-test, a foundation on which they can build ?

And that is what we want to deliver – something that has much in common with the long-cherished Liberal and Liberal Democrat goal of a Citizen’s Pension – being delivered by Liberal Democrats in Government.

Earlier this year I published a Green Paper setting out options for reform of the state pension.

Overwhelmingly, the preferred option was the simple, single decent state pension – something Liberal Democrats have argued for over decades, now at the forefront of government thinking.

It wouldn’t be a king’s ransom.

But it would cover the basics.

It would treat men and women equally for the first time, and would value unpaid caring work just as much as a high-flying city job.

That would be a truly radical reform, and it is one that Liberal Democrats could be proud of.

Now so far I’ve mainly talked about the ‘P’ of DWP.

Which is perhaps not suprising given my day job as Minister of State for Pensions.

But I also involve myself in the decisions taken by the ministerial team across the whole of DWP – that’s what you do when you’re “the only Lib Dem in the village”!

And there is work going on about which Liberal Democrats can feel proud.

The first is the introduction of the Universal Credit.

For many years Liberal Democrats have talked about integrating the tax and benefits system.

But to be honest, integrating the benefits system with itself would be a start.

And that is what the Universal Credit does.

It brings together benefits such as Income Support, Child Tax Credits, Working Tax Credits, income-related Jobseekers Allowance and income-related Employment Support Allowance into a single benefit.

Designed to make sure that work pays.

Designed to respond to your changing circumstances month-by-month, not waiting for end year reconciliations or the tax credits people to write to you years after the event to tell you you have been overpaid.

Streamlining benefits and making part-time work viable will help many of the most vulnerable people in our society and the new system will take hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty.

At a time when public money was tight, the Government was right to invest in the Universal Credit, and Liberal Democrat backing for Iain Duncan Smith’s plans was crucial in bringing this scheme to fruition.

The second innovation that we should welcome is the Work Programme.

For years we have had endless back to work programmes where people on benefits were sent on ‘schemes’ so that the provider could tick a box and get paid.

That is all going.

Instead, the welfare-to-work providers – a mix of private companies, charities and public bodies – will find that most of their payment depends on getting someone into a sustained job.

One-size-fits-all schemes are out.

Meeting the needs of the individual in front of you is in.

And the providers will have unprecedented freedom to tailor the help they give.

They won’t need DWP approval.

If the person in front of you needs a fork lift truck qualification, you can help pay for it.

If they need help with basic numeracy, you can provide it.

Whatever will help the individual to move from long-term receipt of benefit to sustained work.

This will truly transform the lives of thousands who have been let down in the past by inflexible schemes designed in Whitehall.

Real help, for real people.

Much of what you hear about the DWP is about cuts – and much of it exaggerated.

If you listened to Labour you’d think that our policy programme was slaughter of the first born – and that was just in year one!

For example, take housing benefit.

Cash spending on housing benefit at the start of this Parliament was around £22bn.

And at the end of this Parliament it will be around £22bn.

Yes, reigning in the remorseless growth in spending at a time when the public finances are under pressure.

But still preserving a comprehensive system of support.

Likewise on disability benefits.

Disability Living Allowance cost £12.3bn in current prices at the start of this Parliament.

At the start of the next Parliament the new ‘Personal Independence Payment’ will cost exactly the same in real terms – £12.3 bn.

Yes, we have had to take tough choices about restraining the growth of benefit spending.

But always, seeking to do so fairly by protecting the most vulnerable.

I wouldn’t put my name to anything else. And I know you wouldn’t either.

Now, let me take you to next Summer – London, 2012.

Years of preparation.

And finally, the moment arrives and the starting gun is fired.

Yes, at long last, the first people will be automatically enrolled into workplace pensions.

Now I know that some people will have other things on their minds next summer, but for me the lasting legacy of 2012 and beyond will be literally millions of people getting pensions for the first time.

Between 2012 and 2016 we will automatically enrol over 10 million people into workplace pensions, many of whom are currently building up no pension beyond the state pension.

Their employers will put money in, they will put money in and the government will put money in.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to help many women workers, many part-timers, many young people and many low-paid workers into pension saving.

They will still be free to opt out, but if they want more than the basic minimum in retirement and to benefit from a contribution from their employer, this will be their chance.

Real help for real people.

We also need to make sure that people are getting good value for money in their pensions, an industry which has not always given itself the best reputation.

So on a whole range of issues I am working with colleagues within DWP and across government to protect the individual consumer and make sure that they get the best possible value for money.

My in-tray currently includes:

• charges – making sure that as much as possible of the money you invest turns into a pension instead of being eaten up in charges;
• small pension pots – many people have lots of different pensions with lots of different employers or different pension companies; well, rather than people have lots of small ‘stranded pots’ that they can’t do too much with, I want to help people put those pension pots together to give – to use a technical term – ‘big fat pots’; we will be producing a document later in the year that will set out some of the options;
• good value when you draw your pension – many people build up a pot of money but don’t get enough pension out of it; for all sorts of reasons they simply go to their own pension company for a pension, possibly missing out on a much bigger pension by shopping around; I am working with the Treasury and the insurance industry to see if we can do better than this;
• and fourth, transfers – at the moment, growing numbers of workers who have company pension rights are getting letters offering them a deal to give up their generous pension rights in return for a much riskier sort of pension plus a cash incentive; Some would call it a “bung”. Whilst firms have every right to talk to their workers and ex-workers about getting their pension rights in a different way, we need to make sure that people are making well-informed decisions and not losing out on valuable pension rights without realising it.

On all of these issues my agenda is about making sure that people get the best possible value for money out of their hard-earned pension savings – real help, for real people.

So conference, I urge you to hold your heads up high.

With a huge budget deficit to fill, it would have been easy to slash and burn the social security budget.

But that is not the agenda at the DWP. That is not our agenda.

Almost every part of the system is being reformed.

To make life easier for the individuals who have to interact with the system.

To provide real support for people who are looking for work.

And in my area of pensions, to give dignity and security not only to today’s pensioners but to generations to come.

It is a privilege to be in government, but I never forget whose side I am on.

On your side, working to deliver an affordable social security system which supports those most in needed, gives a leg up into work for those who can work, and builds a solid foundation for a secure retirement.

It is a big and bold agenda, and one that Liberal Democrats can be proud of.

(To find out more about any of the motions I mention, or indeed the others I’ve not highlighted, see the full agenda for the Liberal Democrats conference.)

With this conference’s backing, we will hold course to be the greenest government ever.

No more, no less.

But are we still on course?

Well, I can hardly pick up a Tory paper these days without a whinge about energy and climate change policies.

It’s been nip and tuck between Vince and me in recent months to win an unpopularity poll – that’s on Conservativehome among Tory activists.

So as we assert Lib Dem values within government, we must be doing something right – or is it Left?

Personally, I have no doubt that climate change is one of the greatest challenges we face.

But if you are facing a pay squeeze or even worse a lost job, if your pay packet no longer buys what you need, people understandably put other priorities higher up the scale.

As always during hard times, every other issue pales into insignificance besides the big issues of earning your living.

Keeping your job.

Making ends meet.

But cutting carbon is not a luxury to be ditched when the going gets tough.

It is essential to the survival of mankind as a species.

The science is ever more clear.

Cutting carbon is also a vital part of our recovery from the deepest recession since 1929.

Then we had David Lloyd George’s Yellow Book: now we have Green Growth.

In the thirties, we did not create new jobs by bringing back the textiles, coal and iron jobs that were lost.

We created new jobs in new industries.

And the same is happening today.

Every month, more than 300,000 people leave the unemployment register to find new jobs.

Thousands of those jobs are now in the low carbon economy. It is our route to recovery. Green business is good business.

There are now a million jobs in low carbon goods and services in Britain, and they are growing rapidly.

New jobs in cars, where Nissan will produce the all-electric Leaf at Sunderland with a £5,000 premium for each car from our government.

New jobs in energy saving, where our Green Deal, launched next October, is set to create 250,000 jobs across the nation, up from 27,000 now.

With the Green Deal, we are stopping the scandal where we use more energy to heat our homes than in Sweden, despite their icy winters.

Saving money that can be spent at home on British jobs, not foreign gas.

And I am proud to announce that our party is putting our principles into practice.

Every single Liberal Democrat council has now signed up to pioneer the Green Deal.

New jobs too in renewable energy, where we are determined to be the fastest improving pupil in class – having started from being 25th out of the 27 EU member states.

Onshore wind farms that are now the cheapest form of renewable electricity.

Offshore wind farms that are setting the standard for the world.

New jobs in heating, where our Renewable Heat Incentive is a world-beating first.

Saving power by drawing heat from the air and the ground.

And from our woodland, where we use only a tenth of the sustainable timber we could produce.

New jobs in nuclear too, without a penny of public subsidy.

And providing that we stick to the strictest safety standards in the world, and learn the lessons of Fukushima.

And new jobs in coal and gas plants, as we provide them with a long-term future through capturing and storing their carbon.

All told, energy investment will be £200 billion in the next ten years, double the normal amount as we replace Britain’s ageing power stations.

Our Electricity Market Reforms will mean three quarters of our electricity comes from low carbon sources by 2030.

Funded in part by the world’s first Green Investment Bank.

When people ask where is the demand coming from to power the economic recovery, tell them its clean energy.

It’s energy saving.

It’s low carbon transport.

It’s the new green industrial revolution.

Now, some people argue that we should not be pushing low carbon business, because no-one else is.

Nonsense.

Look at China, with six of the biggest renewable companies in the world.

Installing wind turbines across the South China Sea.

Building 28 nuclear power stations in the time it will take us to build one.

Building 10,000 miles of high speed rail in the time we will take to go from London to Birmingham.

Covering 40 per cent of the Chinese population with low carbon economy zones.

If that’s doing nothing, then climate sceptics have a weird idea of zero.

The real risk is not doing too much.

It is doing too little.

And getting left behind.

Other people argue that we cannot afford to boost the low carbon economy.

It would be cheaper, they say, to rely only on oil and gas.

To say it is to laugh at it.

World gas – and hence electricity – prices have leapt by a third thanks to Libya and far eastern growth.

Global factors.

So we should surely try to limit our dependence on oil and gas, not increase it.

Particularly as our own North Sea resources are running down.

In the storm-tossed seas we have to sail, low carbon energy gives us security.

Assurance.

Safety.

British energy consumers will on average be better off in 2020 thanks to our low carbon policies. Yes, I said better off.

Getting off the oil and gas price hook and onto clean, green energy makes sense.

And with energy saving, we can offset the effects of higher prices and end up with lower bills.

In one generation, we will go from fossil fuel smokestack to low carbon cash back.

But there is hardship now, and we are determined to help.

Higher energy bills hurt.

None of us should have to save on warmth in a cold winter.

Some of the most vulnerable and elderly will shiver – and worse- if we do not help.

That is why this Government is boosting by two-thirds the discounts to help people in fuel poverty.

Why our Warm Homes Discount is a statutory scheme, not a grace and favour handout relying on energy companies’ good will.

That is also why this Government will make those in fuel poverty a top priority for the Green Deal, helped by our ECO subsidy.

Improving people’s homes cuts fuel poverty forever, while a discount only cuts fuel poverty for a year.

Year after year, fuel poverty rose under Labour.

Now we are helping the poor where Labour flannelled.

We are acting where Labour talked.

We are delivering where Labour failed.

But it is not just the fuel poor who need help.

Today I can announce a new package to help the hard-pressed consumer this winter and every winter.

We are determined to get tough with the big six energy companies to ensure that the consumer gets the best possible deal.

We want simpler tariffs.

Requiring energy companies to tell you whether you could buy more cheaply on another tariff.

And you can save real money.

Ofgem, the independent regulator, calculates that the average household could save £200 by switching to the lowest cost supplier – but fewer than one in seven households do so.

Britain privatised the energy companies, but most consumers never noticed. Contrary to The Times’ report, I neither said nor meant that this was laziness. It is just that consumers still think that they face the same bill whoever they go to.

So I want to help households save money.

With simpler charging.

Clearer bills.

Quicker switching.

I also want more consumer-friendly firms – co-ops, partnerships, consumer charities – dedicated to doing the shopping around for consumers to make sure that you are always on the best deal, even if you do not have time to check yourself.

Ofgem should also have new powers to secure redress for consumers – money back for bad behaviour.

Ofgem is already stamping out bad doorstep practices that lead to energy mis-selling, with the guilty companies suffering swingeing fines.

And we will stop the energy companies from blocking action by Ofgem, which can delay matters by a year.

I remember when I was on the board of Which? the Consumers’ Association that the best guarantee of a good deal is more competition for your pound.

We want to encourage new small companies to come into the market.

Cutting red tape so they can grow bigger.

Making it easier for them to buy and sell electricity in the wholesale market.

And with Ofgem, we are cracking down on any bad practice that could smack of being anti-competitive.

It’s not fair that big energy companies can push their prices up for the vast majority of their consumers – who do not switch – while introducing cut-throat offers for new customers that stop small firms entering the market.

That looks to me like predatory pricing.

It must and will stop.

Labour and Ed Miliband had thirteen years to get this market right, and all they can do now is call for another inquiry by the Competition Commission.

Another delay of two years.

Another chance to sit on the fence.

How feeble!

We know what’s wrong.

And with Ofgem, we are getting tough to put it right.

John Donne once said that no man is an island entire unto himself, and no government in this complex and interdependent world is entire unto itself.

National sovereignty’s historic writ does not run over so many issues that matter to every family in this country.

National frontiers do not bar toxic waste, sulphur or carbon.

That is why we must always work with our partners in Europe – and more widely – to secure our objectives, nowhere more clearly than on environmental issues.

The European Union is also key to our prosperity.

The Eurozone takes nearly half our exports.

We export more to Ireland alone than to China, India and Brazil put together.

Being part of Europe is not a political choice. It is a geographical reality.

It always was. And until the tectonic plates break up, it always will be.

We will not, as Liberal Democrats in government, weaken the ties that deliver our national interest through Europe.

Let me make another point about our Coalition.

Whatever we think of the Conservative campaign in the alternative vote referendum, and I for one thought that the vilification of Nick was appalling, for Liberal Democrats compromise is not and cannot be a dirty word.

Finding common ground.

Uniting in joint purpose.

Partnership politics.

That is what we had to do – Conservatives and Liberal Democrats – to get this country out of the economic danger zone.

Many countries that have suffered from the debt crisis since then – Portugal, Spain, Italy – had smaller budget deficits than us.

Yet we can borrow money at lower rates than at any time in three hundred years.

This coalition government saved Britain’s credit standing by compromise.

The danger if you don’t compromise is now clear from America.

There the markets looked over the brink when the mad-cap Republican right in Congress would not compromise with the President.

Let that be a warning to the Conservative right here: we need no Tea Party Tendency in Britain.

If you fail to compromise, if you fail to seek the common ground that unites us, if you insist that only you have the answers, if you keep beating the anti-European drum, if you slaver over tax cuts for the rich, then you will put in peril the most crucial achievement of this Government.

You will wreck the nation’s economy and common purpose.

We are all in this together and we can’t get out of it alone.

Vince Cable is one of the few politicians who has been able to break that pattern: warning of doom before the economic crash and being rewarded with public support as a result.

So perhaps it is not a surprise that he took a very downbeat approach yesterday at Liberal Democrat conference, laying out the scale of the economic challenges that any government would face in putting our country’s finances back together again. He soft pedalled achievements such as the expansion of apprenticeships – set to hit record levels by 2014 with at least 250,000 extra places being created.

Instead he emphasised: “But we now face a crisis that is the economic equivalent of war. This is not a time for business as usual; or politics as usual. The financial crisis is still with us.”

The political subtext is that radical financial reform must  be secured – not kicking the Vickers report into the long-grass – and that the habits in some firms of paying huge sums to under-performing managers needs to end – not only for reasons of social justice but also for reasons of economic efficiency. Paying huge sums to someone who is running a firm into the ground doesn’t just raise many people’s hackles, it damages the firm, hurts those who lose their jobs and undermines our economy.

As Vince Cable concluded, “In the Coalition Agreement we promised to put fairness at the heart of all we do as we rebuild our broken economy from the rubble. Liberal Democrats know that you can’t do one without the other.”

Yet there was a significant section about how Liberal Democrat ministers act and his own role:

There are 18 Liberal Democrats who don’t have the luxuries that I do.

They can’t just sound off if they don’t like government policy or trot through the no lobby on occasions – rare occasions – to demonstrate their disagreement.

They are our ministers.

And while I’m parading my conscience around the TV studios saying the right things, they are busy in their departments doing the right things.

On those very, very rare occasions when Michael Gove says or does something stupid or wrong, Sarah Teather doesn’t come out and slag him off. Instead she fixes it.

Free schools for example!

When the Tories showed hesitancy about committing to true and fair banking reforms, Vince Cable laid on the pressure and forced that commitment.

And when George Osborne flew the kite of cutting income tax for the wealthy, Danny Alexander cut the string, and stopped him.