Good morning. I trust your jouney home from conference, if you were making one, was uneventful. Today’s birthday boy is Jack Dee, who is 47 today.

Two big stories

It was noticeable on the radio news going home last night that Nick Clegg’s speech had been bumped below the radio equivalent of the fold to various global issues, including Obama and Brown addressing the UN, and the leaked, unconfirmed news of the state visit of the Pope, to happen next year.

But todays’ key stories: Both the Telegraph and the Guardian lead with poor relations between Brown and Obama:

British officials made five attempts to secure official talks with the US President and even agreed to a policy change in an attempt to land a joint appearance between the two leaders, said diplomatic sources.

But the White House rebuffed the offers and Mr Brown, who had hoped to increase his popularity by appearing on his own with Mr Obama, had to settle instead for a snatched conversation with the President in a New York kitchen.

The setbacks led to fears that relations between Downing Street and the White House were at their lowest point since John Major’s frosty dealings with Bill Clinton.

(Telegraph)

Meanwhile, over at the Daily Mail, it seems that the 50p a month levy on broadband users floated as part of the Digital Britain report has now transmogrified into a £6-a-year charge that will be introduced before the General Election:

The tax will subsidise the cost of installing next generation broadband networks in areas where they would not otherwise be economically viable.

Two must-read blog posts

Jonathan Calder brings us news of new styles of campaigning.

The Liberal Democrats are to borrow money to help mount their first direct mailshot as part of an attempt to widen the number of seats they target at the next election to more than 200 – according to aides, their largest number of targeted seats ever …

I’m sure we’ll hear in due course where those 200 will be.

Keighley PPC Nader Fekri highlights the Torys’ terrible record:

Poor old Tory Iain Dale, bleating on his blog about how Chris Huhne has been beastly to the Tories at Conference. Aah Diddums. The Tories under Cameron, appear to have moved to the centre, but have not radically changed their spots since that pestilential woman took over the reins of power. They pander to right-wing Eurosceptics within their own party, and cosy up to neo-Nazis, Holocaust-deniers, and homophobes in Europe.