Clegg, Cable and cuts

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The Liberal Democrats are likely to emerge from their pre-election conference in Bournemouth in a confident but not celebratory mood.

With Labour languishing in the polls, Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg dismissed talk of coalition government and declared in his keynote address that he was ready to be prime minister.

Concerns that his speech would be trumped by a parallel address by Barack Obama to the UN were perhaps less of a worry for the Lib Dem leader than the danger of being overshadowed by Vince Cable.

Several Ghurkhas were seated in the front row, placed there to remind people of one of Clegg's most high profile triumphs.

At the very least this would have come as a relief to the party staffer tasked with minding them, who had been given the slip by the troop shortly before the speech.

Yet a light hearted call from one MP for a "benign dictatorship of Vince" seems less likely to be realised following Cable's unveiling of plans for a tax on houses worth £1m or more.

It was a policy that the Lib Dem Treasury spokesman failed to discuss with his frontbench colleagues.

Cable was reportedly hauled to a meeting of the parliamentary party in the Marriott hotel to explain himself.

Despite his run-in with colleagues, Cable remained the stand out star of the conference fringe scene, filling rooms with ease.

Not to be outdone, Clegg also maintained a busy fringe schedule for a party leader, and was well received by the audiences including at his discussion with Liberty director Shami Chakrabarti.

Although one young activist seated at the front appeared less than gripped as he switched between applauding his leader and flipping through a copy of the New Statesman. At least he wasn't captured by BBC cameras knitting in the front row of the main auditorium like one member was.

Inevitably the fringe agenda was dominated by talk of public spending. Frontbench MPs were seeking to convince their party's members of the need to be "realistic" about the nation's financial woes and the unavoidable cuts.

Even the helter-skelter at the end of Bournemouth's pier appeared to vanish over Monday night. Cuts have to begin somewhere it seems.

Talk of recession and difficult times ahead also spurred delegates to make the most of complimentary fringe sandwiches and drinks.

But one overly eager attendee spotted attempting to lift four unopened bottles of wine from an event was quickly apprehended.

If Cable was welcome everywhere he went in Bournemouth, the most unpopular figure in the seaside town was beyond doubt Eric Pickles.

The Conservative chairman's suggestion that Liberal Democrats should ditch their party and join David Cameron's cuddly Conservatives was met with a barrage of 'fat' jokes.

Former party leader Charles Kennedy recounted how his young son saw Pickles as the Fat Controller.

And Clegg told a fringe meeting that he had started to feel "somewhat squashed" by the Tory chairman's bid to "love bomb" his troops.

The strong reaction suggested that Pickles touched a nerve amongst the party faithful, revealing worries that many Liberal Democrat voters may switch to Cameron's Conservatives.

Capitalising on inroads in the north, they must also be keeping a close watch on their southern marginals and even their South West stronghold where a Tory resurgence could neutralise any northern gains.

If there was no love lost between Pickles and Clegg, the relations seemed more amenable between an old Labour hand and Liberal Democrat high command

Labour's Charles Clarke and Clegg's chief of staff, Danny Alexander, were spotted enjoying a hearty laugh on the eve of an Evening Standard article in which the former home secretary called for Gordon Brown to stand down with "dignity" before the election.

Perhaps Clarke was giving Alexander a preview.