Nick Clegg’s conference speech – live coverage

All the news from the last day of the Lib Dem conference including Nick Clegg’s keynote address 3.52pm: Clegg is now winding up. 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. That’s it. He’s finished. I’ll post a quick round-up of reaction before writing a summary. 3.46pm: Clegg turns to the riots. This summer, we saw the consequences of a society in which some people feel they have no stake at all. He renews his call for a rehabilitation revolution and community payback projects. 3.43pm: Clegg says some people claim that it’s futile trying to extend opportunity. 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 . That last sentence is quote from John Stuart Mill, a colleague tells me. (Clegg’s chief of staff, Richard Reeves, has written a biography of Mill.) 3.41pm: Clegg says giving opportunities to children is his passion. 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. He says he was lucky. I know I have had all the advantages – good school, great parents. I was lucky. But it shouldn’t be about luck. Other children need these opportunities. 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 . 3.39pm: Clegg says he has learnt a lot in the last 500 days. In government, every single day brings hard choices. You can quickly lose your way unless you are certain of your cause. That’s why it’s important to remember the convictions that brought you into politics. 3.37pm: Party leaders like to rattle of a list of achievements. Here’s Clegg’s list. 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. He also mentions some of the announcements from this week’s conference. And he says that the Lib Dems have not dropped their commitment to the environment, even though the pollsters say climate change has dropped down people’s list of concerns. 3.35pm: Clegg turns to the Conservatives. He does not mention them by name, but he criticises their stance on the NHS and on the Human Rights Act. 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. 3.34pm: Clegg offers a challenge to Miliband. 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. That’s a reference to the recommendations we’ll be getting from the committee on standards in public life, which is publishing a report on party funding later this autumn. 3.31pm: Clegg turns on Labour again. 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. (There’s a surprising amount of anti-Miliband rhetoric in this speech. He seems to have mentioned Miliband more than almost all the other conference speeches put together.) 3.30pm: Clegg says the Lib Dems predicted the problems that would afflict establishment institutions like the City, the media and parliament. 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. 3.29pm: Clegg says the Lib Dems act for the whole nation. They are not in the pocket of vested interests, he says. 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 the Lib Dems can take decisions in the national interes, he says. “Not easy, but right.” (That’s the refrain running through the speech.) 3.27pm: Clegg says the new economy must be run for ordinary people, not big finance, “after the so-called masters of the universe turned out to be masters of destruction instead”. That’s why Clegg wants to see a payback to every citizen when shares in the nationalised banks are eventually sold. 3.25pm: Clegg says the government’s biggest concern is the economy. The recovery is fragile. Every worker, every family knows that. There is a long, hard road ahead. Clegg says the government will do “more for growth and for jobs”. And he cites some of the stepts being taken by Lib Dem ministers. We are here to build a new economy. A new economy safe from casino speculation. That’s why a Liberal Democrat business secretary [Vince Cable] 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 [Chris Huhne] 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 [Danny Alexander] 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 3.24pm: Clegg pays tribute to Simon Hughes, the Lib Dem deputy leader. 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. 3.23pm: Clegg says the Lib Dems have failed to show people that the new tuition fees system will be “much, much better than people fear”. 3.21pm: Clegg turns to the tuition fees debacle. He says that he saw the anger and that he knows how much damage was done by what happened. 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. (This is debatable, to put it politely. The real problem for the Lib Dems was not so much the policy, but the fact that Clegg and others had been photographed before the election signing a National Union of Students pledge saying they would not vote for tuition fees if they were elected.) 3.20pm: Clegg says another term of Labour would have been “a disaster for the economy”. 3.19pm: Clegg says Labour have accused the government of cutting too far and too fast. But if Ed Miliband and Ed Balls, they 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. (This is an echo of Gordon Brown’s “no time for a novice” speech to the Labour conference in 2008. But I’m not sure it really works. Miliband and Balls were back room boys, but they’re not now. Balls is hardly ever off the airwaves.) 3.16pm: Clegg says people need to know about the character of their party. And they proved something about their character last year when they had to decide whether or not to go into coalition after the election. It would have been “easy” to sit on the opposition benches. And that might have made them more popular in the short term. “But it would not have been right.” 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. And Clegg launches into a Neil Kinnock moment. 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. It is, of course, a deliberate echo of Kinnock’s anti-Militant speech at the Labour conference in 1985. 3.16pm: Clegg says the government faces hard choices every day. For liberals, the litmus test is always the national interest. Not doing the easy thing. Doing the right thing. And he has a joke about his predecessor (and mentor). 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. 3.15pm: Clegg says his party has fought for liberal values for a century and a half. (It’s the second time he has made the point that the Lib Dems are not a new party, but a new incarnation of the Liberal party that emerged in the nineteenth century.) 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. 3.14pm: Clegg says liberals are particularly needed now. 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. 3.13pm: Clegg says he will not rest until the Lib Dems have won back all the seats they lost in May – “and some more besides.” That receives the first prolonged burst of applause. 3.12pm: Clegg says the Lib Dems are being “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. But “adversity tests the character”, he says. The Lib Dems came out fighting. The Lib Dems are “not doing the easy thing, but doing the right thing.” “Not easy, but right,” he repeats, just for good measure. 3.11pm: Clegg mentions one candidate in particular. 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. (Actually losing wasn’t part payment for ending child detention. The child detention policy almost certainly had nothing to do with the Lib Dem defeat in the local elections.) 3.09pm: Nick Clegg starts by saying that the Lib Dems have been in government for 500 days. He pays tribute to the councillors who lost their seats in the local elections. 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. 3.08pm: Nick Clegg is about to speak now. They are showing a video of what he has been doing in government. 2.59pm: Don Foster is doing a fund-raising appeal. His jokes are at least funnier than Sarah Teather’s. 2.39pm: Nick Clegg is due to start his speech at about 3pm. Tim Farron is doing a warm-up now. I’m following the speech from the TV in the press room. My colleague Paul Owen is watching in the hall and he will be tweeting throughout the speech. You can follow him on the Guardian Politics Twitter feed (@GdnPolitics). 2.03pm: My colleague Paul Owen has just been to an Ipsos Mori event on the Lib Dems’ poll ratings. The crowd of Lib Dem activists in the Hyatt hotel were in a giddy mood, perhaps looking forward to Nick Clegg’s speech this afternoon, but Ipsos Mori soon burst their bubble. Ben Page of the polling organisation said: “When I saw the data I thought: ‘I’m glad I’m not presenting it because I wanted to get out of here in one piece.’” His colleague Gideon Skinner, who was presenting the information, confided that he was “slightly nervous”. Skinner started with the headline figures for September 2011: Labour 37, Conservative 35, Lib Dems 13. The usual cycle was for Lib Dems to go up at election time, and down in between, but even so “your level now is lower than we usual see in peacetime”, Skinner said, “and there is no guarantee that the upside of the cycle … will be repeated next time.” Skinner said 62% of 2010 Labour voters and 61% of 2010 Tories were still planning to vote that way again. But for the Lib Dems the figure was only 30%. Fully 58% of 2010 Lib Dems now said they would not vote for Clegg’s party. This was “not just a random group of voters who have gone”, said Skinner, “it’s a very clearly defined group who have gone. It’s not an age group or a particular class but a group of voters who share a set of values … the soft-left group.” Lib Dem defectors admired Tony Blair the most from a list of recent leaders, while those Lib Dems staying put preferred Margaret Thatcher. 60% of Lib Dem voters agreed that it was more important to stand up for one’s principles than to compromise, and as such, Skinner said, “you’ve lost some of your distinctiveness in terms of being a party in principle … but you haven’t gained on the upside. You’re bottom in terms of parties fit to govern.” He said that the party faced a choice: “Is it about trying to win [the lost voters] back or building a new centre-ground identity?” His conclusion was: “On current standing if there was a snap election the Tories would probably survive it, but I’m not sure the Lib Dems would.” Lib Dem campaign guru Lord (Chris) Rennard said that “trust, once lost, is very hard to regain”. But more important was competence. People stopped trusting Tony Blair after Iraq, he said, but they continued to respect him – and continued to vote for him. Simon Hughes, the Lib Dem deputy leader, said: “Under our system, we win elections by seats not percentages. It’s a bottom-up system whereby we gain territory and hold it.” But his conclusion sounded persuasive: “Everything will depend for us on whether we can help get the country out of this economic mess.” 1.00pm: Here’s a lunchtime summary. • Simon Hughes, the Lib Dem deputy leader, has said that the debate about the health bill is “by no means over”. In an interview on the BBC’s Daily Politics show he said: “I think we need to absolutely tie down that the private work of the NHS in any hospital cannot become the dominant financial or practical activity. That is most important.” In a debate in the conference hall on the health plans, the Lib Dem MP Andrew George said the Lib Dems could be ruined as a party if there were not further changes to the bill. “I want to do my best to save the NHS from what I believe may be a catastrophic train crash, which I fear may take the party with it,” he said. Another Lib Dem MP, John Pugh, said the health bill plans were taking the Blairite model for the NHS “to its logical, ultimate and slightly disturbing conclusion”. Norman Lamb, Nick Clegg’s chief parliamentary adviser, said that the government was “open to further changes” on the bill. “If the bill can be improved, then that can happen in the House of Lords,” he said. “And remember, what bill goes through the House of Lords these days without getting significantly changes?” • Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, has insisted that the government will stick to its deficit reduction plan despite a downgrading of the UK economy growth forecast by the International Monetary Fund . In an interview on the Today programme, he denied that the government was planning a £5bn economic stimulus and said that Britain’s biggest asset was a government with a “clear plan” for getting the country’s deficit under control. Chris Huhne, the energy secretary, has also played down reports that the government is planning a £5bn stimulus. But he said the government needed to be “more creative and imaginative about ideas to boost growth”. (See 9.33am.) • Nick Harvey, the Lib Dem defence minister, has criticised the pace of political development in Afghanistan. Speaking in a Q&A on interntional issues, he said: “I believe we are on task with the development of the Afghan national security forces to make that transfer of power by the end of 2014. But the problem in Afghanistan is a political one and it is only capable of being resolved through a political solution. I am probably more optimistic that we are on course on the timetable for the military aspect of what we are doing than I am confident that we are on timetable on the politics of the situation.” • Kirsty Williams, the Welsh Lib Dem leader, has accused Labour of irresponsible spending in Wales. In her conference speech she said: “Unlike most families and businesses, the Welsh government has the luxury of spending money handed out by others. Like the wayward teenager, left school, still living at home. Frittering money away, but complaining that the regular handouts are too stingy. That is Labour’s devolution. The lack of ability to raise money breeds an irresponsibility about how that money is spent.” • Tim Farron has said that, if he were invited to join the government as a minister, he would refuse because he would want to carry on as Lib Dem president instead. (See 9.20am.) 12.35pm: After five days of prolonged exposure to the Liberal Democrats, I would hate to go home thinking that I hadn’t learnt anything new about where they are as a party, and where they’re going. I’ve been wracking my brains. And here are the 10 things I’ve learnt at the Lib Dem conference. 1. Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems are definitely not “going wobbly” on the coalition. They’re in it for good. After their brutal drubbing in the local elections, you might expect them to have second thoughts. But they’re not. Tim Farron has made it clear that the reference in his speech to the coalition coming to an end after three or four years was not intended to mean that the coalition could collapse, and Lib Dems at all levels of the party are saying – in public and in private – that they are signed up with David Cameron until May 2015. 2. Morale is actually rather good – for reasons that are not particularly obvious. The normal assumption in British politics is that there’s a direct correlation between the morale of a party and its standing in the opinion polls. After this conference, that assumption is going to have to go. They’re actually quite chipper in Birimingham. Some Lib Dems are saying that that’s because they’re now doing better in the polls. For example, Farron said in his speech that the poll ratings had “shot up from absolutely diabolical to just slightly depressing”. If they really believe this, they’re deluded. As you can see from the figures on the YouGov tracker, or the chart showing all this year’s polling numbers on the UK Polling Report website, the Lib Dems have essentially been stuck on very low single figures all year. Perhaps mass insanity explains the positive atmosphere. But I think there are other reasons. Which takes us on to … 3. The Lib Dems are now confident that they exercise real influence within the coalition. At their conference last year the Lib Dems said they were having an impact on coalition decisions, but I’m not sure that they really believed it. Now, after the rewriting of the health bill, they definitely do. The Tory MP Nadine Dorries has helped to persuade them too. There have been numerous references to her question at PMQs earlier this month about how Nick Clegg was too powerful. It’s hard to think of anyone else who has done so much to thrill the Lib Dems with just two sentences. 4. The Lib Dems are showing that being in coalition doesn’t necessarily stop a party asserting its independence. After the coalition was formed there were anguished debates about whether the Lib Dems (or the Conservatives) could advocate their own, distinct policies without undermining the coalition. Not any more. As John Harris explained earlier this week , the Lib Dems still use their conference for proper, hard-edged policy making and this week they have been voting for a raft of non-coalition policies covering issues like welfare, eduction, drugs and nuclear power. We don’t know yet how prominent any of these measures will be in the Lib Dem manifesto. But now they can easily make the case that they’re different. 5. There is no threat to Clegg’s leadership. Any other party that had seen its poll ratings halve over 16 months would awash with people plotting to get rid of the leader. But that has not been happening in Birmingham. If Clegg wants to fight the next election, it seems as if no one is going to stop him. 6. But the thought of standing down before 2015 does seem to have crossed Clegg’s mind. Clegg has issued a very firm denial of the Daily Mail story suggesting that he had promised his wife Miriam that he would only serve one term. Yet we haven’t just had a straightforward denial. We’ve also had a wild attack on the Mail , some odd comments about not being able to predict the future, a refusal to say what he has told his wife about the matter and an over-the-top assertion that the Mail story is “2000% no true”. All of this suggests to me that that there is – or was – something in all this, and whether or not to stand down in 2015 has been a subject of discussion in the Clegg household. 7. If Clegg really does want to get rid of the Lib Dems’ “fluffy bunny” tendency, he still hasn’t entirely succeeded. The “Clegg standing down” suggestion came from a new biography of the Lib Dem leader by the journalist Jasper Gerard which argues that Clegg is trying to turn the Lib Dems from a “fluffy bunny” party for people who like permanent opposition into a centrist party of government. Broadly, this is what is happening. But the Lib Dems haven’t become completely conventional and this week they voted for a review that could lead to a partial decriminalisation of drugs, called for a ban on page 3 girls, spent an hour debating the rules on blood donation for men who have sex with men, and proposed the establishment of a happiness quango. There’s still a streak of non-conformist wackiness in this party that makes it unique. 8. The Lib Dems aren’t getting any closer to Labour. The Lib Dems might feel less warm about the Conservatives than they did last year, but there is no evidence that this is making them any more pro-Labour. They haven’t got anything particularly nice to say about Ed Miliband, and it is hard to imagine any ministers who have signed up to George Osborne’s economic strategy ever working in harmony with Miliband and Ed Balls. That said, there is some obvious potential for policy overlap. If Miliband were to wholeheartedly back the Lib Dem mansion tax idea at Labour’s conference next, the dynamics of British politics could start to look different. 9. If there’s another hung parliament, what the Lib Dems do will be determined by the numbers, and not by ideology. Given that there seems to be a good chance that there will be another hung parliament, journalists have spent the week trying to work out whether the Lib Dems would prefer a coalition with Labour or another term with the Tories. But I’m starting to think that that’s a waste of time. Whenever you ask ministers and MPs about this, they keep coming back to the point that it will depend on the election results and the number of seats each party has in the House of Commons. As far as I can tell, personal and ideological preference will only count for about 20% if the Lib Dems have to take a decision of the kind; 80% of it will be about the numbers. 10. Tim Farron must be favourite to become next Lib Dem leader if the coalition fails. Farron has had fairly good week. Some parliamentary colleagues find him sanctimonious and irritating, but he has now firmly established himself as the pre-eminent candidate from the left in any future leadership contest. If the coalition parties do badly at the next election – perhaps because the economy is still in dire straits, and government ministers are getting the blame – then it is hard to see how Chris Huhne, Vince Cable or anyone else could beat him in a leadership contest. 11.30am: Lord Ashdown (left), the former Lib Dem leader, told the conference during the Q&A on international issues that the Lib Dems should speak out more in favour of internationalism. I’ve taken the quote from PolitcsHome. In our natural and inevitable concentration on domestic issues, we are losing a real trick: internationalism is one of the distinguishing features of our party, and it has never ever ever been more important. There are no solely domestic issues: every issue has an international quotient … We’re losing a trick here. We have got to spend much more effort getting across our international credentials. Ashdown also said that repatriating some powers from the European Union – as advocated by the Tories – would be “a very dangerous move”. 10.34am: Michael Moore , the Scottish secretary, has just delivered his speech to the conference. Here are the main points. • Moore said that the Lib Dems would make a “strong and positive case” for Scotland to remain in the UK. Using hard facts, not hysterical language, to argue for a strong Scotland in a modern UK. And it is right that we should do that. Those who want to turn their backs on Britain are passionate about their cause. We must be equal to that passion, but ahead of them in the arguments. We must show – we will show – that the nations of our country are stronger together and poorer apart. • He said the Scotland Office was setting up a Scottish Trade and Growth Board. It would contribute to the UK growth review, using expertise from representatives of key sections of the Scottish economy, he said. • He said the government would only agree to further changes to the Scotland bill if they had cross-party support and did not prejudice the broader interests of the UK. 9.53am: You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here. And all the politics stories filed yesterday, including some in today’s paper, are here. As for the rest of the papers, here are two stories that are particularly interesting. • Sam Coates and Roland Watson in the Times says Nick Clegg wants a bigger role for the Lib Dems in the Home Office after the next reshuffle. Nick Clegg is preparing to ask for a bigger role for his party at the Home Office as Liberal Democrats brace themselves for the first major reshuffle. Allies of the Deputy Prime Minister suggest that the party feels exposed over law and order issues, especially after last month’s riots, where the coalition partners’ instincts took them in different directions. The Lib Dems are prepared to trade the senior role occupied in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by their Minister Of State Jeremy Browne for a beefed-up job under Theresa May. • David Laws tells the Independent in an interview that entrepreneurs would leave Britain if they thought the 50p tax rate was not going to be abolished. If you got stuck with the 50p rate of tax for a long period, particularly if people felt it was permanent, then there is a risk not only that some people might decide to resite overseas, but particularly that where firms and leadership teams face a choice of coming to the UK or some other business centre, that they might not opt for the UK. My own view is that they are unlikely to take that decision. 9.33am: Chris Huhne , the energy secretary, has been giving interviews this morning. He has also tried to knock down reports that the government is planning to put a £5bn stimulus into the economy. I certainly don’t recognise any proposals of the nature that’s been reported, that there’s a £5bn or £6bn proposal for any increase in spending. In fact, one of the great achievements of the government has been to get the deficit down and get us out of the danger zone, despite the fact that we have a much bigger budget deficit than a lot of the countries that have been through crises. We have got the credibility to get it down and we haven’t been sucked in to the crisis that has affected Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Greece.That is an enormous achievement and we shouldn’t do anything to imperil that. What we can do is to be more creative and imaginative about ideas to boost growth and that is going on within government. 9.20am: Tim Farron , the Lib Dem president, was also on the Today programme today. He did not get asked about the leadership – we flogged that subject to death yesterday, I suspect – but he had some other interesting things to say. I’ve taken the quotes from PoliticsHome. • Farron said that if he were invited to join the government, he would refuse. But he said this was not because he disapproved of the coalition. [Lib Dem ministers] are making an enormous difference and it is important that I support them, and I do. The way things have worked out I stood to be elected as the party’s president so I am appointed for a two year period. I have chosen that instead of being a minister. • He said that the Lib Dems prevented the election of a majority Conservative government. If they had not gone into coalition, there would have been a second election in 2010 which David Cameron would have won, he said. • He refused to say whether the Lib Dems should form a coalition with Labour or with the Tories in the event of another hung parliament. Next time we do what we did last time. The largest party in a balanced parliament has the right to lead and start negotiations and whoever that is – I would love it to be us – should prevail. 9.02am: It’s the final day of the Lib Dem conference and the economy is dominating the news. Danny Alexander, the chief secretary to the Treasury, has just been on the Today programme trying to knock down a BBC report saying that ministers are discussing how to inject an extra £5bn into the economy. “I don’t recognise what they are apparently talking about,” Alexander said. We are not changing our spending plans. These spending plans have been set out in our spending review, they are an integral part of our deficit reduction plan. We have set out the spending plans that we have and we are going to live within them. Given that Vince Cable and Chris Huhne have both been talking up the need to find a way of getting a stimulus into the economy , this could be perceived as an internal Lib Dem row. But Alexander insisted that the government was already committed to getting money into the economy. “As Nick Clegg was saying last week, I am engaged with my cabinet colleagues to make sure that the projects we have funded – for example investment in transport – that those projects are delivered on time and on budget,” Alexander told Today. “We are making sure we are only allocating capital resources to most economically valuable projects.” Nick Clegg is speaking after lunch and that will be the main event of the day. But here’s the full agenda. 9am: Delegates debate changes to internal party election rules. 9.30am: A debate on the Arab Spring. 10.15am: Michael Moore , the Scottish secretary, delivers a speech to the conference. 10.35am: Paddy Ashdown , the former Lib Dem leader, Jeremy Browne , the Foreign Office minister and Nick Harvey , the defence minister, take part in a Q&A session on international issues. 11.20am: Kirsty Williams , the leader of the Welsh Lib Dems, delivers a speech. 11.40am: A debate on the progress of the health bill. But there is no motion, and there will be no vote. 2.30pm: Nick Clegg closes the conference with his keynote speech . As usual, I’ll be covering all the conference news, as well as looking at the papers and bringing you the best comment from the web. I’ll also be putting up a “10 things we’ve learnt from the Lib Dem conference” post. I’ll post a summary at lunchtime, and another after Clegg has finished. Liberal Democrat conference Liberal Democrats Liberal Democrat conference 2011 Nick Clegg Andrew Sparrow guardian.co.uk

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