Nick Clegg: popular with the ladies

In the interests of remaining impartial and objective I went to the Liberal Democrat spring conference in Cardiff on the weekend. The political road show moved to the Angel Hotel in the city centre, after the Tory conference in Sophia Gardens three weeks ago.
Party leader, Nick Clegg was taking part in a Q & A with Kirsty Williams, the newly elected Welsh leader. Kirsty wasn’t the only WAG at the event, Jenny Willott MP was there with sidekick Jenny Randerson. Although Labour’s Lisa Stevens would give them all a run for their money.

It was Willott who had reminded me of the conference when we went out for drinks a few weeks ago. Willott is a brilliant MP who has always sought transparency in Westminster as well as fighting against student top-up fees.
Realising that obtaining any new policy was unlikely, we chatted about twitter and facebook instead. It turns out that Westminster MPs don’t actually spend their time poking each other, despite some of the recent allegations.

Because of the combination of no air conditioning in the hotel and a lot of hot air, I headed out to the corridor. It was here I bumped into one of the MEP candidates. He slowly made his way towards me, carrying a glass of red. I asked if he was confident of winning but he wasn’t really sure. ‘There will be such a low turnout that who knows what could happen?’ he said. Before we made our way into the main room he told me to ‘go easy’ tonight, in order to make his speech the next morning.

Clegg arrived with little attention. When Cameron walks into a room, there’s a surge of young toffs in Paul Smith suits and elbow swinging grannies, trying to get closer to ‘Dave’. He has lots of minders and it’s thirty hand shakes a minute as he works the room.

The Q & A was a complete let down. The stage was the worst I had ever seen. If anyone is not familiar with the Lib Dem logo, it looks like they found it on a builder’s yard. You would think that this wouldn’t matter, but it’s the only thing most people could see as Nick and Kirsty answered all the questions from armchairs. No rallying cry or inspirational speech, laid back, a pretty pedestrian performance.

Jenny was a friend of mine

The Lib Dems desperately need a new PR director. ‘In the Loop’ hit the cinemas last week, and the master of PR, Malcolm Tucker shows the Liberals how it’s done. If they are ever going to make an impression at a general election, they need someone to take control and pull the strings. The Tories have clipboard wielding Matthew Lane. He has a much softer approach than Tucker, but is still as effective in organisation.

Only at a Liberal Democrat conference could you be distracted by a crying baby. Who takes a baby to conference? There were also a couple of Cardiff’s finest local talent in the row in front with pints of beer. There wasn’t an open bar at the hotel that extended beyond the wine list so I can only imagine they had come from the Wetherspoons next door.

As I was making my way out to an all you can eat Chinese, I bumped into Clegg. Not really sure of an opener, I remembered that he was friends with Louis Theroux. Nick and Louis went on a road trip together across America after University and Nick said it was the inspiration for Louis’ programmes. As much as I would like to see Louis running the country, I’m glad things worked out the way they did.

That wasn’t the only surprise as the evening was concluded with a pub quiz. If you’re wondering where Nick came, I think he tried hard but ended up third.