Nick Clegg
The Lib Dems are gathering for their annual conference; the first of the main parties to do so. The timing is unfortunate to the extent that the new Labour leader is not to be known until the following week. This will determine the nature of Labour over the next few years. As the smallest of the big parties the nature of the other two bigger parties is important to Liberal Democrats. Or is it?
Certainly a party without a leader is hard to define. Will Labour move left under Ed or stay centrist under David? To the Lib Dems, does it matter? Not as much as some commentators and many Lib Dems think. When Nick Clegg walks before them in Liverpool, he will be delivering what every other leader since Lloyd George has failed to do. Government.
Yes, they will need to rub their eyes. They lost a few seats at the General Election, but Nick has done what no other member of the heirachy would have got near to doing. He has put five of them into the Cabinet and swung the Tory party from the path of the hard nosed right, back to its liberal left. The nature of the coalition government is nothing like the blueprint of the immediate past. It goes right back to Macmillan, Churchill and Chamberlain. Thatcherism is a memory, wistful to some. Liberal Conservatism is back. This changes the nature of the political game.
It has happened because of Nick. It has also happened because David Cameron is at heart and was brought up in the tradition of Liberal Conservatism. There is probably no difference in the political philosophy of Nick and David; such as we see, is because each leads a party to which respect has to be paid. For the Liberal Democrats this is an historic moment to savour. They must be careful not to throw it away. If they do it will not return.