‘It’s half time – but we’re 5-0 down’

“It could be worse,” Jo Swinson MP just told the Lib Dem rally – we used to have a “leader charged with conspiracy to murder.” Tim Farron introducing Nick Clegg (no doubt unwittingly) lifted two of Nick Clegg’s speech lines in his intro – about Labour’s failure to apologise for its errors.

I thought the welcome for Nick Clegg pretty subdued. But he warmed them up joking about the video – using all the skills he learnt in school dramas. He joked about persistent thorn and former MP Evan Harris taking ecstasy for a Channel 4 trial – “he’s the highest any Lib Dem has been for two and a half years,” he said. “And he’s still not happy!”

In the substance of his speech, Nick Clegg is hammering home the importance of being in government and the need to see it through.

“This is half-time.” One Lib Dem MP, a former minister, has been muttering about the need to pull out of coalition an early. A current member of the government indicated to me that the talk of an early bail-out from coalition was getting a bit of purchase amongst some MPs. It helps to explain why Nick Clegg and co are pushing so hard on this message. They want to kill off, preferably once and for all, any talk of early withdrawal.

Coalition must be shown, Nick Clegg told his party, to be a form of government that works. It must not descend into “squabbling.” Lib Dems must not “retreat to our comfort zone.” He’s finding it hard to excite the delegates in the room.

The Conservatives are “not all bad” – “really?” someone heckled. He got a briefish standing ovation but I sensed an underlying weariness in the room.

“Half-time,” one delegate said as he walked out, encapsulating the speech message to his friends, “and we’re five-nil down … but you never know.”