Clegg needs to find a way out of No Man’s Land

Not many people know this, but next week will be Nick Clegg’s third annual conference as Liberal Democrat leader. It often seems as if he is still awaiting his debut. The last two conferences were overshadowed by falling pieces of financial masonry (Northern Rock then Lehman Bros) and thus the leader was overshadowed by Vince Cable, who was settling in to his role as Sage of Twickenham. Next week Mr Clegg will have to think of how he, personally, can shine.

The Vince phenomenon has been a mixed blessing for the Lib Dems. A party that struggles to find a place in the national debate saw its deputy leader catapulted from relative obscurity to national treasure status. He frequently bested his opposite numbers, Alistair Darling and George Osborne, both strategically and rhetorically. Indeed, a new poll shows that more Tory voters trust Cable than Osborne. Yet for all the plaudits, the best-selling book and the much hailed media appearances, this has had strikingly little impact on the party’s poll rating. Cable appears to be liked by the public because he is a pundit, regarded as above party politics. Mr Cable has been invited to quick-step with pop stars, and write bestselling books. But the Lib Dems, as a party, have benefited very little.

The tragedy, for Mr Clegg, is all the greater because he has been strikingly surefooted in his leadership in the last 12 months. He has helped expose the government over its mistreatment of the Gurkhas, was the first to call on Michael Martin to resign as Speaker, and agitated to cancel parliament’s summer recess in order to clean up politics. Clegg and his close allies can also claim to be leading the policy debate, setting out a school liberalisation agenda before the Tories, and they have gone much further in spelling out how they will cut public spending.