Politics: Nick Clegg is in better political shape than anyone would have guessed

It is too early to call him the comeback kid of British politics, but Nick Clegg enters the party conference season in better shape than anyone expected him to be four months ago. Back then, his party did not dare put his face on its campaign leaflets. Even Liberal Democrat ministers didn’t expect Clegg to lead the party into the next election.

This is beginning to change. Clegg looks happier than he has in months: the hunted look has gone from his face. Last week, watching him walk through the corridors of the Institute of Contemporary Arts on the way to a party for one of his aides, I was struck by how relaxed he was. A few months ago, it is hard to imagine that he’d have been as comfortable wandering around such a student hang-out.

The Liberal Democrat leader’s mood has been lifted by the beginnings of a recovery for his party. It is still far less popular than it was before he entered into coalition with the Tories, but, according to the polls, its support is no longer vanishing. Better still, the party has been more loyal to Clegg than expected. There’s no talk of leadership challenges or anything like that. This year’s conference will not be a make or break affair for him.

In part, Clegg’s recovery is a consequence of his giving the party what it wanted: distance from the Tories. Following the humiliating referendum loss and the Liberal Democrats’ appalling results in the May elections, Clegg concluded he had no choice but to put space between himself and his coalition partners.

This has involved a fair amount of artifice. The Deputy Prime Minister has posed as the defender of the NHS against wicked free-market Tory reforms, never mind the fact that Clegg had enthusiastically endorsed these same reforms.