Off Brighton pier, several dinghies were enjoying a spectacular run, skimming briskly across the waves.
Inside the stark concrete conference centre, however, the mood among the Liberal Democrats was considerably less buoyant. Julian Brazil, leader of Devon County Council, delivered a blunt assessment of party leader Sir Ed Davey — and it was far from flattering.
Sir Ed had “allowed other parties to go steaming past us,” complained Brazil. “We seem to be peripheral. We’re lacking ambition, we’re lacking courage, we’re not saying things that people can relate to.”
And with that, the conference was under way.
Could the famously patient Liberal Democrats finally be recognising that their 60-year-old leader is not quite up to the job?
After a three-hour lunch break — an astonishingly long interval for a party not especially known for drinking — Sir Ed took part in a question-and-answer session chaired by former Radio 4 journalist Carolyn Quinn. She put Brazil’s concern to him directly, asking about fears that the party was “sleep-walking into irrelevance” under his leadership.
Sir Ed, whose whole strategy is built on sucking up to Labour in the hope that he might become deputy prime minister in a future coalition, did not particularly want to slag off the Government, writes Quentin Letts
There was an immediate problem: Sir Ed’s microphone was barely functioning. The party appeared to be sleep-walking towards inaudibility as well as irrelevance.
Eventually, a technician ventured on stage and handed him a portable microphone that, mercifully, worked.
Once he could be heard, Sir Ed said he had known Brazil for many years. The implication was that his critic had long been a troublesome figure. Davey described him instead as “a good local councillor”.
The apparent message was clear: concentrate on Devon, and do not push the leadership too far. The exchange was met with silence in a hall that was not exactly overflowing.
Conference guest interviewers are not normally expected to subject party leaders to a forensic grilling, but Quinn proved more persistent than most. She raised Labour’s reported proposal for a mansion tax on homes worth as little as £1.5 million, observing that Sir Ed’s constituents in affluent Kingston upon Thames would be paying close attention.
Sir Ed, whose whole strategy is built on sucking up to Labour in the hope that he might become deputy prime minister in a future coalition, was plainly reluctant to attack the Government. Instead, he returned to the subject of Brexit, prompting the familiar, faintly wavering cheers that tend to greet the issue at Liberal Democrat gatherings.
Quinn then challenged him on a more politically hazardous question: did he support retaining the pensions triple lock? Sir Ed said he did. Judging by the show of hands, much of the audience disagreed. The atmosphere suddenly became uncomfortable.
With his forehead furrowed by discomfort, Sir Ed conceded that it was clearly a “controversial matter”. Across the hall, some of the older delegates appeared to be reaching a dispiriting conclusion: their leader was not only dull, but out of step with them too. Brazil, they may have thought, had a point.
Several senior Liberal Democrats — if that is not too grand a description — seemed to have noticed the dissent bubbling beneath the surface.
Daisy Cooper MP delivered the main speech that morning with extraordinary energy. She waved her arms, marched across the stage, flashed her teeth, bounced on the spot and rolled her shoulders as though performing at a disco.
It resembled a Zumba class more than a conventional political address. Could the rapid-fire Cooper, whose manner carries the gravity of a television gameshow scoreboard operator, already be preparing for a possible leadership contest?
Josh Babarinde MP, the party’s president, was also making sure he was noticed. He moved through the conference centre with a floppy-haired aide close behind.
Babarinde adopted a distinctly combative tone, declaring: “We’ve got to flip the table over and rise up!”
My, my, such bar-brawl talk from one so weedy. He looks as if he could barely flip a beer mat.
Ms Cooper, like Sir Ed, kept talking about dismantling Brexit. It’s their go-to response when they have nothing else to say.
She managed to get through her ‘keynote’ speech on the economy without mentioning welfare spending or defence budgets.
Instead, she bellowed about reducing regulation on businesses. That would be a splendid idea, no doubt, but the Lib Dems have seldom seen a regulation they did not like.
