A tale of three cities

Conference Season: for people watching it on telly, it is noise coming from Huw Edwards’s face, with pictures of people waving. For the rest of us, the devil has blown into town. First come the Lib Dems, in Brighton — the only party sentimental enough to think of candy floss and helter skelters and then of politics. Lib Dems are damp, think damp, love damply: they haven’t been happy since 2010, when power fell on them like a book. Power disorientates them; they have the bewildered look of sheep forced to do algebra. They hate the Tories in their damp way, and only really sit up for Palestine, suddenly aggressive herbivores. There is a party: the Lib Dem Glee Club, in a cavernous room in a hotel, with pink light that makes everyone look like pink zombies, but knitted. A song book is offered — covers rewritten with Lib Dem lyrics; it is probably their manifesto.