The good, the bad and the jokes

In the end, I’d say Nick Clegg’s speech at the Lib Dem conference was so-so.  The very good parts were offset by the very bad parts, and there was a chunk of neither-here-nor-there material in between.  And all delivered in the now-ubiquitous, walk-around-the-stage-with-no-notes manner.  If you want to read the whole thing, there’s a copy of it here.  I’ll just deal with the two extremes:

The very bad

Clegg’s speech began like a stand-up routine.  And a terrible one, at that.  There was joke, after joke, after joke, at the expense of both Labour and the Tories.  The Government were likened to the “living dead -They are a Zombie government. A cross between Shaun of the Dead and I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue.”  Whilst the Cameroons are “blue – but so are the Smurfs and toilet duck”.  If the audience hadn’t been made up of the Lib Dem faithful, you’d have seen tumble weed roll across the conference centre floor.