Michael White on day four of the Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton.
Midnight, Tuesday: Dinner with senior Lib Dems close to Sir Ming Campbell, who remain optimistic that he can ride out controversy surrounding his leadership, though it is not confined to the media here in Brighton. Many old sweats, including me, do not agree: if there is no early election (there won't be), Ming will not last until 2009.
Nick Clegg, who confirmed during an interview with the Observer reporter Andrew Rawnsley this evening that he will probably run when a vacancy occurs, denies claims that he cut a deal with Ming in 2005 not to run now in return for Ming's support next time.
Clegg is far from keen to see Ming quit soon, we are assured over dinner.
In any case Clegg will clearly have a fight on his hands against Chris Huhne, the runner up last time. They are both very bright MPs. Clegg is more personable, but I sense that Huhne - a former Guardian economics writer - is hungrier. And the whisper is: "Is Clegg a bit too Tory for Lib Dem activists?"
Contrary to many reports, Ming and Gordon Brown, though near constituency neighbours in Fife, are not close friends, as Ming was with John Smith from their Glasgow University days. They don't talk much, but Brown was on the phone a lot during the foot and mouth crisis.
7am: I swim in pools all year round, but the sea is the real thing. All week in Brighton, I have been putting it off. "Too cold", "too dark and windy", "too busy".
No more excuses. I cross the front from the Kings Hotel and take the plunge just west of the wrecked West Pier, just as the sun struggles to rise over Sussex Square. Colder than it should be for September in the Channel, but lovely after the initial shock. I have the beach to myself and stay in for 15 minutes.
8.30am: Going through the papers in search of the designated scapegoat for the Northern Rock drama - Alistair Darling, Mervyn King, the Financial Services Authority? McCavity Brown? - I see Matt Ridley's name in the frame.
Who he? Chairman of the Rock, as his father was before him. Not all papers explain that this is because dad is Viscount Ridley, a power in the north-east. The late Thatcherite cabinet minister, Nick Ridley, was Matt's uncle. It seems to be an hereditary chairmanship.
But Matt Ridley is no chinless hered. He is well-known science journalist and the author of well-regarded books on the bio side of things. When I knew him, he was US editor of the Economist, and we covered the 1988 presidential election together. At the Iowa primaries, all stayed in the Holiday Inn on the ring road. It featured prints of 19th century English hunting scenes. After staring at one print, Matt declared: "We own that house."
9.30am: An interesting fact usually emerges during the morning briefing by Ed Davey, the party chief of staff. He attributes the party's 20% share in today's ICM poll for the Guardian (Labour up 1% to 40%, the Tories off 2% to 32%) to greater exposure of their wholesome policies during the conference season.
Actually, the polling was finished on Sunday, just as activists arrived in Brighton but after the Northern Rock crisis was under way. But Davey makes a more telling point when he asserts that David Cameron's poll ratings have been damaged by confusing messages over the summer. He's going the way of Hague, IDS and Howard, he claims, a touch prematurely.
The interesting fact is none of the above, but the transport spokesman Susan Kramer's claim that Lib Dem rail policy will achieve the elusive goal of a huge shift from car to train.
Why so? The secret, Kramer says, is to get all major train journey times cut to between two and two and a half hours: European evidence shows that once you take into account all the hassle of modern airports, a train becomes faster as well as nicer at that sort of high speed. That sounds plausible, although Scots reporters from north of Edinburgh remain sceptical.
10am: Ming is apparently sceptical whether most of the Lib Dems and Tories sucked into Gordon's big tent will last very long. When they walk out in frustration, No 10 will suffer the fallout.
Wily Shirley Williams may be the exception. Before she accepted Gordon's offer to advise on nuclear non-proliferation, she insisted on a letter setting out her brief in precise terms.
When Paddy Ashdown turned down a cabinet post - Northern Ireland - he explained: "I can't support your attitudes towards civil liberties." GB is supposed to have asked: "But could you keep quiet about them?" No.
12.00 noon: Our old Guardian mentor and boss as political editor, Ian Aitken, is 80 today. Colleagues in the press room at Brighton have been sending their best wishes, though he retired 15 years ago.
The veteran commentator, Alan Watkins, still columnising for the Independent on Sunday at a boyish 74, once wrote that Ian had a stronger head for drink than any drinker he knew - and he knew a few. Simon Hoggart and I are happy to reassure well-wishers that he is hale and hearty, still able to sink alcohol in industrial quantities as social situations demand it, unlike so many of the old regulars in Last Chance Saloon.
1.30pm: As the conference battled on today with debates on education (pro) and plastic bags (anti), Chris Huhne has retaliated against what he deemed to be the impropriety of Master Clegg saying ''prematurely'' that he'd run if Ming were to step down. Mr Huhne also denies being a ''Michael Heseltine figure'' - plotting his strategy for decades. Heaven forbid ! Lib Dems plotting !
Clegg has since popped up on The Daily Politics to tell hirsuite Andrew Neil that Ming is ''totally comfortable'' with what he said. It was therefore inevitable that Sir Ming should feel the need to go onj Radio 4's World at One to confirm that he is ''totally relaxed'' about the situation.
What he actually said was "I like young Turks. I was a young Turk myself and that is why I have promoted young Turks - male and female - into the shadow cabinet.'' This could be interpreted as covert support for Clegg's proposed amnesty for illegal immigrants.
There again, by mentioning female Turks Sir Menzies may be encouraging the likes of MPs Sarah Teather, Julia Goldsworthy or Jo Swinson to start campaigning too. Not to mention Chanali Fernando, the 28-year-old barrister who took part in the Lb Dems London mayoral hustings here at lunchtime.
Ex-copper Brian Paddick emerged the strongest contender in the ring against Ms Fernando and Fiyaz Mughal, head of Enfield's CAB, who wants to abolish all stop and search laws. But Ms Fernando was so smart and lovely that even women reporters were impressed. Her dad stood for parliament in 1983. Expect her to do better.
7.00 pm: Ming's people briefed mid-afternoon on the speech the leader will make tomorrow. If Alastair Campbell were doing this sort of thing it would be called spin because the briefers give you a selective extract from the speech - not the full speech. They do it to reinforce the message they want to get across. Fair enough, but the buyer should be wary - and rarely is. Lib Dems do not spin, so it is not spin.
Sir Ming plans to attack the ''cosy consensus'' which aligns Tory and Labour policies on various issues, Iraq, taxation, nuclear power stations and weapons. He has a point though sleights of hand are also involved and the Lib Dem ''real alternatives'' may prove costly or impractical.
Just to see what is on his mind Will Woodward and I negotiate a 5 minute interview in his suite in the Grand Hotel. Does the tactic reinforce voter perceptions reported by the Times /Populus pollsters last week that the Lib Dems are well to the left of Labour - and of public opinion's middle ground.
This is his answer:
"We think they are both authoritarian while we are a genuine liberal party, we think that Labour has moved to a journey to the right under Blair and there's no sense that Brown's departing from that. And as soon as the wind got up and the flags started flying what did our friend Mr Cameron do but tack to the right. We're in exactly the same position.
"I'm a politician in the centre-left, I joined a centre-left party, I'm leading a centre-left party, I make no secret of that. But it's others that have moved, not us, and I think the real divide is between not so much left and right but from liberal and authoritarian. And we are the anti-authoritarian party."
He is cheerful, despite his feisty wife. Elspeth, having a ''Cherie Blair moment'' by ticking off Nick Clegg within sound of an ITN mike and despite having done 60 media interviews this week - enough to drive anyone to drink, though Ming is always careful. He remembers what happened to his Glasgow student debating society chum, John Smith. He dropped dead at 55.
