Agatha Christie famously came to Harrogate to disappear – the Lib Dems have arrived in the North Yorkshire spa town to announce they've arrived.
Two months and a day before the predicted May 5 general election, the party has returned to the conference centre that hosted so many of its conferences during the 1980s when it was still the SDP and later the SDP/Liberal Alliance, and the Liberal Democrats were just a wicked glint in Paddy Ashdown's eye.
Indeed, my taxi driver today told me he'd driven the former leader away from the Harrogate International Centre the day he relinquished the reins of power on Britain's third party – and had to hand the ex-marine a box of tissues.
Now 1,000 or so focused and optimistic activists, delegates, MPs and councillors are expecting to use the spring gathering as a "platform" for a massive electoral breakthrough – if only the press were here to record it.
Unfortunately, with freak snowstorms bringing a white-out to London this morning, the 2.30pm press briefing for journalists had to be postponed as only your Guardian Unlimited representative and the northern correspondent for Channel Four had made it to Harrogate.
The rest of the lobby were stuck on a train somewhere south of York, while Charles Kennedy himself was elsewhere, campaigning in Rochdale. Harrogate all of a sudden seemed entirely the wrong place to be, with the conference centre not opening its doors until three and the press officers also yet to make it into town.
The leader - unfortunately not accompanied by his eight-month pregnant wife Sarah - finally made it, 35 minutes late, making a slow start on winning over the hearts and minds of frozen hacks braving the Arctic wind blowing in off the moors.
.png?w=600)
