The big moment

Well he did it, and did it well. Ming's speech - and for veterans of this party conference it has been long time coming - was worth waiting for. It went down well in the hall, not least because of the jokes, just one of the several key contributions of Sir Menzies young but clearly talented speechwriter Euan Roddin.

They included:

On John Redwood's tax commission: "Would you believe it?Advice from the Vulcan First Officer. Ideas straight from the bridge of the Starship Free Enterprise. Policies, Dave – but not as we know them."

On Boris Johnson: "The blondest suicide note in history"

It was a step change from last year, and some of the passeges were particularly fluent. They pleased the crowd, were delivered well, and lifted the mood in the hall. Delegates will go home happy

Politically it was also interesting, amounting to a rebalancing from last year where the centrepiece was a highly personal attack on David Cameron. This year there was no personal attacks, and the critique of Labour was much sharper. It amounted to a subtle shift further from Labour - providing some comfort to those who think he is too nice about Gordon Brown - and away from demonising the Tories to please left leaning activists.

One footnote: In the dysfunctional way that only the Liberal Democrats can, while every other Liberal Democrat in Brighton was in the hall listening to Ming's speech, the press office was sending out a flurry of releases on subjects as diverse as the flooding and counter terrorism policy. Four arrived in 11 minutes in my inbox. Utterly bizarre