In anticipation of confernece being a right old punch up this time round...

...I wrote this for the New Statesman. It went down surprisingly well !

It being summer, when the world’s thoughts turn to the key questions of the day, such as why does the unseasonably hot weather make the trains late and when will the royal baby turn up, in Lib Dem land we’re all mentally skipping July and August and embracing the advent of conference season. Yeah, really. Trust me, it will be Christmas before you know it.

While its unlikely that we’ll achieve the chart topping heights of last year's conference (don’t tell me you’ve forgotten already), Glasgow 2013 looks like being a classic and everyone seems determined to get their retaliation in early. On the one hand, we have the party establishment, determined to make us look like a party of government, owning the last three years' agenda and decrying the politics of protest. On the other, we have left of the party, equally determined to divorce ourselves from Osbornomics and make big eyes at Labour (Lib Dem members currently favour a 2015 coalition with Labour over one with the Tories by a majority of 2:1). Of course, there is the odd policy –like Trident – where we’ll be shouting 'a plague on both your houses'….

Meanwhile, we read Nick is preparing to frog march us kicking and screaming into the centre ground of politics, which is a bit rum, really, seeing as he was doing the same last December, and in September 2012, and indeed September 2011. If he spends much more time marching us into the centre we’ll be through the other side before you know it…let’s not give him any ideas.

So, dust ups left, right, and centre (figuratively at least) loom large and some of the joy looks set to return to conference. Votes at Lib Dem conference really mean something – party policy and manifesto content still does get debated and agreed and people really do hold the leadership to account. And that’s all going to kick off in just a few weeks' time.

So as MPs go off on their summer holidays, Lib Dem members are polishing their weapons of choice and dreaming of the leaves turning brown. Glasgow 2013 promises to be a bit of cracker.