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Ahead of Nick Clegg's speech at the Liberal Democrat party conference, commentators look at what he and his party bring to British politics.

that before his speech Nick Clegg has to think about how the Liberal Democrats have changed. He gives some suggestions:

"Consider the main claims that Liberal Democrats have been in the habit of making. Essential to their appeal has been the idea that they are above politics, a breath of fresh air, somehow cleaner and more trustworthy than the others. Their broken promise on tuition fees, and to a much lesser extent various personal scandals, mean they can no longer rely upon people accepting this."

that before the next election the Liberal Democrats will have to manufacture a split with the Tories. Which is why he is baffled by Nick Clegg's "timidity" so far:

"After four years in government the strains within the coalition are likely to be intense. A divorce would seem kind, and in the best interests of both parties in the runup to an election. Clegg must somehow engineer a disagreement of principle on which to stage a pre-election separation.
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"This makes the intellectual timidity of the Lib Dems in government all the more curious. Why have they been so silent on Cameron's wars? Where are they on the planning reforms, which have left even many Tories mystified and angry? Why are they so lukewarm on localism and hostile to drug law reform? The party accepted the odium of higher "tuition fees", yet failed to take any credit for turning the fees into what they are, a graduate tax."

However, the . He points out the Liberal Democrats have made an impact and looks at what the Conservatives would have done with the coalition:

"The one outright certainty is that a Conservative government would never have called a referendum on the Alternative Vote, and thus, ironically, would not have killed off electoral reform as a political issue so effectively.
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"A Tory government might have been quicker to abolish the 50p tax rate for high earners. There would have been tougher talk on law and order - because David Cameron's original intention was to put Ken Clarke in the office that Vince Cable now occupies - and softer talk on bringing the banks to heel or curbing boardroom pay."

The to prefer the Liberal Democrats to have as little influence as possible as it argues Nick Clegg is deluded in his stance towards the euro:

"Only now, with the Eurozone on its knees, does Mr Clegg grudgingly concede 'with the benefit of hindsight' that if we'd joined the single currency, as he urged, it would have been a 'huge, huge error'.
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"Yet still he persists in his fantasy that Britain's future lies in the euro - while ludicrously speculating that if we'd joined earlier, we might have forced our partners to observe stricter rules."

that the key aspect of Nick Clegg's conference speech will be the attitude he adopts towards the current global economic downturn:

"The anxiety around both Coalition leaders is palpable, and if Vince Cable's lugubrious assessment of the country's position on Monday startled some Lib Dems, it at least served to make public the grim mood inside Government.
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"The Business Secretary could detect no sunlit uplands to point to. It's economic war, he told us, but he could not muster a crumb of Churchillian comfort that we have at least reached the end of the beginning. Nick Clegg, who speaks on Wednesday, and more particularly George Osborne and David Cameron the week after next, must consider whether to match Mr Cable's tone, or whether they can dare inject some optimism into their message."