Yes, some times it’s hard to be a coalition

No manifesto pitch, just a plea for us all to show a little love.

Less a speech, more a Tammy Wynette-inspired Stand By Your Coalition whine.

Yes, Nick Clegg has clearly got a little country music in his life, using his conference speech to go over all the things that make the coalition a not very nice place to be, but sticking by it nonetheless.

It’s actually a little hard to see why more people don’t like the Lib Dems.

They do nice things, they say nice things, and they do them at their own loss.

Achingly honest, that’s the problem. Who else but Nick and the Libs would say in their speech Government can’t fix everything?

Who else would have to use a major political speech to tell tales on coalition life, because it just gets too hard to keep it all in sometimes?

Who else would tell you they are against populism?

Nick does a good line in heartache, a country music song writer career is clearly calling.

Outside of that pity me pitch there was actually some steel in the leader.

If you doubt that just look at the last five minutes of his speech, the bit that actually sounded like a leader pitching to the nation.

Soaring rhetoric aplenty there. Just a shame there had to be a sob story of time in office first.