The task of devising a distinctive Lib Dem education policy has fallen to Sarah Teather, one of the great beneficiaries of Sir Menzies' leadership victory.
Katherine Bavage is 28-year-old Lib Dem member Nick Clegg's departing message to Lib Dem conference was easy to anticipate: coalition may have been tough for the party but it remains right for the country.
Farage was the only leader to provoke an emotional reaction, earning laughs and applause from at least two of the male viewers, who had voted Lib Dem and Labour in 2010.
Brooker turned the screw on the Lib Dem leader right from the start of the live show, warning him: "This ain't going to help your poll ratings".
Clegg's warm-up act was Lib Dem president Sal Brinton, who reinforced the sense that this election is becoming a comically unedifying turf war over meaningless bits of vocabulary.
There weren't nearly enough seats, which indicates a Lib Dem commitment to providing their own electoral metaphors.
But even in the best case scenario, one of these policies would be driven to a remote forest location by some psychopathic coalition senior partner, then made to dig its own grave with a Lib Dem campaign pen.
But with cabinet ministers, Labour MPs and Lib Dem activists all warning against excess Lib-Lab intimacy, that may prove a forlorn hope.
"I think the Lib Dem top team and the Conservative top team will still work together very well.
But there is also opportunity in the new fluidity for all those aspiring third and fourth parties that are elbowing their way into the mainstream debate – from the Greens setting their sights on the Lib Dem votes to Ukip (doing the same to the Tories) and assorted nationalist aspirations, most boldly expressed by Alex Salmond.
Louise Mensch Photograph: /BBC Updated at 2.49pm BST Facebook Twitter Google plus Share Share this post Facebook Twitter Google plus close 10.52am BST10 52 This is from the Lib Dem MP Julian Huppert, a member of the Commons home affairs committee.
