Verily, Ed Miliband is this Parliament’s Ming Campbell.

Yet that would be a mistake, for in fact Jasper Gerard – a former staff member for Paddy Ashdown and intermittent speech writer for Liberal Democrat leaders – shows far more knowledge of the party’s internal workings than nearly all other writers. Any book that features both Paul Marshall and Duncan Brack in its index, with as many entries for Chris Rennard as for Ming Campbell, shows an understanding of the realities of the internal workings of the party away from the public headline figures in Parliament.

The second thing the title reveals is Gerard’s basic thesis – that Nick Clegg has brought about a major change in the Liberal Democrats, not only taking the party into power but also (and more under his control) changing the party’s policy stance radically towards a much more ‘Orange Book’ stance.

Gerard rightly does not confuse the views of people such as David Laws with those of the Conservatives, but is very clear in his sympathy for what he terms traditional Liberal approaches to public services.

Although his argument is graced with lively, high quality and very readable writing – making Nick Clegg’s family background into an even more exciting tale than Chris Bowers – it does not always convince. The argument that Clegg has carried out an internal coup rests on several key assumptions, each debatable. The party’s approach now to public services is certainly very different than under Charles Kennedy, where the policy approach was to favour having spokesmen with professional expertise in the area who could identify enough waste to free up money for both a smaller deficit (or bigger surplus in the years there was one) and also to spend more on key priorities. It was broadly an unconfrontational approach of cut waste, spend more on priorities and be nice to the professional bodies and union viewpoints – with the one major (and important) exception of Iraq. It was not one of aiming for major changes to British society. Even if the rhetoric sometimes claimed such lofty aims, the detail did not back it up.

However, the approach was widely criticised across the party – and in his own writings, one of the social liberal leaders (until he became a special advisor) Duncan Brack was far more critical of Kennedy’s line of least resistance, unradical approach than any Orange Booker. The reaction against Kennedy was not something forced on the party by a small clique led by Clegg; it was a widespread reaction from across all parts of the party.

Moreover, whilst it is certainly true that the Parliamentary Party’s outlook changed towards a more professional one based on a much greater emphasis on wanting to run the country well (as opposed to being restricted to ambitions for representing a particular geographic community), 1997 is the most plausible key turning point, not only for the infusion of the class of ’97 but for the its impact on attracting those who were elected in subsequent elections.

Had it not been for the Ashdown / Rennard success of ’97, many of those elected in ’01 and ’05 would not have been attracted to seeking a Parliamentary career (including Clegg? Discuss at leisure).

The legacies of 1997 and Charles Kennedy are rather underplayed as Gerard talks up the impact of Clegg. At times reading the book I suspected Gerard was aware of the weakness of his case for although he states if boldly and confidently several times, when he then turns to more detailed narrative, the details almost always support a much more nuanced interpretation – especially when one also factors in the simple fact that the country’s overall economic position was very different by the time of the 2010 manifesto writing from the earlier period, making a shift in policy emphasis hardly surprising. Indeed, Gerard writes of the Ashdown legacy, before backing away from considering its impact on his thesis.

Moreover, look at the four priorities on the front page of the 2010 manifesto and they do not show a particularly Orange Book flavour – the pupil premium (a central funding formula to pump more money into parts of a public service), constitutional reform (a policy interest that can be traced as far back as the party’s predecessors in all their different forms over the centuries), environmentalism (again, hardly new) and tax cuts (but balanced by tax increases; a different tax system but not a move to an overall low tax world). As coups go, that is not much of a return.

And yet, even if you end up thoroughly unconvinced by the ‘coup’, the book is a great read for its stylish commentary which shows both inside knowledge and understanding of the Liberal Democrats. Here is where you will (finally) find in print some accounts of the internal disputes amongst the authors of the Orange Book, an explanation of Danny Alexander’s role and influence and an account of the influence of CentreForum (where perhaps Gerard’s thesis is closest to being right for its influence is much greater than you might gather from the disparaging comments some activists make about it).

Clegg, both in his political skill and his commitment to liberalism, comes out of the book well as do many of his colleagues – David Laws included. Surprisingly, those who come out of it least well are the Liberal Democrat press team who, both implicitly and explicitly at various times, are blamed for failing to handle the media well, too often preferring silence or slowly returned calls to energetic, in your face, defence of the party and its personnel. (That mirrors a criticism the Independent’s Matt Chorley made at a fringe meeting I chaired at the party’s Autumn 2011 conference, where he said the party took too long to realise that when in power it will be written about – the choice is whether to provide journalists with good stories or not; ignoring the media just results in bad stories. Matt did go on to add that it is a lesson the press team have since learnt.)

So whether you are persuading by Jasper Gerard’s argument or not, do give the book a read.

You can buy The Clegg Coup – Britain’s First Coalition Government Since Lloyd George by Jasper Gerard from Amazon here.

New in this month – Ming Campbell and George Potter, plus a welcome return for the two Stephens. Mark’s Liberal Bureaucracy is the one to fall out of the top 100.

Under Wikio’s methodology the overall profile of blogs that tend to support a particular party or cause can become a self-reinforcing cycle because the higher a blog rates the more its links to other blogs count, so those blogs in turn come out higher and hence any links from them back to the original blog count more driving that blog higher and so on.

You can submit a site to be added to Wikio at http://www.wikio.co.uk/addsource.

That in itself was not a surprise, but that does not mean actually securing Lords reform will be easy. Two immediate ways you can support the campaign for House of Lords reform are:

1. by signing up to the Facebook page Liberal Democrats for Lords Reform, and
2. by taking part in the official Parliamentary consultation (it only takes a few minutes).

I gave the final speech in the conference debate, which you can watch here:

The motion was passed overwhelmingly, including the diversity amendment.

You can support the campaign for House of Lords reform by signing up to the Facebook page Liberal Democrats for Lords Reform and by taking part in the official Parliamentary consultation (it only takes a few minutes).

The one opposed by the party leadership was the push by Evan Harris and the Social Liberal Forum to get a health motion restored to the conference agenda. There will be both a Q&A session and a “topical discussion” slot, but they also wanted a conventional motion and vote. Despite a rather poor speech from Simon Hughes opposing this attempt, it failed to get the necessary two-thirds majority. The point though has still been made – and many Liberal Democrat peers will take it as a clear sign that they should stick to their guns in pushing for further amendments to the health bill as it goes through conference.

Peers featured in another rebellion, albeit one that was talked about rather than present at conference. For a group of Lib Dem peers actually oppose the government’s plans to introduce elections for the House of Lords, starting in 2015.

Saturday afternoon’s motion on Lords reform saw a particularly powerful intervention from former party leader Ming Cambpell, whose constituency is the successor to that held by Asquith, Liberal leader when the party secured the first major round of Lords reform a century ago. He bluntly told conference that he could not see how a Liberal Democrat could oppose elections and that, in the words of Nelson, they should do their duty to the country.

That is a theme I returned to in my own speech in the debate, pointing out that there is a clue in the party’s name. We are not the Liberal Hereditaries or the Liberal Appointees For Life, but the Liberal Democrats.

Yet there is a benefit for the party leadership in the resistance of some Lib Dem peers. Political pundits go on endlessly about how leaders should have “Clause 4 moments” when they pick a fight with parts of their own parties. In this case, the reluctant peers have handily offered themselves up in opposition to Nick Clegg and democrats, providing an easy route for the Deputy Prime Minister to garner the benefits of a Clause 4 moment without its usual pains.

(Ming’s got quite a long record of being active on social media, and a success of mine when at Liberal Democrat HQ was getting him on to Facebook shortly after he became the party’s leader. One of the spin-offs from that was a remarkably positive write-up in The Sun – which was almost certainly the most positive write-up that newspaper gave him on any topic during his time as party leader!)

You can follow all 32 of the Liberal Democrat MPs on Twitter via the list I curate at twitter.com/markpack/libdem-mps

The Labour government completely failed to take into account the horrific nature of the crime, the consequences and the sentence imposed when it took the view that it could assist the release of Mr Megrahi.

Equally in Scotland, the Justice Secretary failed to take account of these three significant factors when reaching a conclusion about the exercise of compassion.

If both had paid proper attention, the Labour government would not have been so embroiled and the Scottish Justice Secretary would not have been so easily persuaded.

Neither Westminster nor Holyrood comes out of this affair with much credit.

(Ironically just before this took place, I was in Millbank to appear on the BBC’s Daily Politics Show and was joking with the floor manager about how they were double-checking that I was indeed me. As he said, “After the taxi driver incident…” though actually the taxi driver wasn’t a taxi driver.)

Norman Baker has also been in the news today, having publicly confirmed that he has not yet made up his mind which way to vote (and therefore may resign as a minister, if he decides to vote against rather than abstain).

Charles Kennedy and Ming Campbell’s intentions to vote against have also been firmed up in the last couple of days.

Meanwhile, Greg Mulholland, in an interview on the BBC during which his feet appeared to be on fire (smoke kept on bellowing up from the bottom of the screen), called for the vote on Thursday to be delayed prior to a wider review. So far he is a lone voice on this, and other people who earlier in the year were pondering the merit of a wider review first are not supporting his call.

People have also gone off the idea of trying to unite around a mass abstention, which was the focus of speculation last week.

If you spot any other news on how individual MPs will vote, please do pop them up in the comments thread (but please use one of the other active threads on the subject of tuition fees for general discussion of the issue).

The government says £750m ($1.2bn) will be saved over four years on the Trident nuclear deterrent missile system by cutting the number of warheads on each boat from 48 to 40 and reducing the number of missile tubes from 12 to eight. The UK’s nuclear warhead stockpile will be cut from 160 to less than 120. The final “main gate” spending decision on Trident will also be delayed until 2016 – after the next general election.

Party President Ros Scott has emailed party members, saying

Trident will not be renewed this parliament – not on a Liberal Democrat watch. Let us be clear, this is a significant victory for Liberal Democrat campaigners, and a fantastic example of what our Ministers can and do achieve in government.

But the Coalition Government is not just saying no to replacing Trident this parliament. It is going further. It is also taking important steps towards the goal of multilateral nuclear disarmament. The announcement today sees a 25% cut in warheads.

Today is yet another day that we can all feel hugely proud to be a party of government, delivering key Liberal Democrat priorities.

Ming Campbell commented on the decision saying,

Extending the life of the existing Trident fleet will not only save money in the short term; it will allow the opportunity to keep nuclear policy under review, to explore the possibilities of co-operation with the French, and even to consider other alternatives to like for like replacement of Trident.

The coalition within the coalition which won this decision contains a varied group of people – Liberal Democrats and Conservatives, unilateralists and multilateralists. But it has successfully overcome the strong lobby in the Conservative Party to continue Labour’s policy of rushing ahead with a like-for-like replacement of Trident. From what I’ve heard, it’s been the Liberal Democrat presence in the government debate that has been key to seeing that lobby lose out in the argument.