Press Gang

Scan page 3

"UNTIL now disgruntled Tories have had nowhere plausible to go. They have been able only to relieve their disquiets by casting a protest vote for the Liberals. But at the next election they may be able to vote for a genuine alternative, a coalition that could hold real political power"

That was the Sunday Times at the end of a week which had seen the press taking the Liberal Party conference seriously for the first time in living memory.

It was forced to - if only because it could find little consolation in the Thatcher reshuffle.

After a flurry of enthusiastic puns of the 'Wets Dried 'Out variety, and some satisfaction that at last trade union members would be slapped in proper handcuffs by the new unemployment minister, Tebbit, inflation figures showed an unmistakable upward trend.

Even the truest blue Tory rag began to have festering doubts as to whether Thatcher would still be cracking the whip after the next election.

Derek Brown in the Guardian Invuntu we 1v»v introd the nnet.algia of ''the brave old days before the mould was broken" at Liberal conference.

"Now the last man to have spelled David Steel with a final E has gone to the great telephone box in the sky. And the sight of an entire smear of reporters fast asleep on the assembly press bench is no more than a folk memory".

Did we not know it! Pictures of Shirley and Dayid, David and Shirley. Jokes about living together and modern marriages. Jokes about Mrs Steel not using the Downing Street paper (a little close to the knuckle; the gang of four do not see Steel as the man in number 10 even after the second coming).

The Liberal leaders wore their heavyweight. cloaks like children dressing up in parents' clothes. After years of being treated as sandal-clad irrelevancies, they are suddenly statesmen la notable absence of stateswomen in this future cabinet).

It is of course a commonplace that the SDP is being groomed as a reliable alternative to the Tories. But it is one thing to recognise. that abstractly and quite another to watch it be put into action.

Indeed, even while Liberals were being bo ed by the press, it was cl that they are forever des ed to play second fiddl the SDP.

The lion's share of pu city went to the SDP k ers, just for turning up, vultures landing on throats of their victims.

Steel clearly thoughl was the new Mess but in fact he was cas Fleet Street as John Baptist, whose main vi was being on good te with those who were come.

The real contempt which the Tory press holds the Liberals most clearly shown! the conference voted oppose Cruise and Tri missiles.

The only relevance resolution had to the i ent political situation whether it would c embarrassment to Ste his dealings with Rod Williams, and the rest.

Still, it was by over ing little difficulties inconvenient confer votes that the SDP trot became the superstars are today.