TWO depressing studies should send an icy shiver down Labour spines, as the party basks in healthy pre-conference poll leads. The first warned that another £14bn of spending cuts will be required in the next parliament – on top of £10bn already earmarked – because of the tanking economy.

The second found that, even if healthy growth returns, living standards for low and middle-income households will slump all the way through to 2020.

A lack of skilled jobs in administration and manufacturing suggests a bleak future for the bottom half of earners – while the top half, outrageously, scoops greater riches.

These projections pose huge questions for all parties, but they are most urgent for Labour, which yearns to spend more money on better public services and on helping the less well-off.

David Cameron’s woes – and an electoral system that strongly favours Labour – combine to make Ed Miliband the most likely next Prime Minister.

But the worrying scenario is the shortest political honeymoon in history, as voters desperate to escape years of austerity find their lives getting even worse. Two words lay bare the grisly fate of any politician who fails to prepare the ground and breaks campaign promises. Those words are Nick Clegg.

As the Labour faithful packs for Manchester this weekend, it appears that Mr Miliband’s party has barely started work in this crucial area.

True, the Labour leader has vowed to change the “fast buck” business culture he blames for the crippled British economy and for the depressing outlook for this decade.

And he has promised “pre-distribution”, measures to create a German-style fairer society in the workplace, rather than relying on redistribution of tax revenues.

But it’s fair to say that the plans are little more advanced than my dreams of penning a novel to trouble the Booker Prize judges.

Indeed, Blairite critics fear it’s worse than that, whispering that Labour’s rising poll ratings have allowed Mr Miliband to avoid difficult choices and slip into a union-friendly comfort zone.

That would surely be a terrible mistake. In the months and years to come, the Conservatives will mount a ferocious assault on the Labour leader as his party’s weak point.

He will be attacked as a big-spending ally of Gordon Brown who shares the blame for the crash, and who will repeat that terrible error.

And, they will say, he is geeky to boot. Mr Miliband must prove he is ready for 10 Downing Street – starting in Manchester, next week.

The woman serving tea and coffee at the Lib Dem conference muttered: “Everyone hear is so rude.”

Hunting a scoop, I asked: “Was anyone in the Government rude?” Staring at me as if I was mad, she replied: “I’ve no idea who’s in the Government.”

I POPPED into the Glee Club, the traditional curtain call for the Lib Dem gathering, where the beard-and-sandals brigade sing hymns for land taxes. The bits I heard were all very innocuous, but the songbook raised eyebrows for its twist on American Pie, that old Don Maclean favourite.

The lyrics read: “So bye-bye to the great Lib-Lab lie. That it’s made in heaven. ‘Cos that’s pie-in-the-sky.”