THE conference season is over, the party faithful have gone home inspired – hopefully – for the battles ahead and it’s time to sum up what has been learned.

After listening to more speeches than is healthy in Brighton, Manchester and Birmingham, I’ve picked six nuggets:

  •  Nick Clegg really, really hates the Labour Party

MORE important than it seems, because it is a key stumbling block to the unpopular Liberal Democrat leader staying on to fight the 2015 general election.

When Mr Clegg spoke bitterly of Labour’s “mendacity, lies and bile”, I wondered again how he can possibly pose as willing to deal with either David Cameron or Ed Miliband?

I suspect he will go before then.

  •  Vince Cable is gunning to be Lib Dem leader by 2015

THE self-confessed “social democrat” offered long-suffering Lib Dems a tantalising glimpse of a future free from what many still believe are the “nasty” Tories.

Vince argued there would be Coalition again after 2015, that his party would need a leader able to deal with Labour – and left no doubt that his initials should be VC.

  •  The Conservatives no longer believe Ed Miliband is a joke

THE “no notes” speech may have been policy- lite, but the Tories know that a man who can speak confidently for an hour, from memory, can no longer be sniggered at as their “secret weapon”.

The line of attack has already shifted from calling Mr Miliband hopeless, to protesting he has nothing to say on debt and the deficit.

  •  Mr Miliband may be “One Nation” now – but he still wants to end “fast buck” capitalism

SMUGGLED into his speech were pledges to make corporate takeovers harder and end short-termism by scrapping the rule requiring big firms to publish accounts every three months.

This was smack bang back on the controversial “predator vs producer” territory of last year’s speech – but, cleverly, without the ridicule.

  •  David Cameron’s modernisation project is as dead as a parrot

THE themes of the Tory conference – foaming over Europe, a war on welfare scroungers, weakening maternity rights, kill a burglar – would have horrified the green, familyfriendly “hug a hoodie” Mr Cameron of 2006.

The Conservatives are convinced the public are with them this time – but that’s what William Hague, Iain Duncan Smith and Michael Howard thought too.

  •  The Conservatives hope to win by making you miserable

IT sounds crazy – don’t optimists win elections?

– but the strategy is to be depressingly downbeat about our economic plight and the consequent need for swingeing new cuts.

Mr Cameron hopes the contrast with Labour’s ducking-and-diving over the deficit will convince voters – if we haven’t all slit our wrists first.

WE are told the Conservative left wing has been consigned to history, but one man in the North-East is doing his best..

Hexham MP Guy Opperman warned his fellow Tories that they will not bounce back through hardline policies on immigration and benefit scroungers.

He certainly stood out from the crowd.