TODAY IN A SENTENCE CONFERENCE CATCH-UP JOHN PIENAAR'S VIEW

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHTS QUOTES OF THE DAY PHOTO OF THE DAY

Debates on the part privatatisation of the Royal Mail and the party's commitment to a 50% top tax rate fuel talk of a move to the right.

Vince Cable urges delegates to back fairer, not higher, taxes during a debate on their taxation policies.

The unrest against UK troops in Basra shows Iraq is moving towards civil war, Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy fears.

The leadership proposal to sell-off the Royal Mail was rejected by delegates who sent it back to be revisited.

Education spokesman Ed Davey gets backing for his call for schools to introduce house systems.

One reason I always enjoy the Liberal Democrat conference, well, nearly always, is that the Lib Dems enjoy it so much themselves.

They're mostly well meaning, they're earnest without losing their sense of humour, and one way or another they're keen to do something useful and constructive. Bless them.

Trouble is, this is one of those years when they can't quite make their minds up how to go about it. Promise to raise taxes, for example? Or maybe promise to cut them? Oppose Tony Blair's public service reforms? Or maybe join the modernisers' chorus?

The confusion is easy to understand; there'll be a new prime minister before the next election, and a new Tory leader in a few weeks. So how do the Lib Dems fit it?

Well, one way, of course is to stick to what they do best: attack Labour's policy of getting tough with terrorist suspects and fanatics, and lead the protests on Iraq. But even on that subject, on Monday the party seemed to be coming to terms with a grim new reality. Charles Kennedy got the loudest applause when he demanded to see the government's exit strategy - and quickly.

But even before the applause died down his foreign affairs spokesman, Sir Menzies Campbell was telling me quietly' Britain had to get out - but not quite yet. Not until the Iraqis could defend themselves a little better, and had decent public services, and a little more democracy. It sounded like a plan that could take years to carry out. Not a thought likely to get a standing ovation here in Blackpool, but maybe a realistic one, none the less.

Watching it all from the balcony, at the start of another conference season, the general election, with all its slogans and certainties, seemed a long, long time ago.

1000 Speech by Graham Watson MEP

1120 Speech by Vincent Cable, Treasury spokesman

1145 Debate on school discipline and pastoral care

1225 Speech by Sarah Teather, local government spokesman

1505 - Debate on the party's policy review Meeting the Challenge

Health spokesman Steve Webb looks on as dentist James Benson treats a patient at his surgery in Blackpool. Photo: Martin Rickett/PA

"We think that is a recipe for another Vietnam," Lord Razzall on government policy in Iraq.

"Toad, like the chancellor, was shamelessly boastful, egged on by an admiring fan club of stoats and weasels," Vincent Cable compares Gordon Brown to Toad of Toad Hall.