Deputy leader Alan Beith had harsh words for both pickets and the government over the fuel crisis.

Mr Beith told the Liberal Democrat conference that it was "anarchy" if a fuel picket had the power to decide whether or not fuel should be released for hospital staff to get to work.

"There was something really chilling about the sight of a picket checking the papers of a tanker driver. 'Show me your papers if you want permission to go about your lawful business'," he said.

Mr Beith said that the alienation of politicians from ordinary people had been demonstrated during the blockade by the fact that the Westminster Parliament had not even been sitting.

The Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly could debate the issue and question ministers, but Westminster was in the grip of its archaic calendar.

All the public saw were "arrogant and unaccountable" ministers who infuriated everyone no matter where their sympathies lay over the blockade, he said.

Need for electoral reform

"They saw a chancellor for whom fuel taxes had become not an instrument of environmental policy, but a windfall for the war chest.

"They saw a prime minister who could not recognise that he had become isolated in his circle of advisers."

The deputy leader argued that the only way forward, away from anarchy, was electoral and parliamentary reform.

He said ministers should not be allowed to get away with bypassing the Commons and that better use should be made of committees to question ministers.

And the Commons itself should reform its hours and practices so as not to isoolate MPs from their families and constituents.