But, obviously, I’ve missed the main news line from the Q&A. Which was that Nick Clegg was wearing jeans.

Or chinos.

No one seems to be 100% sure, although the BBC’s Nick Sutton is fairly certain they were jeans.

Here’s the Guardian video with an extract from Vince Cable’s speech.

The Q&A is over. I’ll post a summary shortly.

Q: What role can sport play in enriching the lives of those with intellectual disabilities?

Clegg says there are some Special Olympics athletes in the hall. The Special Olympics has been held in Bath, and is coming to Sheffield, he says.

Q: Do you have to hold David Cameron’s feet to the fire on constitutional reform?

Clegg says his experience is that both Labour and the Conservatives have no interest in constitutional reform as a whole. They just cherry pick the bits they like.

They both opposed Lords reform. And Labour did not back the alternative vote, even though it was their policy.

The Tories are proposing English voters for English laws. But they only want Tory votes for English laws.

The Lib Dems are now challenging them to accept the need for proportionality in this.

Q: How can you justify the government still supplying arms to Israel?

Clegg says Vince Cable announced over the summer the terms under which arms sales to Israel would be suspended.

He says he shares the questioner’s dismay about what happened in Gaza over the summer. He denounces Hamas, and criticised Israel’s illegal settlements too. The EU should have more clout, he says. In theory it has real influence, but in practice it acts like a pygmy.

Q: Do you agree with Norman Baker that drugs should be treated as a medical problem, not a crime problem?

Absolutely, says Clegg.

He says anyone who is anti drugs should be pro reform.

If people with drug problems go to jail, their drug addiction is likely to get worse.

The Home Office should be encouraged to concentrate on going after the “Mr Bigs” on this.

Q: Is it true that the Conservatives stopped the publication of international research on this?

Clegg says the public and parts of the media are ahead of political opinion on this.

The Tories opposed a royal commission. Norman Baker then commissioned some Home Office research on what the international evidence shows. Publication of this is being blocked by the Tories, he says. But it will be published eventually.

Q: What would the Lib Dems do for Wales?

Clegg says when the government delivers home rule for Scotland, it should deliver home rule for Wales too.

He says the Lib Dems back the proposals in the two Silk commission reports.

Q: Should we legislate for assisted dying?

Clegg says he is not persuaded of the case for this. He thinks most people in the hall probably do back a law. But he does not see how a law on this could be satisfactorily drafted.

But he says parliament should debate this.

Q; Is the Leveson royal charter a lame duck?

No, says Clegg.

Lord Justice Leveson proposed something ingenious. He was not advocating state regulation of the press. That would have been anathema to the Lib Dems. He proposed an industry body, but also a recognition body that would, from time to time, apply an MOT test to the regulator to make sure it is really independent. That’s where the royal charter comes from.

The BBC is established by royal charter. But no one questions its independence.

Leveson also proposed incentives, to encourage newspapers to join the new body.

It is a “great, great pity” that that “intelligent, small-l liberal mechanism” has been portrayed as a threat to the press.

Clegg says we should let the current system run for a bit. Because those incentives will increase over time, he says.

(He is implying that at some point a new regulator will be approved by the recognition body, which would trigger the provisions in the law that would led to papers not belonging to that regulator facing higher court costs.)

Evan Harris gets a follow up question.

Q: These same papers are ones that oppose the Human Rights Act. Can you explain to them the inconsistency of their position?

Clegg says this is a good point. Often those who proclaim the proud tradition of British liberty are people who want to pull out from a document written by British lawyers (the European convention on human rights). The convention embodies great British principles, he says.

He says he has been dismayed to hear Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, reject the convention.

Let’s reform the court, he says. It is “hopelessly bureaucratic”.

But let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater. We should defend these rights “hook, line and sinker”.

Q: What is your view on the police using RIPA to access the phone records of our friens in the press? [This is from Evan Harris.]

Clegg says he agrees with Harris. This is a rare issue on which he, Harris, the Sun and the Mail on Sunday all agree.

He praises Harris for tabling the amendment to the motion debated yesterday saying journalists should be able to protect their sources.

Harris’s commitment to issues like this is what makes him a “great liberal”.

Journalists going about their work have discovered that their phone records have been accessed without their knowledge.

That is “wholly unacceptable”, he says.

Q: Will our green policies be red lines in coalition talks?

Clegg says he does not think it is right to get into red lines now.

But the Lib Dems should be clear about their priorities, he says.

He says a commitment to making the economy more green is something “of great importance to us as a party”.

Clegg says Chris Huhne and Ed Davey have done more than any other politicians in living memory to boost renewable energy.

Q: Will you accept that climate change is the top environmental issue?

Of course, says Clegg.

Clegg says Britain can only deal with climate change if it stays in the EU. The Tories are heading for the exit, he says.

And Clegg says the generational arguments that apply to the deficit also apply to the environment. We don’t have a right to deprive future generations of clean air and water, he says.

Earlier Lib Dem delegates voted for a motion on flooding that called for real terms increases in the amount spent on flood defences. It also called for “higher standards for buildings in at risk locations, as well as proposals that will assist landowners in adapting to new risks and improving the natural defences of lowland areas.”

Friends of the Earth says this policy, if implemented, could see the government spending £500m to make up for the shortfall in the amount spent on flood defences this parliament. Guy Shrubsole, a Friends of the Earth climate campaigner, welcomed the commitment. He said:

With climate change threatening to put an extra million people at flood risk over the next decade, all parties should follow suit and pledge to plug the half-billion pound hole in our flood defence plans.

The Liberal Democrat leadership now needs to enact this in government, and show they’re just as serious about tackling the causes of climate change - by opposing fracking and plans for airport expansion.

And here is some more reaction to Vince Cable’s speech.

Frances O’Grady, the TUC general secretary, welcomed the proposal to increase the minimum wage for apprentices and to address employment contract abuse.

This is the right thing to do for both young workers and the economy and will help encourage more young people into apprenticeships. We also need to crack down on those employers responsible for illegally underpaying more than a quarter of apprentices and must raise the quality of apprenticeships to make them higher skilled.

The TUC has been calling for a review of bogus self-employment and the abuse of employment contracts for many years. This review is welcome, if long overdue, but it will need teeth to crack down on the widespread abuse of many vulnerable workers and achieve real reform.

And Terry Scuoler, chief executive of EEF, the manufacturers organisation, welcomed Cable’s comments on immigration.

It is good to hear the business secretary injecting some common sense into the debate about immigration. The current system is extremely complex and costly for businesses, and hampers employers’ ability to recruit highly skilled engineers. It is crucial that the UK is seen as an attractive place for international students to study and work. He also highlighted the role of freedom of movement as part of the wider open market in the EU, something that businesses want to preserve, alongside British membership.

Vince Cable’s speech has had a mixed reception from the CBI.

In a news release, Katja Hall, the CBI’s deputy director general, welcomes what he said about immigration.

Businesses understand the need for managed migration but it’s essential that the system also helps attract the brightest and best to the UK. Negative rhetoric on immigration can send out the wrong signal to companies seeking to invest here, so firms will welcome the recognition that skilled immigration is good for the country.

The net migration target is arbitrary and should be scrapped, while freedom of movement in the EU is an essential part of the single market which is central to the UK’s economic success.

Yet she criticised the proposal to increase the national minimum wage for apprenctices.

Too few apprenticeships at the moment go to the young and relatively unskilled. Companies already pay their share into training, so raising the cost of taking these young people on would be unwise and put off many smaller firms from getting involved.

And she sounded wary of the inquiry into workers who do not have full employment rights.

Business wants to maintain a flexible labour market that delivers for both employees and firms because it creates new jobs and helps people get into work.

Companies and workers value the range of flexible employment practices on offer and we should seek to preserve this, but both parties should be clear about their rights under the terms of contracts and any examples of poor practice should rightly be rooted out.

Chuka Umunna, the shadow business secretary, has put out a statement about Vince Cable’s speech saying the Lib Dems can’t be trusted.

He said:

You can’t trust Vince Cable and the Liberal Democrats. They broke their promises and have been too weak to stand up to the Tories.

They promised to scrap tuition fees and then trebled them, they promised to be on the side of working people, but working people are £1,600 a year worse off since they joined the Tories in government, and they said they wanted fairer taxes but have given millionaires a tax break while everyone else pays more.

Vince Cable can’t run away from his record as part of the Tory-led government or try to pretend that Tory policies have nothing to do with the Lib Dems. They voted for them and the Tories couldn’t have done it without them.

Here’s Vince Cable on the other two main parties.

The last two party conferences have helped us to understand our opponents better. The Tories are reinventing themselves as UKIP but without the beer, while the Labour party is offering us French Socialism, but without the sex.

Vince Cable is addressing the conference now.

I’ll post a full summary when I’ve seen the text.

You can read all the Guardian coverage of the Lib Dem conference here.

As for the rest of the papers, I’ve already mentioned the Financial Times story about the Lib Dems apparently abandoning their opposition to an in/out referendum. (See 8.33am.)

Here are two other articles that I found interesting.

• The Times (paywall) says first-time voters are shunning the Lib Dems.

First-time voters are shunning the Liberal Democrats, according to a Times data analysis that shows the scale of the long-term challenge facing the party.

Using electoral roll data and the latest polls, the Times Data Team projects that the party will have about 84,000 first-time voters in the general election next year, down from 414,500 in 2010.

The research suggests that this key demographic — which supported the Lib Dems more than any age group in 2010 — cannot be relied upon to support the party in significant numbers.

• Ian Birrell in the Independent says the election could lead to a full-blown constitutional crisis.
  

The number of Lib Dems must exceed the total of other minority party MPs to be certain of viable two-party coalition - yet such is their collapse, combined with the rise of nationalists in Scotland, England and Wales, that Clegg’s party could easily end up with barely half the 60-odd seats won by other smaller parties.

This would leave David Cameron and Ed Miliband scrabbling around trying to make post-election pacts with several partners. The Tories could offer an alliance on devolution with the SNP, who might surge to another 20 MPs following Labour’s lamentable performance in the recent referendum, or a deal on Europe to pacify Ukip, who seem set to win several seats. Labour might turn to the Greens if they keep their solitary seat, and Plaid Cymru, on course to pick up a couple more constituencies. Both parties would seek support from the 18 Northern Irish MPs.

If either leader is successful, we would be left with inherently unstable government held captive by smaller parties and its own extremists. More likely would be a short-lasting attempt at minority government, before The Queen is forced to call a second election; indeed, civil servants are already preparing for this possibility. If this ballot delivered a second unsatisfactory result, Britain would be engulfed in full-blown constitutional crisis – unless, of course, the two main parties swallowed significant personal and policy differences to form a Grand Coalition.

Many Lib Dems are resigned to Ukip getting more votes than them at the election, but not more seats, the New Statesman’s George Eaton reports in an interesting blog.

Here’s an excerpt.

Based on the current state of the polls, a large number of Lib Dem MPs are resigned to finishing fourth to Ukip on votes, but rightly believe that their party’s more efficiently distributed support means they will finish third on seats (the irony being that they will profit from the electoral system they have spent their lives campagining against). In the case of Labour, while it’s plausible that the party could finish second to the Tories on votes, the Conservatives need a lead of around three points before they become the largest party on seats. This is partly due to the unreformed constituency boundaries, but also because turnout in Labour seats tends to be lower than in Tory ones (with the result that it takes fewer votes on average to elect a Labour MP).

Should this scenario come to pass, how would Labour and the Lib Dems respond? There is no constitutional bar on the party that finishes second entering government, as the Tories did in 1951 and as Labour did in Februrary 1974 (and as others in Europe have done). Having long opposed electoral reform, the Tories would also have no grounds for complaint (although expect them to resurrect the issue of boundary reform). But as Lamb suggests, a government established on this basis would suffer immediate legitimacy problems: “You would be attacked from the word go and it would be very, very hard to sustain it.”

Nick Clegg has been visiting a school in Glasgow this morning. The Telegraph’s Michael Deacon is there.

Kirsty Williams, the Lib Dem leader in Wales, used her speech to the conference to challenge Labour and the Tories to agree to implement the Silk commission’s recommendations for more powers for the Welsh assembly.

Because of the Liberal Democrats, Wales will have tax powers, borrowing powers and a more accountable Welsh government.

We ensured a cross-party commission to devolve further powers.

And Nick Clegg has made it clear that these recommendations must be implemented in full.

Energy, justice, tax varying powers, the list goes on – all will be delivered by the Liberal Democrats.

So it is now time for the other parties to step up to the plate.

And I challenge them all to do as Nick Clegg has done and sign up to the Silk Commission’s recommendations - so that Wales can speak as one voice.

Wales must have a proper parliament.

One that reflects the will of the people.

One that has the powers to make a difference.

One that shows that devolution really can work.

In the conference hall this morning the Lib Dems have backed a motion on climate change saying, among other things, that large firms should have to report on the action they are taking to adapt to climate change. This requirement would be added to their mandatory greenhouse gas reporting obligations under the party’s plans.

In the debate Mike Tuffrey, a former member of the London assembly, explained why this would make a difference.

[Mandatory reporting] opens it to public scrutiny and it alerts shareholders to the risk to their dividends and the share price. We saw the impact on Tesco’s share price when they over stated profits ... The simple fact is too many of our large corporations today are overstating their future earnings potentially because they are failing to prepare for climate change. And that will hit your and my pensions and undo all the great work that Steve Webb is doing for us in government on pensions.

So that is why this matters. I ask you to pass the motion and to send the message out loud and clear that in all sectors of the economy we have to prepare for the future.

As the Press Association reports, the motion also called for the government to introduce high standards for flood resilience for buildings and infrastructure in high risk areas, implement programmes to help farmers adapt to climate change impact, and update planning and construction standards to future-proof housing against higher summer temperatures to protect people from heat-related deaths.

In his LBC interview, after Nick Ferrari read an extract from Quentin Letts’ Daily Mail sketch about yesterday’s conference, Nick Clegg described Letts as “humourless”.

Really? To allow you to decide for yourself (and to liven up the morning) here’s an extract from Letts’ sketch.

The main chamber has blue, cinema-style seats, most empty. Classical music tinkles in the background while we wait for speeches. A hush. One or two snores. It reminded me of boyhood trips on weekday afternoons at the old Regal cinema in Cirencester (before they pulled it down): a handful of solitary, sad souls sucking on Revels.

The melancholy was enough to make one want to stab oneself with a Kia-Ora pouch’s plastic straw.

At the Regal they used to have a commissionaire with a big torch. Here there are friendly Lib Dem officials wearing shiny, yellow sashes which say: ‘How Can I Help You?’ They are there to give directions to the surging masses, but the masses, alas, have chosen to surge elsewhere. Off-licences in Mosul might be busier than this.

It’s like being at a Minor Counties cricket match when the best the home team can hope for is a draw. Or coalition, to use the technical term.

The main Nick Clegg interviews are finally over. I’m in the press room at the Lib Dem conference and colleagues are not exactly bowled over with excitement at the news they’ve generated. Still, we can always squeeze the flannel to get something out of them.

I’ll post a summary soon.

Q: Where are you on the bedroom tax?

Clegg says he would not it to people who could not move to a smaller home.

Q: So you have changed your mind?

No, says Clegg. He has looked at the evidence. When you look at the evidence in life, it is sensible to adapt.

Q: Theresa May’s adviser described you using a word that rhymes with banker.

Clegg says he is not worried what someone silly and juvenile said.

Q: Has May replied to your letter?

No, says Clegg.

He says she “crossed the line” when she accused the Lib Dems of putting lives at risk.

Q: What counts as rich?

It is not just about salaries.

Q: So how do you judge?

Clegg says you do not just tax salaries. The Lib Dems want to increase taxes on dividends.

Q: Are you going off the mansion tax?

No, says Clegg. He is in favour of having new council tax bands. They would come in for homes worth more than £2m.

Q: What about someone in Kew on a fixed income, living in a house worth £2.5m. How would they pay?

Clegg says you could take the money from their estate.

Q: So you would tax them when they’re dead.

Clegg says the council tax would be due. Everyone accepts you have to pay council tax.

The Tories do not want to ask Russian oligarchs, or people - he says he won’t mention Alan Sugar, but people like Alan Sugar - to pay more.

Q: Why is your party doing so badly in the polls?

Clegg says in some areas, where it is not strong, it is getting backed a lot. It cannot rely on people like Quentin Letts to get its message across. But in other places, where it is active, it gets a hearing.

The Lib Dems have got the “fight of our lives” ahead.

He says he has count of the number of times people say the end is nigh. But they always confound the critics, he says.

What do people want? They want people to level with them, and to deal with the deficit.

Q: How easy is it for you to criticise government policies when you are part of the government?

Clegg says it was easy for him to criticise what the Tories were saying last week because that was not goverment policy.

On the Today programme Mishal Hussein said it is being reported today that Nick Clegg would agree to an in/out referendum on the EU in coalition talks with the Tories.

She was referring to this story in the Financial Times (subscription). Here’s how it starts.

A 2017 popular vote on Britain’s membership of the EU is more likely than ever, with senior Liberal Democrats having told the Financial Times they are willing to give up their opposition to a referendum if the party were to enter into coalition talks with the Conservative party next year.

Lib Dem ministers and officials have told the FT they believe the Conservatives will refuse to negotiate on holding an EU vote two years after the next election They are drawing up plans to demand a heavy price in return ...

One minister told the FT: “We can’t stop the Tories having their EU referendum, but it puts us in a strong negotiating position. We want them to give us a grand package of constitutional measures in return.”

These measures are likely to include voting reform for local government, changes to rules on party funding and possibly even resurrecting doomed plans to overhaul the House of Lords, which were killed by Conservative resistance in 2012.

We’re now getting the Nick Robinson post-match analysis.

Robinson says it is quite easy to see how another Conservative/Lib Dem coalition could work. He could see them agreeing to a 1% rise in benefits, and extra council tax bands. And he could see the Lib Dems accepting an EU referendum. The Lib Dems are being careful not to say anything that would make a coalition impossible.

He also says it is difficult to get people enthused about “moderation” as an idea. But that does not mean that, come polling day, people might not be attracted by the idea of voting Lib Dem to moderate the other parties.

Q: Steve Webb suggested raising money by cutting pension tax relief.

Clegg says Webb is looking at this. The tax relief money goes disproportionately to the wealthy. But this is not party policy yet.

Q: On Europe, you say you are a passionate European. Yet it is reported today you would agree to an in/out referendum in a coalition with the Tories.

Clegg says he is a major advocate of an in/out referendum. The government even legislated for a referendum when power is transferred to the EU. But the Tories “reinvented the wheel” and called for a referendum by an arbitrary date, 2017.

The government has legislated for a referendum.

Q: But that’s not relevant when there is no prospect of power being transferred to Brussels.

Clegg disagrees. He says you should not have referendums lightly. The Conservatives have plucked this date from the air. And David Cameron’s renegotiation will be cosmetic, he suggests.

Q: So why not have a referendum?

Clegg says he has committed to one - when powers are transferred to the Europe.

Q: Do you realise how damaging it was in your debate with Nigel Farage when you said you did not expect Europe to change.

Clegg says he said the single market would survive.

Q: Does free movement of people bother you?

Clegg says what bothers him is the idea that people can come to the UK and claim benefit, he says.

Q: The Tories says they would cut benefits by £3bn to cut the deficit.

Clegg says it is not clear whether the Tories would use this money for cutting the deficit, or for tax cuts.

Q: You would raise £1.5bn from the mansion tax. Where else would you get the money.

Clegg says the party’s general approach would be to take 80% from spending cuts, and 20% from tax cuts.

Q: But the mansion tax is just a drop in the ocean.

Clegg says Danny Alexander said yesterday they could save £10bn from efficiency savings.

Clegg mentions the savings from dividend tax announced on Saturday.

Q: But that was money just for the NHS.

Clegg says the Lib Dems are setting out an “approach” as to how they would tackle the deficit, as well as some measures.

Q: What cuts would you implement?

Clegg mentions cutting winter fuel payments for wealthy pensioners, and the tax on expensive homes.

More will be announced between now and the general election, both spending cuts and tax increases.

But Osborne wants to balance the books just by swingeing cuts to public services.

Clegg says he cannot understand why the Conservatives don’t want to ask people in £5m homes to pay more, but they would take money from the poor.

Q: Would you support the Conservatives’ plan to raise the 40p tax threshold?

Clegg says raising the basic rate tax allowance benefits people in the 40p tax bracket.

But the Conservatives want to give a special tax cut for the 40p group, worth four to five times as much as raising the basic tax threshold.

And that’s it from Radio 5 Live. It’s the Today programme next, at 8.10am.

You’ll be hearing a lot from Nick Clegg today. He’s doing a large round of interviews this morning - more than 10, including local radio stations - and then this afternoon he’s doing a Q&A with activists in the conference hall.

Otherwise the highlight will probably be Vince Cable’s speech. As the Guardian reports, Cable will announce plans to raise the minimum wage for apprentices by a third, from £2.73 to £3.79 an hour.

So far I’ve heard three of Clegg interviews. They haven’t been particularly revealing, although Clegg’s optimism is quite striking. This is what he said when asked if he was worried about his party being wiped out.

I’ve been leader for seven years or so now. I’ve literally lost count of the number of times I’ve been asked questions saying, ‘Isn’t it a disaster, aren’t you going to be wiped out, isn’t it going to be terrible?’ And every time we confound the sceptics. And I genuinely think we will do so next year. Not because I’m being naive about this. Of course this has been tough for us over the last few years. But my experience - speaking to my friends and colleagues here, we all experience the same - [is] when we get out and tell our side of the story ... the more we do get people to support us in those areas where we are competing for those votes.

“Every time we confound the sceptics.” Perhaps Clegg has forgotten about the European elections.

Here’s the agenda for the day.

9am: Debate on climate change.

10am: Kirsty Williams, the Lib Dem leader in Wales, speaks.

10.20am: Debate on affordable homes.

11.20am: Debate on flooding.

12.20pm: Vince Cable, the business secretary, speaks.

2.20pm: Presentation on same-sex marriage

2.40pm: Jo Swinson, the consumer affairs minister, speaks.

3pm: Nick Clegg holds a Q&A with activists.

3.45pm: Debate on equalities.

5.15pm: Parliamentary reports.

As usual, I’ll be covering all the conference proceedings, as well as bringing you the best comment and analysis from the web.

If you want to follow me on Twitter, I’m on @Andrew Sparrow.