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I can't see outside from my presenter's friend chair at the Liberal Democrat conference but I've just heard the protesters marching past, heading towards the Conservative Spring Conference..

One Lib Dem was tempted to stand outside the Angel Hotel holding a psign saying: "They're over there.. We're all busy sorting out Labour's mess".

As they marched on, Kirsty Williams took to the stage. "Conference we don't need to be defensive about our record in coalition ... Whilst the shadow of Labour's legacy at Westminster looms large over Wales, we have been let down by Labour in Cardiff too"m

"At the Labour Conference the Labour leader said it was 'quite easy for a Government to turn itself into a 'Strategy Factory. Well if this Government were a strategy factory then it would have been forced to shut down years ago".

Plaid? "Plaid Cymru know that they haven't delivered for Wales".

"The Tories couldn't ever deliver for Wales ... The Welsh people deserve better from 'the so-called 'official opposition'.

The attack on the Tories - a page full of it by the way - mentions Notting Hill but points a finger at Welsh Tories and their shadow budget decision to protect health spending at the expense of other crucial services.

"The Tories only have one policy and it owes more to Notting Hill than to Newport or Narberth ... It is an ill thought out attempt at brand detoxification".

Off to watch Welsh Lib Dems coping with a few brand issues of their own.

**UPDATE**

A blast from the past - Gwynoro Jones, the former Labour MP, and founder member of the SDP, is now a Liberal Democrat, and enjoying the Welsh spring conference. He says he joined last year, because of "Nick Clegg's courage in going into coalition". Somewhat swimming against the tide if the opinion polls are to be believed, but they'll take all the good news they can get this weekend!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Taff, the Chancellor George Osborne is addressing supporters from the other side of the Westminster coalition. It's shameful, he says, that the "Labour/Nationalist Welsh Assembly Government" is cutting the NHS budget when according to him, he's given them the resources to protect it.

By cutting, of course, he means their decision not to increase health spending in line with inflation each year, instead giving it a broadly cash flat settlement. The Welsh Tories are pledged to increase it each year, and totting up the difference, come to a round figure of a around a billion less spent on health under the Labour/Plaid Cymru plans.

It's not only Labour and Plaid, too, who've rejected the ringfencing policy. Back across the river this afternoon, Kirsty Williams was pretty scornful too. The Welsh Tories, she said, only have one policy - and "it owes more to Notting Hill than to Newport or Narberth", that is, protecting health spending.

The snag being with this is that it's also the declared policy of her party in government in London. The Taff's a river with a fair few twists and turns, not least between the Swalec Stadium and the Angel Hotel, and there's a fair bit of twisting and turning going on hereabouts this afternoon.

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