Liberal Democrats' Conference: Quotes of the day

'When the Prime Minister complains of the 'yob culture', he is showing what John Stuart Mill called 'the inability of the unanalytic mind to recognise its own handiwork' - Earl Russell.

'The Christian Democrats of every country in the EU watch people like Michael Portillo the way children look at their first giraffe, though I don't think they have the urge to stroke him' - Robert Maclennan on assuming the party presidency.

'He (Tony Blair) is talking fine words . . . Paddy used them three years ago, so I know they're fine words' - Liz Lynne, staunchly anti-Labour MP for Rochdale.

'It is a wrong, inflicted on all the people of all the 12 member states of the European Union, when the British electoral system falsifies the democratic voice of Europe' - Gijs de Vries, leader of the Liberal Democratic and Reform Group in the European Parliament.