Lib Dem conference diary

* It was not only parents putting children to bed and football fans watching TV who Nick Clegg risked upsetting last night with his 250,000 automated telephone calls to voters. The party of civil liberties is being investigated by the information commissioner Richard Thomas. Mr Thomas's office said it was "concerned" and warned that unsolicited political marketing was not allowed. Officials asked for a transcript of Mr Clegg's call to make sure it was market research, which is within the rules.

* Poor Julia Goldsworthy. The communities spokesman is to stage a grand tour of her Falmouth and Cambourne constituency listening to voters' grumbles. Normally she greets them in a bright yellow caravan emblazoned with her name. But this year she's back to the parish hall after a squatter set up home in the van and trashed it.

* It's not been a great week for Evan Harris. First, his attempt to derail Nick Clegg's tax plans was defeated. And yesterday the MP for Oxford East and Abingdon was turned away from the conference because they ruled his large suitcase marked him out as a threat.

* Chris Rennard, the party's election guru, relates the tale of canvassers who knocked on a door to be confronted by a naked woman leaping out with open arms and crying "Ta-da!" The embarrassed Lib Dems beat a hasty retreat, pausing only to shout, "she's waiting for you" as they spotted her husband hurrying home.