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IT PROBABLY wasn’t a good idea to go straight to the Liberal Democrats’ conference directly after the Trades Union Congress, especially my 40th of the latter. You do need a week drying out from the brothers and sisters.

And the culture shock is enormous: from the hard-hat area to the keen-to-please plaza. Sometimes it was like drowning in goodwill in Bournemouth. These people remind me of the class of 1959: eager to answer teacher’s questions with a display of irrelevant knowledge. You have to admire their enthusiasm, but it makes for a political naivety that their leaders exploit with cheery ruthlessness.

So the rank and file – and one or two of their frontbenchers – had deep misgivings about the leadership’s plan for £20 billion a year public spending cuts. But Nick Clegg – capitalism with a baby face – easily got his way. Sketch writers always compare him to David Cameron, but he reminds me far more of the early Tony Blair: always smiling, appearing to be amenable but possessed of a steely intention to take his party to the right. That, in the conventional wisdom, is where the votes are – and it’s certainly where “Thirty Notches” feels politically comfortable.

It may be early days, but Clegg’s makeover has not made much of an impact. His party tumbled five points in the polls to a risible 12 per cent on the day of his conference speech, as the real David Cameron took the Tories to a dizzying 52 per cent. That was the backdrop as Labour’s demoralised troops gathered in Manchester. Some must have been almost grateful for the global economic crisis. At least it knocked the half-cock coup against Gordon Brown off the front pages, though not for long.

During Lib Dem week, lobby correspondents in Bournemouth’s awful International Centre wandered around looking lost and saying: “We’re in the wrong place. The story is in London.” It was, but in Canary Wharf rather than Westminster. Not even the shadowy figure of David Cairns, the priest-turned-minister, could compete with a full-blown global economic meltdown. His resignation, initially touted by the BBC as a “senior figure in government”, slipped below the waves within hours.

By the end of the week, some of the steam was going out of the story. The plotters had shot their bolt and Mount Gordon had not moved. Commentators were reduced to reading between the lines of magazine articles by James Purnell and Alan Milburn, ransacking the text for clarion calls to rebellion. But the inner-circle Blairites are too cute to invite the instant justice that befell whip Siobhan McDonagh when she openly called for a leadership contest – in other words, the sacking of Gordon Brown.

Still, it was very good to get back to the north of England, even if it was self-regarding Manchester. The city, which has always thought of itself as Britain’s second despite being smaller than Birmingham, is exceptionally proud of itself these days, notwithstanding the loss of its planned super-casino to Brown’s Presbyterian instincts.

The cities of the north and midlands are making a comeback in the conference stakes, breaking the stranglehold of Brighton and Bournemouth. Labour’s return to Manchester this year is matched by the Tory switch to Birmingham next week. The TUC is moving to Liverpool next year, while the Lib Dems are going to Harrogate for their spring conference. The Tories braved Gateshead in March.

How much this is due to lower costs north of Watford and how much to a cunning plan to win votes up ’ere I can’t say, but the outcome is welcome. All the major parties have been strong in this region at one time or another. The Lib Dems have made inroads into better-off Yorkshire and, within my short political memory, places such as Halifax, Batley, Pudsey, York – nay, even Doncaster – have been Tory. It is not inconceivable that they will be again, leaving only islands of traditional Labour support in the mining areas. I will have to avert my gaze from colour maps of the constituencies.

But the reshaping of the political landscape will probably mean that the next leader of the Labour Party comes from a northern English seat, if only because there could be so few elsewhere. Cockney sparrer Alan Johnson had to come up to Hull to find a seat, swiftly followed by Ed Balls and Ed Miliband on the fast trains to the West Riding and even the appalling James Purnell trekked north to Stalybridge. At least Andy Burnham is a home-grown northerner.

Region matters. A base in the north should, in theory, bring Labour politicians closer to their grassroots. These days, the sedge is withered, rarely watered by government until the latest innovation of ministers for the regions. With hammer blows like the Halifax debacle, this might be too little, too late.