By Bagehot

SEND for the greybeards. At the Liberal Democrat conference in Birmingham this week, the biggest buzz has—rather unexpectedly—been around a trio of snowy-haired party veterans, two of them members of that most distinguished of retirement homes, the House of Lords. Most of the party’s clutch of youthful ministers stride about the conference complex without attracting a second glance. But delegates have repeatedly swooned over Vince Cable, the lugubrious 68 year old business secretary, hanging on his every word like so many students listening to a revered professor. Paddy (now Lord) Ashdown, the party’s 70 year old former leader (who in his prime was mocked and ignored by much of the press) is now an elder statesman. All week he has been listened to and even indulged as he lectures the party about their need to ape the redcoats at the Battle of Waterloo, offers his views on foreign policy and global affairs, and sagely hands out tips on electoral strategy: all of this as he is trailed by a stream of journalists with notebooks and microphones.