NICK CLEGG is certain to receive a hero’s welcome at the Liberal Democrat conference at the weekend – but the cheers may ring hollow before the week is over.

Whatever the agonies ahead for Lib Dems – and there are so many, there isn’t space to explore them all – Mr Clegg is the first Liberal to lead his party into peacetime government in 80 years, which is no small achievement.

I suspect he will simply have to beam a smile and remind the faithful of that fact to earn a roar that would not disgrace St James’ Park or the Stadium of Light.

However, Mr Clegg will have to work much, much harder to convince his party they are not heading for oblivion in a Conservativedominated coalition.

The omens are not good. Since those remarkable days in May, when the coalition was born, the Lib Dem leader has misplaced the sure touch that saw him sail through the TV debates on a wave of public acclaim.

Hope has been replaced by hyperbole over the modest political reforms he is steering through and by downright dishonesty over spending cuts and the incendiary changes to schools.

Mr Clegg looked worse than shifty admitting, in a TV documentary, that he decided before election day that immediate, massive spending cuts were needed – just as he was telling voters he would fight them tooth and nail.

Similarly, he now argues passionately for “free schools”, most to be run by private companies, despite denouncing them as “absolutely appalling” and a “disaster for standards”

before polling day.

Meanwhile, his repeated insistence that the unprecedented cuts will be “fair” – when everything suggests the poor, women and the North will be hardest hit – marks him out as a man in denial.

Labour is merrily stirring the pot, claiming 10,000 Lib Dem defectors, while one Lib Dem Cabinet minister gloomily predicted that his party could be low as five per cent in the polls, come next year.

No one pretends it is easy to lead the junior partner in a coalition, with economic crisis still in the wind – but Mr Clegg is making it look very difficult indeed.

The free schools row will loom large next week, as will the anger of many Lib Dems over the Building Schools for the Future axe, elected police commissioners, tuition fees, the handing over of health budgets to GPs…I could go on.

The conference comes far too early for open revolt against Mr Clegg’s embrace of David Cameron – but the Lib Dem leader must dispel the growing impression that he is simply doomed.

WHAT can explain Tony Blair’s obsession with a certain, sensitive part of the male anatomy?

I ask because, in his best-selling memoirs, these naughty bits become a convenient metaphor to praise no fewer than three of his acquaintances. We learn that media tycoon Rupert Murdoch “had balls”, while fearsome spin-doctor Alistair Campbell goes one better – being adorned with “clanking great balls”.

One female aide, Kate Garvey, is hailed for her ability to “squeeze balls” when necessary.

So, what can explain this fixation of the former PM – a father of four children, the last sired at the age of 46?