Evening Standard comment: Nick Clegg has made the Liberal Democrats a real force

Nick Clegg’s speech to the Liberal Democrat conference today is confident in tone and substance, a remarkable feat given that the party is in fourth place in some polls, behind Ukip, and has haemorrhaged members since entering coalition with the Tories. Yet Mr Clegg is entitled to take satisfaction from the way this conference has turned out. Once a byword for mild anarchism, it has backed the leadership on issues from the 45p tax rate to the nuclear deterrent.

What is more, Mr Clegg has this week had a significant policy achievement to brandish as a gain from coalition: the promise of free school meals for all children up to the age of seven. This is a return to the principle of universal benefits at a time when it has been eroded in other areas, notably child benefit. Emboldened by this, the party wants all primary school children to have free school meals eventually. Parents will be grateful: the poorest families get free school meals already but there are many others who are by no means well-off who do not.

This is not the only gain Mr Clegg can claim from being in government, which, he says, is worth “every insult we have had to endure”. Raising the tax threshold to £10,000 is another distinctive Lib-Dem policy which the Tories might not have introduced by themselves. It is a genuinely progressive policy, which the party wants to take further.

Mr Clegg can approach the next election with a good claim to be a responsible contender for sharing power with a bigger party. The Lib-Dems may not have entirely shaken off the trauma of reneging on their policy of opposition to university tuition fees, and their poll ratings remain weak. But they have achieved enough in power to insist that they do have a distinctive influence in politics. That is no mean achievement; it remains to be seen if it is enough to win back the support lost since 2010.

The sheer scale of female genital mutilation, or FGM, practised on women living in London is highlighted again in statistics from the maternity unit at St George’s Hospital in Tooting. It has seen more than 1,500 cases between 2007 and 2012, most from Somalia. Worryingly, 11 of the cases were of women born in Britain. Whether they were subjected to the practice here or abroad, it points to the necessity of vigilance in schools to safeguard vulnerable girls in the communities which practise FGM. Earlier this month, this paper published figures showing that more than 2,000 other victims have been treated in seven other hospital trusts which have specialist FGM services.

So far, no one has been prosecuted for abetting or carrying out the mutilation of girls, though the Director of Public Prosecutions says it is only a matter of time because of changes in the way that cases are being investigated. There is no substitute for the exemplary treatment of offenders. Educating the communities concerned is equally important, but we also need to send an unambiguous signal that FGM is unacceptable by the prosecution of those responsible for this barbarous child abuse and the imprisonment of those found guilty of it.

The tragedy of the Costa Concordia has brought forth one hero, the man who took charge of the bold engineering operation to raise the vessel: Nick Sloane. His rapturous reception when he returned to the island of Giglio, after achieving the apparently impossible, was a cheering element in the grim story of the Concordia. He thoroughly deserves the praise.