Lembit Opik on a segway

One event down, 36 to go. Day 1 of our conference programme was kicked off with a standing-room-only event on the future of progressive politics, led by journalist Martin Kettle, with contributions from Danny Alexander MP, Lord Tom McNally, Jasper Garard, and Bobby Duffy from Mori.

ippr: standing room only since 1988

Bobby Duffy said that Nick Clegg has the right message, but the real challenge is communicating that message to the public.

The topic of decentralisation of government and elected mayors was briefly touched on; ippr has recently advocated elected mayors in the UK as a means of empowering local communities. You can read about our work in this area on the ippr website.

Then we saw Lembit Opik on a segway.

Not pictured: Segway.

Lastly, the ippr team are owed a round of drinks from our esteemed colleague Luke Hildyard, who 'overslept' and missed the 8am train from Waterloo.