Year end advice for the Liberal Democrats tends to take the form "be bold - be bolder". The world is full of people who would like us to run faster with their agenda. And bold policies can at least as unattractive as any other kind. So this is advice to be taken in moderation.

But we could do a better job of pointing out where we are making changes. Ming's speech on Europe was a case in point. The party presented this as "making a case for Europe". And frankly the idea of a Lib Dem leader making a pro-European speech has all the excitement of "dogs bites man" for the press.

Only Euro-anoraks (of different styles) like Andrew Duff and myself seemed to spot that this was in fact a much more Eurosceptic vision than the party has usually offered. You wouldn't have gathered this from the official press release - which featured some unusual juxtaposition:

Menzies Campbell talked of the need to rejuvenate and create a dynamic Europe in which Britain plays an effective role.He said:

"Europe should take a greater role in promoting its values through its Common Foreign and Security Policy, with the full and active participation of the UK.

"The EU would better reflect its peoples’ priorities if it stuck to legislating only when necessary.

"We need a Powers Audit of the European Union. And that Audit should take place on the basis of a simple principle: only where issues are most effectively addressed by collective action, should the EU act."

The first lesson is that when you are innovating, say that you are doing so.

On the substance, Andrew Duff in the most recent edition of Lib Dem News complains about the "powers audit" and specifically about Ming's proposal to look at repatriating agricultural, regional and social policy. On the first Duff's argument - that back in 2004 conference thought the proposed constitution a good thing - is pretty weak. One of the weaknesses of the constitution is that it fails to return any significant competence to the Member States (actually I can't think of any). And there are many areas (culture? tourism?) that the EU could give up without a second thought.

On the bigger subject of agriculture and social affairs, Nick Clegg made the argument for repatriation in the Orange book - and there will be many Liberal Democrats who will agree. Jonathan Calder put it well

Nick Clegg will alarm some readers by calling for powers over social and agricultural policy to be taken from European institutions and restored to national governments, but in reality his essay marks an advance in the party's thinking on Europe. Throughout those long years when people made unkind jokes about telephone boxes and bar stools, the argument that Liberal members deployed to show that their party was still relevant was that it had been the first to advocate British membership of the Common Market. And in many ways we are still refighting the 1975 referendum campaign. We are happier defending that membership than we are recognising that we have been "in Europe" for more than 30 years (and are going to remain there) and then moving on to examine our views about how the European project should be developing.

Clegg argues that EU powers have developed in a lopsided way. He asks why the EU possesses detailed legislation on the design of a buses, the use of seatbelts in cars and noise levels in the workplace yet "remains invisible as an entity in the UN, ineffective in promoting peace in the Middle East, toothless in tackling international crime and terrorism". Being in favour of Europe is no longer enough: we have to decide what sort of Europe we want. Clegg's formulation is compelling: "the EU must only act if there is a clear cross-border issue at stake, or when collective EU action brings obvious benefits to all member states that they would not be able to secure on their own".

On these policies and on regional policies, Duff argues that "There is certainly a good case for more co-financing of these common policies between the (richer) member states and the EU but there is no sensible case for repatriation.

It is hard to see what Duff means here. The Structural Funds are already co-financed and Duff seems to forget that all the EU resources (despite the "Own Resources" terminology)ultimately come from the Member States.

In the case of the UK, Structural Funds programmes essentially mean that we spend our own money according to EU rules. And spending according to a slightly different set of rules entails a lot of bureaucracy - and a very real possibility that the UK will be fined for not doing so.

There are big tasks we need the EU for - notably on the environment - but we should be selective about it. And we should tell the world when we change our approach.