At the Lib Dem Spring Conference, Ming Campbell set five tests for Gordon Brown, a set of criteria by which Brown could be examined on Lib Dem values of liberty, fairness and responsibility.

As Brown moves closer to taking over from Tony Blair, he is increasingly asserting his own views and his own policies. This weekend, he announced an intention to press ahead with new anti-terrorism legislation, and in doing so issued an implicit challenge of his own: will Ming's Liberal Democrats accept a compromise on the length of detention without charge? For it is the increase in this period, above and beyond the 28 days already agreed, that forms a major part of Brown's plans:

Mr Brown wants to give police more powers - including holding suspects without charge for more than 28 days - when he takes over as prime minister.

Civil liberties campaigners warn the plan amounts to "internment".

But in a speech earlier, Mr Brown insisted he would bring in safeguards, including a judicial review of detention every seven days.

Brown is obviously trying to pitch this as a 'middle way' between the Blair/Reid authoritarianism and the libertarian objections of the Liberal Democrats and, on occasion, the Conservatives. The BBC seem to have taken this line, and have entitled their story 'Brown pledge to protect liberties', a strange title given that the first major proposal of Brown's mentioned in the story is a further erosion of liberty. Brown's 'protection' of liberty seems to consist mostly of judicial review:

He added: "We will have to consider further legislation to do so. I think that is where the public will need to recognise that we have got a new security problem."

But he said he would make sure that "at no point will our British traditions of supporting and defending civil liberties be put at risk.

"There has got to be independent judicial oversight. There has got to be proper parliamentary accountability.

"We should give the police the power to question people so we can both prevent incidents and get to the bottom of some of these very, very strange dealings."

Judicial oversight and parliamentary accountability are obviously good things. But judicial oversight is something we should have already, and parliamentary accountability is something that any responsible government should accept on all matters. These things should not be offered as sweeteners to a deal that is fundamentally unpalatable to the majority of people, indeed to a majority of MPs, who in 2005 defeated the government's last attempt at allowing detention without charge for 90 days.

Brown does offer some positive steps - the admission of phone-tap evidence in court would allow much more straightforward prosecution of terrorist suspects, removing some of the need for the grey areas of control orders and detention without charge. But the test for Ming is this: will he accept a 'consensus' on the 'need' for harsher laws in return for claiming some success in influencing Brown? After all, allowing phone-tap evidence in court is a long-standing Liberal Democrat policy and any improvement in judicial and parliamentary oversight will be welcomed by the party. Nick Clegg's comment on the matter is somewhat ambiguous:

Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Nick Clegg said Mr Brown "appears a little more concerned about parliamentary accountability than his predecessor".

But he added: "It now remains to be seen whether this is just a procedural fig-leaf for more authoritarian measures or part of a genuine shift in guaranteeing and not undermining our fundamental civil liberties."

Lord Carlile goes further, seeming to suggest that a need for consensus might trump possible objections:

Lord Carlile told the BBC: "I do think it is time for the political parties to get together and to try to reach a consensus with the government, so we can move forward on terrorism legislation on the basis of fitness for purpose, rather than having a hot political debate about these desperately difficult and important matters."

It is to be hoped that a compromise is not about to be struck. For many Liberal Democrats, this is a test of principle. If Ming gives any support, even in the context of a supposedly more liberal-friendly approach from Gordon Brown, to the idea of extending the detention period beyond 28 days, he will have failed a key test in the eyes of his own supporters and party members. Britain needed the Liberal Democrats to stand firm against Tony Blair's plans in 2005, and Britain needs the Liberal Democrats to stand just as firm against Gordon Brown's attempt to revive those plans.

Ah yes, Lord Owen, a man like Orson Welles, condemned to live his life backwards has pronounced on Ming.

This is the way the Herald reports it:

In an interview with the Parliamentary Monitor magazine, the former Labour Foreign Secretary describes the Liberal Democrat leader as "only a couple of years younger" than himself and argued Sir Menzies should be replaced by a "young Turk". Lord Owen is 68. Sir Menzies is 65.

The cross-bench peer suggested change should "happen before the next general election", and noted: "It is a pity they have a leader of the older generation."

Tony Blair is 53, Gordon Brown is 55, and David Cameron is 40.

Lord Owen highlighted the credentials of Chris Huhne, 52, the party's environment spokesman. Last year, he failed in his bid to challenge Sir Menzies for the party leadership following the resignation of Charles Kennedy, 47, who reliquished the top job after admitting to a drink problem.

"Chris Huhne has produced some very good ideas on the environment and it was a thoroughly good thing for him to challenge for the leadership," said the peer.

Lord Owen's intervention will not be welcomed by the leadership.

On the last point, I think they may have it wrong: Being attacked by Owen is a badge of honour. If Owen had spoken out during the leadership campaign, Ming´s majority would have been even bigger.

There is more unambiguously good news for Ming in the papers as well. The Independent has poll of polls for January showing that

Tony Blair's unpopularity has dragged Labour down to its lowest rating since the last general election, according to the results of the latest monthly "poll of polls" for The Independent.

The Conservatives averaged 37 per cent in the opinion polls taken in January, the same as in December, but Labour dropped two points to 32 per cent while the Liberal Democrats were up three points to 20 per cent.

The latest opinion poll in the Times follows the trend of the last five polls in putting Lib Dem support up since December. Rather oddly, the big losers are the Tories, down 3% to 36% - towards the lower end of their range in recent months.

Returning from a couple of days abroad, I found a message pointing out that the relevant PMQ clip was available on YouTube.

It is well worth watching. For me, the passion of Ming's rejoinder to Blair's answer lifts it well above the ordinary. Great stuff

The press operation really seemed to work this time.

Successively we were covered for Ming's letter to Blair, asking him to take part in the Iraq debate, for the breakfast presentation of a withdrawal timetable, for PMQs, and for the Iraq debate. And Ming deserves a lot of the credit. On the Today programme he was precise. Had he waffled, the show might have come to grief, but he presented crisply the steps that needed to be taken - where and when.

At PMQs his comeback to Blair was picked up for the news bulletins. The Times puts it like this

Ming kept on punching. Why wasn’t Mr Blair attending the Iraq debate after PMQs? “What can possibly be more important?” cried Ming...“Isn’t that the kind of leadership we are entitled to?” There was something quite mad about Ming lecturing the Prime Minister about leadership but, still, it stung. “I AM actually debating the issue with him NOW,” snapped the PM. But, not, of course, for longer than the 30 seconds it took to answer. As PMQs ended, Tony Blair slipped out of the Chamber, as silently as a shadow. The Tories made exaggerated clapping motions.

Finally, in the Iraq debate, Ming was forceful, taking on Labour and the Tories.

Elsewhere, Nick Clegg has been prominent in the press on the prisons story, making it one of lib dems' best days for coverage for a very long time. It is just a pity that we can't get similar coverage on other stories - so far, at least.

The UK-US Extradition deal continues to bring fear to British businessmen. But now that Congress has ratified surely it will be used to bring a few Americans to face justice here. Ming tried to find out at Prime Minister's Questions today. Here is how the BBC reported it:

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell once again proved he was also back to his old, sure-footed self with a well-aimed attack on the extradition deal between the UK and the US which, he claimed, was a one way street.

Sir Menzies demanded to know when moves would be taken to extradite American soldiers allegedly responsible for the death of ITN reporter Terry Lloyd in Iraq.

Mr Blair avoided an answer, allowing the Lib Dem leader a despairing "Not much comfort there".

There is a longer report on ePolitix and elsewhere on the BBC.