For the uninitiated, a gathering of Liberal Democrat party activists and elected members at first appears to be a particularly hostile environment to thrust oneself into so early on a Saturday morning.

To begin with, amongst the hardly venue-busting crowd gathered in the New College General Assembly Hall, there are precious few faces under-40 to be found. Indeed, apart from a few malnourished representatives of a university young supporters’ society, the 20-somethings are extremely thin on the ground.

Clearly, they must think I’ve rolled up the Mound from the Wash Bar after a particularly good night out.

If the suspect glances aren’t enough, then there’s the fact that the entire group is made up of murderers. The assembled representatives are the only suspects in the mysterious disappearance of Sir Menzies Campbell; in their tweed suits and Christmas jumpers, this cabal of wrinkly grandparents were the ones whose stage-whispers of dissent saw off Ming – for being too old.

Free from the stain of hypocrisy, even the toddlers in the crowd are in on the act; one tears across the front of the stage squealing, claymore held aloft. Plastic though it may be, slid deftly into the back between the ribs, even a party store blade can kill.

On the subject, where is Ming? Has anyone seen him since the Liberal Democrat Night of the Long Knives?

Not a sign of him today – even in this, his own backyard. Is he no longer of this world? Did he pass quietly away, during some dreary policy meeting in a Westminster cubby-hole?

Perhaps my illusory hangover isn’t as exceptional as I thought – apparently, the previous night had seen some pre-hustings bacchanalia, as Mike Pringle, MSP for Edinburgh South, confides in his colleague representing Edinburgh West, Margaret Smith: “I wasn’t quite sure if I should have been driving this morning.”

Charles Kennedy does a somersault in his grave – it wasn’t that long ago, remember, that the toddler did the job on him, too.

One thing is clear, however; Scots like Chris Huhne. Despite their man being far behind in the polls and the betting odds, volunteers are on hand distributing Chris2Win flyers, with no response from the Nick Clegg camp.

North of the border, Huhne is well backed; he has the endorsement of the Lib Dem MEP for Scotland and seven of the party’s 17 MSPs have declared their support. None have spoken up in favour of Clegg.

Walloped in the last election, it seems that Scotland’s Lib Dems aren’t yet tired of defeat. Is it that in politics, as in football, Scots follow lost causes?

The procession enters; it falls to Nicol Stephen to warm up the rather tepid crowd. In 1999, he says, the first assembly of Scottish parliamentarians in almost 300 years met in this very hall: “I remember well how I walked through those same doors, flanked by none other than David Steel and Jim Wallace,” he croons.

The crowd coos and sighs.

Nick Clegg rises to deliver his statement first, and – But, how can it be? It’s David Cameron! Guards! Guards! It’s an imposter. No, wait, it’s alright, it really is Nick Clegg, but my goodness, isn’t he shiny. Mothers up and down the country will swoon – he’s definitely a knockout with the grandmothers, some of whose heads are already lolling gently on granddads’ shoulders.

Think of your favourite uncle: that’s Nick Clegg, his ready smile breaking through whenever he stumbles over a word, his demeanour earnest, his face so shiny.

He’s got a sugary treat for the electorate, promising to take the party “where the voters are, not where they should be.”

He talks about how frightened Britain is: of crime, politics, inequality and the modern world. We can beat it, he says. We can bring down class sizes, clean up the streets, “temper, manage and control the pace of globalisation,” and give the far right a bloody nose for good measure.

Building to a crescendo, in the most gravelly voice he can muster, he thunders: “We can make this a liberal country forever.”

Chris Huhne rises, and already the tone is different. True, he cracks jokes – and given that they might take him seriously, in front of this crowd it takes guts to quip: “It seems the Liberal Democrats do best in the polls when there’s no leader at all.”

He is, however, ready to tell people off; not just Gordon Brown over Trident, or Northern Rock board for being rubbish, but also his own party for sitting on its laurels.

He assures his audience that he isn’t a professional politician, but a businessman in politics. He recalls past leadership in the forms of Lloyd George and Asquith – a drinker and a geriatric whose reputations are apparently more intact than Kennedy’s and Campbell’s.

He remembers that democracy is, as Churchill put it, the comfort of knowing that when the doorbell rings at six in the morning, it’s only the milkman. He says that as a father, he knows what it means to hand down the legacy of a clean environment to the next generation.

And in a voice barely above a whisper, he tells Britain’s smallest political party they stand for a fairer society, and can still win.

This must be why Scotland wants Chris Huhne – because when it really hurts, you want your dad to make it better, not your flash favourite uncle.

The sword-wielding toddler certainly feels that way; as the question and answer session draws to a close, he leaps into Nicol Stephen’s lap, and his dad gives him a kiss and a cuddle.

But he’s still got the knife – and he knows how to use it.