This week's Liberal Democrat conference has developed three key themes that the party will campaign on over the coming months.

As the Lib Dems' five days in Brighton draw to a close, attention has turned to what the party does in the run up to the general election.

New impetus will be given to the party's efforts with a reshuffle by party leader Charles Kennedy, which will be announced "within weeks".

The focus will be on crime, council tax and Iraq.

Simon Hughes received a positive reception from both the party faithful and in some quarters of the press for his rethink on crime policy.

Strategists believe the message that prison should only be for criminals that pose a serious threat and reform of community sentencing will register with an electorate that is now suspicious of Labour's approach to the issue.

"There's a common sense thread to what we are saying. All the tough rhetoric in the world won't bring down the crime figures," said a spokesman.

"The technology is there to make offender tagging a very tough option. Community projects and attempts to clean up areas often fail due to a lack of manpower.

"Why should they when there's workforce in jails that should be giving something back?"

With council tax bills now falling on the nation's doormats, the party also believes the soaring costs are beginning to stir anger in Middle England.

"Ed Davey's campaign for scrapping council tax has gone down very well and we can build on this," said a party spokesman.

"The government are in a hole and the Tories set the thing up in the first place."

And the party will continue to hound the government over Iraq; the leadership feels vindicated by its stance and that, as Brent East showed, there is an electoral pay-off.

The subliminal theme of the week has been trying to break away from the "left-right" argument.

There have been mixed results from the party's claim that the Westminster village is obsessed with trying to place the Liberal Democrats in relation to Labour and the Conservatives.

Polling has revealed that most voters don't identify themselves along class lines any more and the party thinks the media are still stuck in a rut.

The alternative being offered by chairman Mark Oaten is that the party is "not left or right but forward-thinking".

It is a long-term task to persuade journalists to write it into the narrative.

"Left and right is Westminster talk. It has no resonance or relevance outside," Charles Kennedy will tell the party faithful.

Relations with the media have been the other high point for the party this week, including the attacks on Kennedy from the Sun newspaper.

But there are no plans to go down Labour's road to trying to win round the red tops.

"The party would kill us if we did," said one of the Lib Dems' media team.

"And the only way we could do it would be by ditching Europe, becoming pro-war and surrendering everything else we stand for.

"If the Sun's going for us then it means we're getting something right."

Kennedy's decision to end Paddy Ashdown's links with Labour has also paid off with the party's grassroots.

Ashdown loyalists now accept that had they been lobbying for a place at the Cabinet table, the party would now be embroiled in the Iraq debacle.

And those that had pushed Kennedy to walk away from New Labour have reaffirmed their support.

"We were arguing for this in 1997," said one activist.

"We've got more room to move and Kennedy's got more credibility for taking action.

"The short-term pay off would have been lost because we couldn't have been able to show clean hands. There's no guilt by association."

Kennedy's new confidence has come from a summer break and he has undoubtedly been buoyed by the result in the Brent East by-election.

His half a dozen visits to the constituency have silenced the critics who had been rumbling about his lack of commitment.

"He's done a damn good job. We've had a good result and put us in a very good position," said one MP.

Claims by activist Simon Titley that 47 of the party's 53 MPs wanted to see Kennedy quit were met with a withering response.

"We haven't heard of him and its news to us," said a senior official.