What sort of an impact will the Liberal Democrats have on the next General Election? The party leader, Nick Clegg, in a bold speech at the spring conference, exhorted the nation to take a "leap of faith" and vote Liberal Democrat when Gordon Brown decides to go to the country.

Clegg may not be the most charismatic of politicians, but he has spotted a rare opportunity which he prays could benefit his party.

He is hoping a substantial proportion of the thousands of voters who appear to be deserting Labour will be lured into his fold and not simply abstain or, more likely, vote Conservative.

Clegg realises there are whole swathes of people who, even now, are uncertain how to vote, except that they won't vote Labour next time, even if that is how they have voted throughout their adult lives.

But the Liberal Democrats have an Everest to climb if they are going to get anywhere near power. The best they could hope for is a hung Parliament where they would hold the balance of power.

But with Labour plummeting into something like free-fall, and with the Tories – at the moment anyway – riding high in the opinion polls, the chances of that happening are almost too remote to even consider.

Meanwhile, a rift is becoming apparent now between Gordon Brown and the Chancellor Alistair Darling over the "blameworthiness" of the current economic mess. As Margaret Thatcher would tell you, differences between a Prime Minister and the Chancellor can be fatal.

What is worse, is that the Prime Minister appears to be getting jumpy – never a good sign. He reportedly lost his temper with reporters travelling with him to Washington last week.

The journalists were told to switch off their tape recorders and put down their notebooks and pencils while, what one person described as "this tirade", was going on.

If all that was not bad enough, Peter Hain, the former Labour Cabinet Minister, and a shrewd judge of the mood of the electorate, has warned that the party will lose the next General Election if it pursues a policy of "more New Labour".

No wonder the Prime Minister is getting twitchy. Rarely has a governing party appeared more vulnerable than Labour is now. And David Cameron, back in business after his absence over the death of his son Ivan, will surely want to take this opportunity to put the Prime Minister "out of his misery", as one Tory backbencher put it.

Whether the Liberal Democrats will make the impact that Clegg hopes they will over the next few months remains to be seen. Alas, I fear they will still be among the also rans.