Lib Dem spring conference with Ashdown speech & Clegg Q&A: Politics live blog Nick Clegg has told Lib Dem activists that there is no simple "magic wand" solution to Britain's growth problems. His comments sounded like a rebuke to Vince Cable, who believes the government should borrow more to fund a house building programme. This is what Clegg told the conference during his Q&A. I just don't believe there is one single button to be pushed, policy to be signed off, magic wand to be waved which creates growth [quickly] ... I'm as restless as anybody else to make sure that we see growth materialise [as fast as possible]. But I equally don't think we should fool ourselves, or anybody else, to suggest this is in any way easy. Clegg said the economy was burdened with too many historic problems to allow a quick recovery. But, in his interview with the Guardian published this morning, Cable said that spending more on housing building was a "no-brainer." If you are talking about under 1% of GDP [roughly £14bn], that is hardly going to shake the world. It depends on how you do it - giving local authorities powers to build council houses seems to be a bit of a no-brainer. It can be done quickly. There is the capacity there and it directly helps the sector of the economy that faces the greatest weakness, which is construction, glass, cement, bricks, many of which are in serious trouble. That is quite different from spending vast sums of money on new infrastructure. Clegg has accused critics of the government's "secret courts" legislation of misrepresenting what the government is doing. Several delegates strongly criticised Clegg's decision to force Lib Dem MPs to vote in favour of the measure, which will allow intelligence evidence to be heard in private in certain civil court proceedings. Clegg said the plans were being misrepresented. I think there has been some really, really mischievous and misleading accounts of what this measure is. The plans did not cover criminal cases, he said, and judges would decide when the "closed material proceedings" were used. But he was unable to fully answer delegates who complained that Lib Dem MPs were supporting a measure that was against official party policy. Clegg said that, with the Tories and Labour in favour, it was "arithmetically impossible" for the Lib Dems to block the plans. The Liberal Democrats and the Tories have agreed a tactic that will allow the Lib Dems to avoid voting with Labour on a motion supporting the mansion tax next week. James Forsyth at Coffee House has the story. Activists have complained about a decision to refuse to allow an emergency debate on the economy tomorrow. Time has been set aside for two emergency debates, and, when delegates voted on the subjects to be debated, they chose first secret courts, second the economy, and third the Leveson report. But the party's federal conference committee said that Leveson should take priority over the economy because an economy debate would take a full hour, not the half hour allowed. Almost 200 delegates backed a procedural bid to attempt to have the decision overturned, but they were unsuccessful because they did not win the vote with a two thirds majority. Here's what Linda Jack, chair of Liberal Left, said about the federal conference committee's decision on Twitter. The Lib Dems have backed a motion saying that legal aid should be available for some cases going to social security tribunals. That's all from me for today. I'll be blogging again from the conference tomorrow, when we've got Nick Clegg's speech. Thanks for the comments.