The Coalition government will continue “right up to the wire”, Liberal Democrats will stress as they gather in Glasgow for their party conference.

Nick Clegg and colleagues will insist they plan to remain in Government alongside Conservative Party colleagues until the next election in 2015, rejecting suggestions that the parties could arrange an amicable divorce as polling day looms closer.

The message will be delivered at the Liberal Democrat conference in Scotland, the first of the three major party gatherings this autumn.

But Liberal Democrats face the tricky task of simultaneously drawing up distinctive policies to be included in the 2015 manifesto, which they will fight as an independent party in opposition to the Tories (and, of course, to Labour too).

They will begin this process with a series of debates at the conference, kicking off a process which will lead to the publication of a draft manifesto in September 2014.

Key themes of the manifesto have already been decided. These are “a strong economy” and “a fair society”.

For party leader Nick Clegg and his colleagues, “a strong economy” means continuing to get the deficit under control.

Despite reports that the economy is improving – or “turning a corner” as Chancellor George Osborne put it – Liberal Democrats will argue that the task of getting the UK’s finances in order is not completed, and that Labour cannot be trusted to do the job.

Whether the prospect of more deficit reduction will enthuse voters remains to be seen.

The second part of the equation, a “fair society”, refers to measures to make life easier for working people. That includes proposals to increase the basic income tax threshold from £10,000 – the target for this Parliament, which this Lib Dems will achieve – up to around £12,500.

The aim would be to ensure that people in full-time work who are paid the minimum wage pay no income tax at all.

At the same time, the Liberal Democrats will set out plans to encourage more public services and businesses to pay the “living wage” – a type of voluntary minimum wage which outside London is currently around £7.45 an hour, compared to the minimum wage of £6.31

This is something Labour leader Ed Miliband has been championing, and it has already been adopted by a number of Labour-led councils.

But that’s politics. Traditionally, the Lib Dems have come up with ideas that other parties have borrowed, so perhaps turnaround is fair play.

Specific proposals include forcing businesses with more than 250 staff to issue a public statement revealing how many of their staff are paid less than the living wage, forcing them to increase wages or endure the barrage of negative publicity that would inevitably follow.

Many of the policies destined for the manifesto will be debated and voted on by party members at Glasgow this week.

They include expanding paternity leave by offering fathers a “Daddy Month”, based on the system currently operating in Sweden.

GPs will be encouraged to install Skype, the internet video telephone system, so that patients have the option of a face-to-face consultation on their computers instead of coming in to surgeries.

Delegates will debate plans to “prepare for the introduction of a revenue-neutral system of road pricing”. This is likely to mean encouraging local authorities to introduce their own road pricing plans rather than national government imposing a central scheme.

And as reported previously, Lib Dems aim to ensure that only “ultra-low carbon vehicles” are permitted on UK roads for 2040 – with the exception of freight vehicles.

The issue of student tuition fees will be addressed, although the solution may not win over many of Mr Clegg’s critics.

In the run-up to the last election, many Lib Dem MPs signed a pledge organised by the National Union of Students promising not to increase tuition fees – a pledge which they broke once in power.

In fairness, there is no way the junior partner in a Coalition is going to be able to put all their policies into practice. Any party in that position would have to compromise and back a number of things they don’t actually support.

But the the Lib Dems had specifically promised to oppose tuition fee hikes in a high-profile series of pledges, and their U-turn on this particular issued damaged their credibility and Mr Clegg’s personal standing enormously.

Delegates in Glasgow will debate a motion which states the current system of Higher Education funding “represents the best deal for students and taxpayers currently available” - and rules out the introduction of a graduate tax, an alternative to tuition fees which Lib Dems once backed.

The motion also promises a review of Higher Education funding after the next election, but there is no guarantee this would lead to major changes. There will once again be a commitment to a mansion tax – a tax of 1% on the excess value of properties over £2 million.

It’s tempting to think that Coalition has been a struggle for the Liberal Democrats, but they argue that their party has coped much better than the Conservatives.

Liberal Democrats remain reasonably united, the resignation of London MP Sarah Teather notwithstanding, while David Cameron is more or less in open war with some of his backbenchers.

In fact, Labour is also facing internal divisions, Labour leader Ed Miliband has managed to anger MPs who oppose to his plans to reform Labour’s links with the trade unions, and his handling of the row over candidate selection in Falkirk has alienated Tom Watson, the high profile Black Country MP who won respect from many activists for taking on media giant Rupert Murdoch.

By contrast, things look fairly rosy for Mr Clegg – until you look at the polls.

Over August and September, opinion polls have put the Lib Dems on between 8 and 14 per cent – compared to the 23 per cent of the vote they won in the last election.

And they are regularly in fourth place, behind UKIP.

As always, it’s important to stress that opinion polls are at best a very rough guide to the fortunes of the various parties. Personally I suspect too that many of UKIP’s supporters will return to the traditional parties once General Election campaign begins, but who knows.

So the outlook for the Lib Dems is uncertain. Nick Clegg is no fool – he always knew that being in Government would cost the party support.

Whether he can win that support back remains to be seen but this weekend in Glasgow is where the battle begins.