CHRIS FISHER, EDP Political Editor Despite poor poll ratings for the Liberal Democrats and continuing doubts inside and beyond the party about the leadership of Sir Menzies Campbell, Norfolk MP Norman Lamb remains resolutely optimistic. Political editor Chris Fisher would have expected nothing less.

CHRIS FISHER, EDP Political Editor

Optimism goes with the territory if you are a Liberal Democrat. It's getting on for a century since the party last held power. But you never know. Good times may be just around the corner. So keep your pecker up and don't stop smiling.

Party leader Sir Menzies Campbell was showing the customary spirit when he declared this week that he and senior colleagues had been working on the responses that would be made if the next general election delivered a hung parliament and either Gordon Brown or David Cameron offered to share power. The essence of the answer to either of them would be that no deal was possible without a promise not just to talk about electoral reform but to support it.

Put all the polls of recent weeks and months together and you can certainly conclude that there is a considerable - and greater than normal - chance that the next election will result in a hung parliament.

But this is not to suggest that morale is high in Lib Dem ranks. By the party's standards it is poor, and that makes its annual conference, starting tomorrow in Brighton, a difficult engagement for Sir Ming.

The Lib Dems' own poll ratings have been low of late. Furthermore, their hopes of yet another sensational by-election victory were crushed in Southall in July. And in such circumstances there is bound to be continuing questioning inside the party as well as outside as to whether Sir Ming is the right man for the job.

According to North Norfolk MP Norman Lamb, however, there is actually very little whispering and muttering going on behind Sir Ming's back, and he is sure that he will lead the party into the next general election.

He is also hopeful that Sir Ming's qualities - among which he emphasised integrity and experience - will come to be valued more by the electorate than they seem to have been so far. In taking that view he is encouraged in some respects by the early public reaction to Mr Brown's premiership. He thinks this confirms an appetite for serious politics.

And in telling me this he stressed: "We want this country run by people with integrity. No-one I have worked with has more integrity than Ming."

Mr Lamb, who reaches the personal landmark of his 50th birthday tomorrow, has a majority of more than 10,000 in his constituency to help him keep his spirits up. But he was upbeat - and seemingly genuinely so - about his party's prospects as well as

his own.

The national opinion polls have been suggesting that had there been a general election yesterday, the Lib Dem seats in the Commons could have been cut from 63 to 40 or even fewer. But with Mr Lamb's party, you have to be particularly careful in estimating how shares of the vote will translate into seats. It specialises in targeting seats, and, thereby, wins more constituencies than basic

national percentages suggest it will.

Sometimes the targeting is very and even spectacularly successful. Mr Lamb's story in North Norfolk is a case in point. But it can also flop, and South Norfolk is an example of that. I have been told on countless occasions over the years that the Lib Dems were poised to take the seat off the Tories, but it hasn't happened.

Indeed, the orange party has not only been failing to make progress there but has actually been going backwards - not least because

of a conspicuous failure to crush the Labour vote in the constituency.

There was similar frustration for the Lib Dems in the 2005 election in Norwich South where they and the Greens get in each other's way. But despite these experiences, Mr Lamb remains hopeful of advances by his party in these constituencies and the new one of Broadland where the Tory banner will be carried by Keith Simpson, the current Mid Norfolk MP. How much substance is there, however, to back up this optimism?

What if the next general election does produce a hung parliament? With which party would the Lib Dems prefer to work in government, if that were at all possible?

It has long been supposed that in such circumstances Sir Ming would be inclined to look towards Mr Brown rather than Mr Cameron.

But what about Mr Lamb? Would he have a preference? "Absolutely not", he said in almost indignant fashion. Mr Lamb is already his party's shadow health secretary. And when Sir Ming does step down he will have a good claim on promotion. Might he even go for the party's leadership? It seems not.

"I am quite a strong supporter of Nick Clegg (the Lib Dems' shadow home secretary), and I value my family", he said.

"I want to play a prominent role but I am not aggressively ambitious. I like to have a degree of balance in my life."