What do you call a Lib Dem climax gone horribly wrong? That's right, an 'exotic spresm'

The room drew breath, the world stopped, then Vince Cable’s erotic spasm failed to arrive

A lone finger raised in the air. It shaped to form a wide loop, circling back around on itself like an aircraft called in to land. From there its plan was to join its nine colleagues, interlock, turn upwards and vibrate, like the people in the church from the old children’s rhyme, except this time caught in a terrible earthquake.

Like the rest of us, the signer for the deaf on stage left had had all night and morning to prepare herself for the moment the 75-year-old leader of the Liberal Democrats, Vince Cable, would stand on stage at party conference and say the words “erotic spasm”.

There might even have been, dare I say it, a certain glint in the young woman’s eye as the moment approached with deadly certainty.

The room drew breath, the index finger of the right hand soared skyward as intended but then something strange happened. Vince Cable’s erotic spasm never arrived.

In the pre-released material, he had promised to accuse certain parts of the Tory party of being desperate for the “erotic spasm” of Brexit. Probably, you’ll know by now, that after a lengthy pause, Vince said the words “exotic spresm” instead. What you won’t have seen, however, unless you were there, is the terrified glare in the eyes of a signer for the deaf, as she desperately scoured the outer reaches of her memory in search of a spresm she could never find.

None of which is to say there was no spasm at all. There certainly was. The spasm occurred first in the leader’s throat, then expanded to fill his mouth as it exited. But what he eventually ejaculated into the ears of the expectant crowd was something entirely unexpected and altogether bizarre.

This, frankly, was not what the people had come to see. The words “anti-climax” were even muttered. Performance anxiety perhaps? If you had to pick a major party that is at least open to the idea of doing things the tantric way, you could certainly pick the Liberal Democrats. But after four days and three nights of floor speeches from obscure councillors, fringe events with Tom Brake and the slightly begrudging purchase of yet another Layla Moran fridge magnet, the spasm does need to arrive.

Never mind, Vince. It happens to every guy. It’s no big deal. You recovered, that’s the main thing.

By the time he had moved on to an articulate dissection of Labour under Corbyn, the spresm clean up operation was already underway.

The leader had “misspoke”, the gathered media were informed, even while Vince was still speaking. He had absolutely definitely meant to say “erotic spasm”.

“Exotic spresm,” we were told, was not the result of a last minute rewrite, not a spirited Lib Demmian compromise, nor a climbdown in the face of the public reaction that had greeted Vince’s erotic spasm on the news channel all morning.

The word “misspoke” is commonly understood to have been invented by Hillary Clinton in 2008, when it transpired that the sniper fire she claimed to have come under when exiting a military aircraft in Bosnia while first lady had not quite happened as she described. Video footage of the incident instead showed her and her husband shaking hands with waiting dignitaries and walking down a red carpet.

She had, she later said, “misspoke.” Whether it was less dignified then, when deployed as a friendly alternative to “lie”, or in this modern reincarnation of the term, which was turn a spresm back into a spasm for the sake of the public record, well that’s a matter of personal choice.

Politely thunderous applause greeted the Lib Dem leader as he exited, stage right. He did not pass the signer as he did so. There may be no sign for spresm, but there’s certainly a word for the climax to a Liberal Democrat conference that doesn’t quite go as planned. Vince Cable’s just invented it.