For Nick Clegg it was, perhaps, a classic case of saying the wrong thing in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Liberal Democrat leader was on his way to Inverness last Thursday to discuss the impact of the economic slowdown on the local community. Danny Alexander, his chief of staff, is the local MP.

No doubt "Calamity", as the 41-year-old politician has been nicknamed by his detractors at Westminster, thought a 90-minute flight to Scotland would be safe enough to start sounding off about the shortcomings of his own shadow cabinet and the possible candidates for movement in a forthcoming reshuffle.

Little did he know that sitting in the seat in front was a journalist, whose ears burned as he overheard the LibDem chief supposedly offer his less-than-generous opinions about some of his front-bench colleagues.

Asked about his overheard remarks yesterday, the party leader looked a mite embarrassed, branding his fellow passenger's account "fiction"; at least, that is, "a lot of it".

Steve Webb, the party's spokesman on climate change and energy, appears to have got the sharpest edge of Mr Clegg's tongue.

"Webb must go," declared the party leader, according to his fellow passenger. "He's a problem. I can't stand the man. We need a new spokesman.We have to move him. We need someone with good ideas. At the moment, they just don't add up."

Next up for the verbal roasting was Chris Huhne, Mr Clegg's erstwhile rival for the leadership and currently home affairs and justice spokesman.

The suggestion was he had been moved from the environment brief because he was not "emotionally intelligent" enough for the role.

Julia Goldsworthy, the communities and local government spokeswoman, was ruled out for another job. The reason was that she "gets patronised" in her current position.

According to the journalist, Mr Clegg decided he would move David Laws, the party's education spokesman, to the environment brief, noting: "Give David a day and he'll come up with more good ideas than Webb has come up with in a year."

The party leader also pencilled in Ms Goldsworthy for education and Mr Webb for justice, leaving a question-mark over Mr Huhne..

Mr Clegg even apparently revealed that he would consider a coalition, but only if David Cameron lost the next General Election.

Yesterday, the party leader sought to brush off the episode, saying: "I, as every senior politician in this country, will read every week articles, claiming about what I've done and said and even what I think. Almost all of them are wildly inaccurate. This one, a lot of it, is just fiction."

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