Clegg vows the Lib Dems 'won't be squeezed out'

Published on Sunday 14 March 2010 21:54

LIBERAL Democrat leader Nick Clegg made his pitch to voters in an bid to stop his party being squeezed by the two main parties at the general election.

&#149 Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg and his wife Miriam

In his last major speech before a date for polling day is set, Mr Clegg told the country yesterday that a vote for his party was "not a wasted vote" but represented "a once in a generation opportunity for real change".

He said only his party could deliver fairness in taxation and reform the political system. At the party's spring conference in Birmingham, he refused to bow to pressure to rule out any deal with the Tories. Mr Clegg said: "The party which gets the strongest mandate from the voters will have the moral authority to be the first to seek to govern."

He delighted delegates by describing David Cameron's Conservatives as the "first offshore party", referring to the funding by non-dom peer Lord Ashcroft in marginal constituencies.

Much of Ashcroft's money has been spent on reclaiming seats from the Liberal Democrats.

"The label still says Made in Britain, but the money says Made in Belize," he said.

He also had harsh words for Gordon Brown, describing Labour as "the party of the many – the many disasters."

He added: "You know their new slogan – a future fair for all. If that sounds familiar that's because they've used it before, seven years ago.

"It's like advertising a second trip on the Titanic. Gordon Brown's unsinkable economy."

He repeated his party's four demands for reforming the electoral system to make it more proportional, changing the tax system to tax the rich and allow the first 10,000 of earnings to be exempt from income tax, reforming the education system in England and tackling the banking system.

He singled out the largely state-owned Royal Bank of Scotland for special criticism for its involvement in the takeover of Cadbury.

He said: "I was staggered when I heard that RBS, a bank we own, was lending millions of pounds to help Kraft buy Cadbury, a great Birmingham company.

"RBS was funding this deal which everybody knew would cost jobs in Britain.

"While small business customers of this very bank were being turned down for loans or charged extortionate rates. This was a scandal and Labour let it happen."

But his main appeal was that a vote for the Liberal Democrats was not wasted. He said: "We are going to hear a nonsensical claim from the two old parties designed to scare people into voting against their best interests.

"The Conservatives will say: vote Lib Dem, get Brown. Labour will say: vote Lib Dem, get Cameron. Don't believe it for a second. They are wrong. Vote Lib Dem, get change."

Critics accused Mr Clegg of offering little detail about Liberal Democrat policy.

Labour Cabinet minister Douglas Alexander, the MP for Paisley and South Renfrewshire, said: "At the end of Nick Clegg's conference speech we knew as little about what the Liberal Democrats really stand for as we did at the beginning.

"The reality he was wrestling with is that after the votes are cast and counted there will either be a Labour government or a Tory government.

"We are calling on progressives all across Britain to reject the Liberal Democrats and vote for Labour – the party that will secure the recovery, protect frontline services, and half the deficit over four years."

Before Mr Clegg's speech, agony aunt and leading Lib Dem supporter Claire Rayner joined those calling on him to distance himself from the Conservatives.

Mrs Rayner, a member of the party's federal policy committee,

said: "If you start hinting now that you're ready to sign up to a cosy deal with the Tories, you might as well shut up shop and be another Conservative Party and be done with it."