Fledging recovery ‘would not have happened’ without Lib Dems in power, claims Nick Clegg

In a confident speech which reflected Mr Clegg’s mounting belief that the next election will deliver a second coalition, the Deputy Prime Minister told his party conference the fledgling recovery “would not have happened” without Lib Dems in power.

“The country is finally emerging from the biggest economic crisis in living memory,” Mr Clegg said. “The absolute worst thing to do would be to give the keys to Number 10 to a single party government.

“All of the sacrifices made by the British people – the pay freezes, the spending cuts, the lost jobs, the daily grind of austerity – all of that would be for nothing.

“Labour would wreck the recovery. The Conservatives would give us the wrong kind of recovery.”

Mr Clegg used his keynote address to flesh out the theme which has pervaded the five-day conference – his belief that the Lib Dems are now the party of the centre ground, and must remain in Government to prevent the worst excesses of both Tory and Labour.

For the first time he spelled out in detail the raft of Conservative policies he claims to have blocked, and ridiculed the ‘alternative Queen’s Speech’ put forward by a group of backbench Tory right-wingers earlier this year.

“They wanted to introduce an annual Margaret Thatcher Day – I’d like to see that on the streets of Glasgow,” Mr Clegg joked. “The first bank holiday when people preferred to go to work!”

He was equally dismissive of Labour, for failing to set out clear policies while “lazily assuming austerity would drive voters into their laps”.

“You can sit and wait for the British people to come back to you,” he told leader Ed Miliband. “But don’t hold your breath.”