I have not betrayed voters, Clegg tells Lib Dems

The Deputy Prime Minister denied signing up to severe spending cuts "with a swivel-eyed ideological zeal" and insisted he had not "betrayed" voters as he faced criticism from a Yorkshire-born peer, former MPs and a host of delegates at his party's conference in Liverpool.

Under pressure to speak out against unpopular policies pushed by the Tories, the Sheffield Hallam MP – who admitted "people are starting to believe" Labour vitriol about cuts – he warned creating "synthetic differences" with his coalition partners just to give the party grassroots a short-lived "warm feeling" would threaten the future of the Government.

"It's very, very early days, it's a long game," he said. "It's a marathon not a sprint, and grabbing now at opportunities to create synthetic differences in front of a coalition government of which we are a crucial vital part, I think, would be short-term satisfaction for long-term failure and I'm not prepared to advocate that."

Today Mr Clegg will again seek to convince party members to keep their nerve during the coming cuts as he makes his keynote speech.

A major part of the speech will be to make the case for cutting spending now, in a tacit recognition that the Government has not yet convinced voters of the need for urgent action. He will also rule out a formal election pact with the Tories at the next election.

Defending his decision to join the coalition, he will say: "People have got used to us being outsiders, against every government that's come along.

"Maybe we got used to it ourselves. But the door to the change we want was opened, for the first time in most of our lifetimes. Imagine if we had turned away. How could we ever again have asked the voters to take us seriously?"

Yesterday, as the conference began in earnest, the Lib Dem leadership faced a string of criticism over the coalition and backing for Tory policies.

Lib Dem Peer Lord Greaves, who grew up in Bradford, said: "I see Liberal Democrat spokespeople going on television and in the Press defending in detail policies that I know to be Tory policies that this party does not agree with, which are against party policy and which will not be party policy at the next General Election."

He called for new rules to replace the convention of collective responsibility in Government decision-making to help Lib Dem Ministers set out their own policies.

David Rendel, former MP for Newbury, said the leadership pretended every policy was agreed by both sides because they "seem terrified of the tabloid stories that they might get about splits in the coalition" and Sandra Gidley, who lost her seat at the General Election, complained Mr Clegg was taking the party towards the right.

In a question and answer session with activists, Mr Clegg brushed off "growing pains" of being in Government for the first time in 65 years and urged patience from delegates, saying the party had signed up to the coalition and "if you're going to do something either do something properly or don't do it at all."