Clegg hungry to deliver as Lib Dems show appetite for power

The Deputy Prime Minister finds himself enjoying his first spell of positive press coverage in two years, as Westminster wakes up to the increasing likelihood of another hung Parliament in 2015 – and Mr Clegg remaining in post through to the end of the decade.

Perhaps more importantly, he has used the Liberal Democrat conference in Glasgow to tighten his grip on his party through a series of key votes. Motions backing his approach on the economy, on the 50p tax rate – even on nuclear power stations – have all been successfully passed, and adopted as official party policy.

Vince Cable, Mr Clegg’s would-be successor, has been slapped down each time he has raised the possibility of a different approach on the economy or towards the coalition.

And the Sheffield Hallam MP will round things off today with his crowd-pleasing announcement of free school meals for every child up to the age of seven.

“This has been an important conference for us,” Mr Clegg agrees, relaxing in a meeting room buried deep in Glasgow’s cavernous exhibition centre. “It shows our party is, as always, more united than our critics predicted.

“We are proud of the things we’ve achieved in Government, and there has been a real sea change in the way Liberal Democrats are now going out and knocking on doors.”

Mr Clegg is increasingly confident the grassroots have been won round to the view that the party must remain “anchored to the centre ground” and be equally prepared to share office with Labour or the Tories in the future.

“There is a real appetite to see us in Government again,” he said. “I suspect many people might have thought, given we’d taken quite a hit to our short-term popularity... that actually the party would say ‘well, we’ve done this once and got our fingers burned – let’s recoil to the fringes and lick our wounds’. None of it.

“There is a renewed sense that if we allow either the Labour or Conservative parties back in on their own again we will just turn the clock back to the bad old days of single-party government, where Labour and the Conservatives took it in turns to mess things up. We don’t want that to happen – certainly not after the effort we’ve put in to foster the recovery.”

Mr Clegg remains upbeat about the economic outlook, and rejects any suggestion that recovery is restricted to the South East.

“I would be very worried if I felt the recovery was just a repetition of previous recoveries, that only occurred in one region and left the rest of the country behind,” he said. “Thankfully, there really is quite a lot of evidence that that is not the case this time.

“We’ve seen a real resurgence in optimism in manufacturing, for instance – not least in my neck of the woods in South Yorkshire, but elsewhere as well.”

The likelihood of a second coalition means the Lib Dems’ 2015 manifesto takes on an increasing importance, and party leaders have this week set out key tax 
rises they will include as part of their package of economic proposals.

Mr Clegg is scathing of George Osborne’s assertion that no further tax rises will be necessary after 2015, which he says is neither “feasible” nor “fair”.

But could tax be one of his “red line” issues going into a second coalition agreement?

“I’m not going to get into red lines,” he says. “But I will certainly be seeking to confront the Conservatives with economic reality. I don’t know of any fiscal contraction anywhere in the developed world that is only delivered through spending cuts.”

Currently, he adds, the Government is finding about 80 per cent of its austerity measures through spending cuts, and about 20 per cent from tax rises.

“I would like to keep it around there,” he says. “I certainly wouldn’t want to see the spending share go much beyond 80 
per cent. But it’s not an exact science.”

What is clear is Mr Clegg is now equally happy to criticise the Tories or Labour, as he puts his party onto an election footing. Expect to see plenty more attacks on Left and Right between now and 2015.