Exclusive: Lib Dems will not hide away in bunker says Clegg

Police expect up to 10,000 protesters to demonstrate at the party’s spring conference in the wake of spending cuts, the axing of the £80m loan to Sheffield Forgemasters and the U-turn on tuition fees. But the Deputy Prime Minister said he “welcomed” any protest – so long as it is peaceful. He warned a ferocious personal attack on him by Labour will not force him to “hide” in his adopted city.

In an exclusive interview with the Yorkshire Post, Mr Clegg warned against “reading too much” into the results of the Barnsley Central by-election, where the Lib Dems trailed behind the UK Independence Party, BNP and an independent candidate.

He said the party would be “throwing it all, life and soul” into campaigning for the local elections in May, where the party faces a major battle to keep control of Sheffield and Hull councils, but accepted the “tough decisions” being made by the Government left it vulnerable to another bad election night. He predicted the Lib Dems would be rewarded “over time”.

He also launched a ferocious attack on Labour in Sheffield – where he is MP for the Hallam constituency – accusing the party of “the worst kind of bullying, carping, sneering, infantile politics, straight out of the playground” .

Delegates begin arriving in Sheffield tomorrow, with MPs and dozens of activists fanning out across the city, effectively launching the Lib Dem local election campaign in a city where they are widely expected to lose control of the council.

Three thousand delegates are expected to attend, 1,000 up on last year but they face being outnumbered by 10,000 protesters kept in order by a police operation costing £1.5m.

Mr Clegg is adamant, however, that he will not be forced to stay inside the fence constructed around the conference venue. While he will visit a school and a training scheme for young people in his constituency, Work and Pensions Minister Steve Webb will talk to pensioners and Business Secretary Vince Cable will visit local firms.

“We won’t be in Sheffield in a bunker surrounded by a ring of steel,” he said. “I’m proud of all the things we are doing for people in Sheffield and across the country and we want to tell them about it.”

Mr Clegg claimed that many typical demonstrators are “donors of the Labour Party” as trade union members so have “an axe to grind”, but warned against violence in the wake of the chaos when protests against tuition fees increases in London turned ugly.

“I’m a very big supporter of peaceful demonstrations – if people want to do that in Sheffield I welcome that. But if people want to go over the top I don’t think that’s right and I don’t think that would be speaking for the vast majority of law-abiding people in Sheffield.”

Mr Clegg said he would use the conference to contrast cuts being made by Lib Dem-run Sheffield council – where libraries, swimming pools and adult social services have been protected and job cuts limited to 270 next year – with Labour-run Manchester, which approved 2,000 job cuts.

“I’ll debate with Labour any day of the week how in difficult circumstances we are actually serving Sheffield well compared to Labour’s cheap point-scoring and total, total refusal to apologise to the people of Sheffield for the toxic mess that they created,” he said.

•More on this story in Thursday’s Yorkshire Post