Clegg Says It's Time To Get Tough - Sky News

6:08am UK, Wednesday May 11, 2011

Glen Oglaza, political correspondent

In a speech later today, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg will review the first year of the coalition Government and promise a clear party identity, which he is calling "muscular liberalism".

Nick Clegg is set to launch "muscular liberalism"

The Deputy Prime Minister will say he understands the anger over tuition fees, but will again repeat his point that the Lib Dems did not win the election.

He will explain that with just 8% of the MPs in the Commons, they cannot deliver on all parts of their manifesto - but in a coalition, neither can the Tories.

"The Conservatives promised to replace Trident in this parliament, cut inheritance tax for the most wealthy, renegotiate fundamental elements of the Lisbon Treaty on social affairs, build more prisons and replace the Human Rights Act.

"None of these things have happened. And there is no shame in this. They haven't happened because the Conservatives are not governing as a majority party. They are in a coalition, and a coalition requires compromise."

Nick Clegg's popularity has plummeted since last year

Mr Clegg believes the Liberal Democrats need to be seen as a distinctive voice within the coalition Government.

"In part this means we need to do a better job of blowing our own trumpet on policies such as cutting income tax for ordinary taxpayers; ending child detention; increasing the state pension; introducing free nursery education for disadvantaged two-year-olds; adding a quarter of a million apprenticeships; increasing tax on capital gains; reining in the banks; creating a Green Investment Bank and a green deal; and getting more money into schools to help poorer pupils."

It (the Coalition) is certainly hard work, but I would say it's a huge honour to do this job.

Prime Minister David Cameron

Mr Clegg claims the Lib Dems are "punching well above our weight" on policy, delivering 75% of their manifesto promises, but he wants his party to be more assertive over the next year.

"You will see a strong liberal identity in a strong coalition Government. You might even call it muscular liberalism," he will say.

He will also claim that the Lib Dems are right at the centre of British politics - precisely where the other two main parties would like to be.

"We must not define ourselves in relation to the other parties. We are defined by a century and a half of liberal politics.

"It is not left or right, it is liberal. If it requires a position on a spectrum, it is the centre. 

"We are camped on the liberal centre-ground of British politics. And we're not moving."

At the next election we will say that we are demonstrably more economically credible than Labour, and more committed at heart to fairness than the Conservatives.

Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg

Mr Clegg predicts that the voters will return to the Lib Dems, a view he admits is "optimistic, or even utopian, in the wake of last week's awful election results".

But he believes his party has a unique appeal.

"We have an opportunity to show ourselves to be a party that combines financial hard-headedness with a passion for fairness.

"To occupy, as our own freehold property, the ground vacated by the Conservatives in the 80s and by Labour in the last decade."

He claimed the reason neither of the bigger parties won the May 2010 elections was because "neither of them were really trusted to deliver both a strong, dynamic economy and a fair society". 

He said: "We can be trusted on both counts. At the next election we will say that we are demonstrably more economically credible than Labour, and more committed at heart to fairness than the Conservatives."