Clegg says party must make tough decisions on spending to win votes
Thursday 24 September 2009
Latest in UK Politics
Related articles
On Facebook
From the blogs
Disclosure: We’d never even been to a club when we made our first single
For most of us, reaching eighteen years of age opens up a new world for exploration, spontaneity and...
Top of the posts: Drunken rants, the Western Fail and misogyny pushers
The most read blogs this week, as determined by stats.
Sepp Blatter: Penalty shoot-outs must remain, they’re football’s great leveller
As England supporters, we should scorn at any such deciding factor within football. On so many occas...
Why do some men consider the street as a female meat market?
Pronouncements on sexual inequality in the UK are normally met with an eye roll by my generation. As...
Nick Clegg told the Liberal Democrats they could make an historic breakthrough at the election – but only if they had the bravery to face up to dire economic problems facing Britain. After a fractious conference marred by dissent over his leadership style, he warned his party yesterday that it would have to take painful decisions in order to be taken seriously by the voters.
Mr Clegg said he was unrepentant about having spelled out tough messages over the scale of cuts required to public spending to reduce Britain's mountain of debt.
But he also used his keynote speech to the Bournemouth gathering to try to rally morale among his restive MPs and delegates by raising the prospect of power after the election. Conspicuously avoiding any reference to coalitions or hung parliaments, the Lib Dem leader insisted he had set his sights on forming the next government.
"Let me tell you why I want to be prime minister," he told activists. "It's because I want to change our country for good." He added: "I want to be prime minister because I have spent half a lifetime imagining a better society. And I want to spend the next half making it happen."
In the party's final conference before the next election, Mr Clegg attempted to convey the seriousness of his ambitions. His refusal to rule out abandoning the party's cherished commitment to scrap university tuition fees has been attacked across the party during a turbulent week in Bournemouth, with former leader Charles Kennedy joining the criticism.
The Lib Dem leader has also come under fire for warning that Britain needed "savage" spending cuts. And Vince Cable, the treasury spokesman, provoked anger among colleagues for not consulting them over his proposals to impose a "mansion tax" on the owners of £1m-plus houses.
But Mr Clegg warned the party would have to make difficult choices on tax and spending if it was to set out a realistic national recovery programme that he characterised as "progressive austerity".
He said: "Many of these decisions will be difficult. Taking them is the price of fairness. But if we are brave enough to take them, it will be the beginning of real change in Britain."
He did not address the issue of tuition fees directly, but said: "I am never going to duck asking the important questions, however difficult they are."
Urging activists to pull together following their conferences differences, he said: "Let's always remember – we are in this together. So let us not look back any longer, let us look forward.
"From this point on, keep your eyes on our goal. Let today mark the beginning of real change in Britain."
Mr Clegg's speech, which he delivered on his ninth wedding anniversary, won a warm, but not ecstatic, four-minute ovation from delegates.
With his wife Miriam, he toured the hall shaking hands and posing for pictures with some Gurkhas, whose campaign for resettlement rights he successfully championed earlier this year.
Mr Clegg now faces a tough battle to hold on to the party's 63 constituencies in the election, likely to take place in the spring.
His claim that his party, which faces a concerted challenge from a buoyant Conservative Party in half of those seats, was on course for power risked echoes of David Steel's notorious challenge to Liberals to "return to your constituencies and prepare for government".
Last night Labour ridiculed him as a fantasist. But the Lib Dem leader's aides claimed private polling showed millions of voters still had not made up their minds who to support at the next election, making the outcome impossible to predict.
Mr Clegg argued that the Lib Dems now carried the "torch of progress" because a "lost" Labour Party had run out of energy and ideas and stood no chance of election victory.
He derided David Cameron's "hollow" Tories for only offering the illusion of change, claiming they lacked conviction.
In a direct appeal to floating voters, he said: "Make no mistake – the Liberal Democrats will do things differently in Britain.
"But if you want real change in Britain, you have to take a stand. If you want what we propose, you have to vote for it."
- 1 Brazil rocked by abortion for 9-year-old rape victim
- 2 News in pictures
- 3 Britain's waste: Now it's coming back to haunt us
- 4 Tory chief Warsi failed to declare rent income from flat
- 5 In pictures: The bewildering face of China
- 6 Osborne to face questions over links to Murdoch
- 7 Facebook: The shares shenanigans
- 8 Is Ridley Scott the most macho man in movies?
- 9 Günter Grass attacks Merkel for Athens policy
- 10 Exclusive dispatch: Assad blamed for massacre of the innocents
- 1 Brazil rocked by abortion for 9-year-old rape victim
- 2 Society: The only way is Finland
- 3 Osborne to face questions over links to Murdoch
- 4 Fat? Really? Olympic hope laughs off official’s jibe – but others aren’t amused
- 5 Is Ridley Scott the most macho man in movies?
- 6 'Hello mum, this is going to be hard for you to read ...'
- 7 Exclusive dispatch: Assad blamed for massacre of the innocents
- 8 Coke reveals its secret: It may need to carry a cancer warning
- 9 French in uproar over oral sex anti-smoking posters
Experience the Heineken Hub
Get free wi-fi and exclusive i content while you enjoy a tasty pint of Heineken at participating pubs.
Can you imagine a career in teaching?
Be inspired to teach - let real teachers show you how rewarding the job can be.
Playing a game-changing role during the Games
Cisco is providing the solutions for London 2012's complex IT needs.
Enter the latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Business videos from commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
Career Services
Day In a Page
The secret life of the red carpet
Up and away – how '7 Up' went global



Comments