'Stop apologising,' says Clegg

Nick Clegg has "had it with apologising" and told Liberal Democrats to stop being "sensitive violets" put off by having doors slammed in their faces.

The Deputy Prime Minister said his party needed to have "self-confidence" to tell people what it has achieved. Speaking at the Social Liberal Forum conference in London yesterday, Mr Clegg said: "I have had it with apologising, with this defensive crouch. We have spent all our time worrying about what the latest letter-writing campaign in The Guardian is.

"If there is one thing that has chilled me to my marrow in the last two years, it is meeting friends who I have campaigned with for years who have stopped knocking on doors. We are sensitive violets. A few people shout at you, you get a few doors slammed in your face so we retreated; but we cannot afford to do that."

He added that those who doubt his influence should read the right-wing press: "I am some sort of Rasputin figure who fooled this hopeless toff Cameron into getting into government."