Liberal Democrats party conference: Clegg correct to reject Tory advances

NICK CLEGG closed the last Liberal Democrat party conference before the general election with a clear rejection of the Tories' advances.

In the Observer on Sunday, Conservative leader David Cameron cherry-picked policies on the third Heathrow runway, greener energy, ID cards and civil liberties.

Mr Cameron wrote that "there's barely a cigarette paper" on these issues between the parties and suggested they form an alliance to defeat their common enemy, Labour.

But, while making his speech on his wedding anniversary, Mr Clegg immediately rejected the Tory woos.

And rightly so, as for the good of British politics, I believe we need a Liberal Democrat party with a distinctive identity.

Unfortunately, distinction has been something which has troubled Mr Clegg in a tough week in Bournemouth.

High profile party members have grumbled that he has put their policy of scrapping tuition fees on the backburner, with him citing the need to save money in a recession.

This is despite it being something which had served them well according to former leader Charles Kennedy and it certainly attracted a lot of votes from students in 2005.

Mr Clegg was also criticised from members inside his party for using the term "savage" to describe the cuts which his party would make.

But he confirmed that much of this would be concentrated on freezing the salaries of executives and this sounds no bad thing to me.

It would stop incompetents like Paul Gray, former chairman at HMRC, picking up a £190,000 salary while leading a chaotic department merger which ended up with lost Child Benefit discs.

Other policy ideas also paint the Lib Dems as a progressive and radical force.

They were the first party to suggest a tax rate of 50 per cent on incomes above £100,000 before Labour adopted the policy.

And the Lib Dems remain the only party which would raise the personal allowance to £10,000, taking over four million people out of paying income tax.

Their position on scrapping the financial blackhole that is Trident is also something with which I agree, and they accurately predicted the carnage which would occur in Iraq.

Notably, they emerged from the Daily Telegraph's expenses revelations relatively unscathed - and certainly did so as compared to their Labour and Conservative counterparts.

While I accept the Lib Dems will not come close to winning the next election and Mr Clegg is unlikely ever to be Prime Minister, I would still like to see the party increase their representation.

The Lib Dems currently have 63 seats. This compares favourably with 46 seats when Labour came to power in 1997 and just 20 seats after the 1992 election.

But the first-past-the-post system still fails to reflect their vote and it is likely the party will lose several seats to the Tory juggernaut in the south.

It is therefore the disenchanted Labour voters in the north where the Lib Dems need to capitalise with a progressive manifesto.

They already control several important councils in Labour strongholds, including Newcastle, Liverpool and Sheffield, and Mr Clegg should be looking to take advantage of a weary Labour government in a national election.

Of course, if the Lib Dems are successful in increasing their number at the expense of Labour, it will have the inadvertent effect of helping Mr Cameron into office.

But, importantly, the Lib Dems would be gaining seats on their own terms at least and not on behalf of the Tories.