Nick Clegg yesterday warned his MPs are “not for sale” as both Labour and the Tories stepped up attempts to woo his supporters.
There are “no backroom deals or under-the-counter understandings” with other parties, he said before laying out four policy priorities likely to be a deal breaker in the event of a hung parliament.
It marks a subtle shift in strategy from Mr Clegg’s party conference speech in September when he set out why he wanted to be Prime Minister. Some senior figures within the party believe his slimmed down list of objectives – fair taxes, education, the economy and political reform – will form the basis of any coalition talks if the Lib-Dems hold the balance of power after the election.
Last night bookmakers Paddy Power cut their odds on a hung Parliament to 9/4, with a spokesman adding that punters believe the Lib-Dems “might be power brokers” after polling day.
The Conservatives have made direct appeals for Lib-Dem supporters to “lend” them their vote in order to oust the Labour administration, claiming policy similarities on the environment, civil liberties and social justice.
Meanwhile, at the weekend, Gordon Brown appeared to hold out his own olive branch to persuade Lib-Dem voters to swing in behind Labour. The Prime Minister said the Lib-Dems were “closer to us on tax and public services”.
But Mr Clegg insisted he was not about to get into bed with either of his opponents.
“David Cameron and Gordon Brown are ostentatiously flirting with Liberal Democrat voters, clumsily trying to woo them – and by implication me and my fellow Liberal Democrat MPs,” he wrote in The Times.
“This year’s general election is likely to be the most open and unpredictable in a generation. So you have a right to know where we stand. I can promise voters wondering whether to put an ‘X’ against the Liberal Democrats that there are no backroom deals or under-the-counter ‘understandings’ with either of the other two parties.”
The Lib-Dem leader said his party had been in tune with the British public on many issues, citing opposition to the Iraq war, civil liberties, the environment, the excesses of the City and rights for Gurkha veterans.
Whatever the outcome of the election, Mr Clegg said, the party would push “four core priorities”. A package of fair taxes would include no income tax on the first £10,000 of earnings. Children would receive a “fair start” through the pupil premium, smaller class sizes and more one-to-one tuition. He also wanted a “green, job-rich, sustainable economy” and a reinvention politics “to get rid of the rotten system of politics and replace it with something new”.
