'I am not kingmaker' - Clegg (From The Westmorland Gazette)

'I am not kingmaker' - Clegg

2:12am Sunday 14th March 2010 in

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Nick Clegg will insist he is "not the kingmaker" at the next general election as he seeks to cool speculation that he is ready to take the Liberal Democrats into a coalition government.

Having refused to rule out an alliance with either the Tories or Labour last week, the Lib Dem leader will maintain that he is not trying to "play footsie" with his counterparts. He will instead use his main speech to his party's spring conference in Birmingham to hail the end of two-party politics and the breakthrough of the Lib Dems in their own right.

On Saturday he made plain that he would not support Tory plans for immediate cuts to reduce the deficit and criticised the party's animosity towards the European Union. Vince Cable, the Lib Dems' Treasury spokesman and deputy leader, also put an attack on the Tories - for playing "fast and loose" with the economy - at the heart of his own keynote speech.

At the close of the three-day gathering on Sunday afternoon, Mr Clegg will openly acknowledge the intense interest in which party he might support in the event of a hung parliament.

He will say: "Some days I read we're planning a deal with Labour, some days that we're planning a deal with the Conservatives, other days that we'll refuse to talk to anyone at all. And when people understandably ask me these things, I keep coming back to the same simple truths - I am not the kingmaker. The 45 million voters are the kingmakers."

He will try to focus voters' minds instead on the four key demands that the Lib Dems are putting at the heart of their campaign for the election expected on May 6. But he will also suggest again that whoever comes first will have the moral authority to try first to form a government.

He will say: "This election is a time for voters to choose, not a time for politicians to play footsie with each other. The party with the strongest mandate from voters will have the moral authority to be the first to seek to govern, and voters are entitled to know what Liberal Democrats will do - in whatever situation we find ourselves in.

"We've given the answer - we will give you fairer taxes, we will make sure your child gets the fair start in life they deserve, we will create a new, fair economy where we are no longer held hostage by the greed of bankers in the City of London, and we will give you a fair, open and transparent politics after the gross betrayal of the expenses scandal."

The Lib Dem leader on Saturday sought to reassure his members that he was not a supporter of Thatcherism after one delegate pulled him up over a recent interview. He insisted that, as a student in the 1980s, he had opposed "pretty much everything (Margaret Thatcher) did".

But he praised the fact that the Tories in the 1980s stood up to the "vested interest" of the trade unions, comparing them with the bankers now. It was vital that one group was not given "preferential treatment over the wider interests of society", he said.