Clegg wants 'progressive, liberal principles'

Nick Clegg is distancing himself from the other parties by claiming he will fight for "progressive, liberal principles".

At a press briefing in Edinburgh, he said the Liberal Democrats core principle was to "put money back into people's pockets" so there was an incentive to work.

The Lib Dem leader set out the ideological differences between his party, and Labour and the Conservatives saying: "The Labour Party thinks the only way to deal with poverty is to encourage people to become ever more over-dependent on an ever-more complex system."

Instead his party would "route towards greater fairness and social mobility" allowing workers with lower and middle incomes "greater control over their lives".

He added: "Our agenda is one of fairness, one of progressive liberalism but delivered through quite different means to Labour."

The increasingly popular leader seems confident about his party's position in the General Election. Mr Clegg thinks the party that finishes third should not have the "right to carry on squatting in No 10", as "millions of people have decided to abandon them", and therefore they, "cannot then lay claim to providing the prime minister of this country".

As for the Conservatives, he hit out about their economy plans suggesting that their proposals "will only increase the risk of a double-dip recession and only increase the difficulty of the task of dealing with the deficit in the long run."