Spring Conference roundup: speech by Nick Clegg

3.23.10pm GMT Wed 25th Mar 2009

Nick Clegg's Leader's speech rounded off a successful conference.

The Liberal Democrats Spring Conference took place in Harrogate earlier this month. In his third conference speech as Leader, Nick Clegg laid the blame for Britain's economic crisis squarely at the door of both Labour and the Conservatives.

Nick Clegg said it would be a long, slow climb out of recession but the Liberal Democrats had hope for the future: "We carry the torch of progress now." He concluded: "A never-ending cycle of red-blue, blue-red government has got us into this mess - it is never going to get us out. Try something new. Now is the time to think big. If you want better, choose different. Choose the Liberal Democrats".

On jobs, Nick said that the Liberal Democrats would do everything possible to help - to protect jobs, to keep viable businesses going, to make sure being made redundant does not mean people lose everything, and to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs.

The party would have taken the £12.5 billion used to finance the VAT give-away and used it to created nearly 100,000 new green jobs. He said banks should be given a choice - stick to ordinary, boring consumer business like savings and mortgages and be protected; or take the "high risk route", in which case they would not be allowed to get involved in high street services, and would be allowed to fail. The bankers responsible for the crisis should be brought to account and disqualified from holding any future directorships, as the directors of Barings bank were in 1995.

Nick cautioned that economic turmoil breeds xenophobia and protectionism. "We mustn't turn in on ourselves," he warned, hitting out at Gordon Brown for lecturing the US Congress on protectionism when he uses protectionist rhetoric himself.

He accused the PM of failing to challenge protectionism in Europe. The European Union, said Nick, is our best bet in an unsafe world - to push forward the international institutions needed to regulate global capitalism, to secure peace, human rights and to stop climate change. He said that was what Liberal Democrat MEPs are fighting for, and they deserved to be re-elected in greater numbers in June.

Summarising what makes the party different, Nick explained: "We are the only party who will put money into people's pockets with fair tax cuts. The only party to offer universal childcare and smaller classes in our primary schools. The only party who would use Gordon Brown's wasted billions to create thousands of jobs today by investing in homes, hospitals, schools and public transport to build the green economy of tomorrow. The only party that will rebuild the jobs, homes and hopes this recession has destroyed."

Full details of the Liberal Democrats 2009 Spring Conference are available on the party website at:

http://tinyurl.com/c5ztca