Here are the main points from Nick Clegg’s interview. This is a beefed-up version of the summary I filed earlier, and it includes a line from Clegg’s interview with John Pienaar on Radio 5 Live.
Clegg said that the Lib Dems would propose tax rises for the wealthy going beyond the mansion tax. Further details would be unveiled before the election. Later party sources made it clear that he was talking about new tax increases, not just ideas that the Lib Dems have already floated, but which have not received much attention, such as their plan to cut pensions tax relief. Clegg said:
[Lib Dem plans to cut the deficit would involve] a mixture of the following components: clamping down on tax evasion and tax avoidance, significant additional savings in Whitehall. There will need to be some additional savings but not nearly on the totally implausible scale that the Conservatives have said in the welfare budget and then there will need to be some tax increases as well which fall on the wealthiest in society.
He said PMQs should be scrapped. Talking on Radio 5 Live, he said:
Of course it’s ridiculous. The whole thing should be scrapped. It’s an absolute farce.
He said he would not join a coalition including Ukip. Asked if he said he would serve in a cabinet with Nigel Farage, he said no. And he came close to ruling out being in a coalition involving the SNP. Asked if he would sit in a cabinet with them, he said he would “find it very difficult to imagine the circumstances” in which he could do that.
He said he did not accept predictions that the Lib Dems would lose half their seats at the election. They would do better than the pundits expected, he said. When told that the Iain Dale (among others) has predicted that the Lib Dems will lose half their seats, he said:
Iain Dale will have to eat his words, because I really don’t think that’s going to happen. He’s a good man but some of his predictions are getting a bit silly.
He said he supported giving more powers to the security services to protect national security “as much as any chisel-faced securocrat”. But he reaffirmed his opposition to the communications data bill. Storing details of everyone’s internet use was unBritish, he said, because it involved treating everyone as guilty.
I’m legislating now for new powers. We did it in the summer, and new powers will need to be put on the statue book in the next parliament. I will advocate them as much as any chisel-faced securocrat. Absolutely: I want to keep us safe. It’s ludicrous, this idea that people who care about our freedom don’t care about our safety. What I will not do, because it’s not proven, and many people, not just me, said it, was an overstretch that said every single man, woman and child across the whole country should have data about what they get up to online [stored].
He said he wished coalition’s tuition fee system had been called a graduate tax because, in practice, that is what it was. It would have saved the Lib Dems a lot of bother if they had used that label, he said.
If you really must know, what we’ve actually introduced is a graduate tax. I wish we’d called it a graduate tax at the time which would have saved us a lot of heartache.
He said Labour and the Conservatives wanted to “airbrush out any other voices in British politics and return to business as usual between the red team and the blue team.”
He said he was proud of the Lib Dem record.
I’m a Liberal Democrat and I’m incredibly proud of what we have one in this government. We wouldn’t have the recovery now if we hadn’t stepped up to the plate, we wouldn’t have the tax cuts we have now benefiting millions of working people if it wasn’t for the Liberal Democrats, we wouldn’t have the expansion of apprenticeships on the scale this country’s never seen, a fairer pension system, the pupil premium, the life-chances of the poorest kids in primary school improved in a way that has never happened before.
Here are the main points from Natalie Bennett, the Green party leader’s, interview on the Marr show.
Bennett said anti-austerity policies had failed.
The poor, the disadvantaged, the young cannot continue to be made to pay for the error and the fraud of the bankers. And austerity has failed even in its own terms. It’s the wrong direction; we need to invest in the future.
In terms of what we need to do broadly across the economy, we need to make rich individuals and particularly multinational companies pay their taxes. Under this government, corporate tax take is down 14%. And in terms of the citizen’s income, it’s worth saying that what that would do is as soon as you’re earning any sort of reasonable amount of money the tax system takes that back.
But what the universal citizen’s income offers is a sense of security. No one needs to live in fear; no one needs to think ‘I’ve just been sanctioned, I cannot put food on the table, I’m going to lose my house next week’. We have to get away from that insecurity and fear.
She said immigrants were being blamed for problems caused not by immigration, but by government policies.
When people say to me on the doorstep ‘I’m concerned about immigration’ and I say ‘what are you really concerned about?’, they usually say three things: low wages, expensive housing, or crowded schools or hospitals – all of those things are caused by failed government policies; they’re not caused by immigration.
She said the Greens would not join a formal coalition with other parties. But they might support a minority government on a confidence and supply basis, allowing them to vote against policies like Trident, she said.
Lib Dem sources say that, when Nick Clegg was talking about the Lib Dems planning to unveil further plans for tax rises on the wealthy, going beyond the mansion tax (see 10.39am), he was not just talking about measures like cutting pension tax relief that the party has already announced.
But Clegg did make it clear in his interview that the the Lib Dems would not be proposing to put up income tax or VAT.
Q: You seem to get on better with David Cameron than Ed Miliband?
Clegg says he tries to have cordial relations with both of them.
But he disapproves of Labour’s “flaky” approach to the economy, as much as he disapproves of the Conservatives approach to social justice.
Q: The Tories are saying you will lose on cabinet seat for every 10 seats you lose.
Clegg says he does not know anything about that.
Q: Are you going to stay after the election?
Clegg says he is a campaigning politician. The Lib Dems have disrupted the two main parties. They don’t like that. But the Lib Dems have put the country first.
Q: What do you feel about the case of the Saudi blogger being lashed?
Clegg says he is “appalled”. The government is protesting strongly. It is “abhorrent” that the Saudis are acting like this.
The main interview is over, but we’re going to get a sofa moment with Clegg and Bennett shortly, I think.
Q: You could lose half your MPs and still end up choosing who forms the next government. That’s wrong, isn’t it?
Clegg says he does not accept the prediction that they will lose half their seats.
They will do so much better than the pundits are predicting.
Q: If so, are you able to say you will step down as leader if you lose half your seats?
Clegg says he is not a soothsayer. But he spends more time in key seats than the pundits do.
The voters face an invidious choice. The Tories are lurching to the right, and Labour are lurching to the left. The Lib Dems can ensure we finish the job of economic recovery, but in a fair way.
Q: Would you sit in a cabinet with Nigel Farage and Ukip?
No, says Clegg.
Q: Would you sit in a cabinet with the SNP?
Clegg initially resists answering this, but, when pressed, says no.
Q: There is a black hole in student finance. Are you attracted by the idea of a graduate tax?
Clegg says the coalition’s tuition fee policy is, in effect, a graduate tax. He says he wished they had called it that. It would have saved a lot of bother.
Q: You want to get rid of the structural deficit by 2017-18. That will cost £30bn. Where would you get the money?
Clegg says from a mixture of areas: tackling tax avoidance and evasion; savings in Whitehall; some savings from welfare; and tax rises for the wealthy.
But, Clegg says, there is a big difference between his plans and the Conservatives’. The Conservatives would raise all their money from welfare cuts on the working-age poor.
Q: You would have to raise more in than you would just from the mansion tax.
Yes, says Clegg.
Q: So would you raise income tax or VAT?
No, says Clegg.
He says the Conservatives would impose savage cuts. That would affect things like education.
Q: So you will commit yourself, in clear terms, to tax rises before the election.
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