The Elephant Party

Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, announced today at Canary Wharf, his party’s ‘four step’ manifesto towards, "fairness in British society". Clegg’s key policies include fairer taxes, more chances for children at school, a fairer greener economy and cleaning up politics.

With a hung parliament looking ever more likely, these four clear points are certainly going to be the base of an agreement, if any coalition between the Liberal Democrats and another party was to occur. However, Nick Clegg stated he was solely committed on becoming Prime-Minister, refusing to say whether he would cooperate with either of the two largest parties. "We would be in new territory where politicians would have to talk to each other. To give people a sense of what you would do if politicians needed to speak to each other, you've got to be clear about your priorities and we've been very, very clear".

Taxation is a definite difference between the Liberal Democrats and the two other major parties, Labour and Conservative. They are the only party to not rule out tax rises, in the face of the deficit; however this is a last resort, with Liberal Democrat priority on cutting spending outside of frontline areas. But Vince Cable, Liberal Democrat economic spokesperson, said they were the only party to have ‘confronted’ the deficit. The self-proclaimed "elephant man" said he was the only economic minister ready to discuss the budget deficit, or "the elephant in the room". The other major parties seemed to have ‘banished’ the subject from their manifestos. The Liberal Democrats appear to be the only honest, upfront and fair party, prepared to deal with the big cuts needed to pay off the deficit.

Clegg is pushing for fairer taxes, pledging that the first £10,000 of UK earnings would be tax-free for low and middle earners, which they will say will leave millions of people £700 a year better off. By raising this tax threshold, it hopes to take the lowest paid 3.4 million people out of tax altogether.

But those earning above-average incomes will also benefit from the tax cut, with a proportionately more amount of money saved than those on lower-incomes. Alongside this, many lower-incomes are funded with government benefits. The key issue is whether this will lower the incentive to work, if a lower-income household has more money from benefits because of these tax cuts. Alongside this, the policy is going to cost over £17 billion, with both major parties criticising how this will be funded for; Clegg, though, stated the tax cut will be funded through raising capital gains tax, cutting pensions relief for high earners, increasing aviation taxes and by a "mansion tax" on properties worth £2m. But if a government had £17 billion to spend, would they be prepared to give it all away in the form of tax cuts? Is it money that is better of spent elsewhere?

Clegg insisted his manifesto was fully funded for, with over £15 billion spending cuts abolishing ID cards, trim tax credits for high earners and not renewing Trident. Trident renewal, though, could end up costing the government over £100 billion once it has all been completed.

Other key areas the manifesto includes are having the power to sack their MP, breaking up the banks, put an extra 3,000 police on the streets in England and Wales and reducing class sizes in England.

Hoping to turn, "anger into hope, frustration into ambition and recession into opportunity", Clegg looked to capture the voter by their antagonism of the current political and financial crisis. Aiming to convince that Liberal Democrats were fully able to create a government, Clegg commented, "If you have ever looked at the Liberal Democrats and thought they have got the right ideas but can they deliver, the answer is this manifesto. We can and we will".