Clegg promises Lib Dems: ‘we will never lose our soul’

Where do you stand on “alarm clock Britain”?

It’s Nick Clegg‘s phrase of the moment. He’s used it before and he repeated it five times in his speech to Liberal Democrat delegates at their Spring Conference in Sheffield today.

He uses it to mean the hard-working people he says his party stands up for. (The “squeezed middle”, “alarm clock britain”, what is it with these politicians and their handy phrases?)

However, despite the many – how many is too many? – mentions, alarm clock britons weren’t the main focus of this speech by the Deputy Prime Minister.

Soul

Instead, Mr Clegg needed to reassure his party that their liberal values are being reflected in Government. He listed achievements he says would never have been law without the Lib Dems: an end to child detention, the AV referendum, an increase in capital gains tax, the pupil premium, tax cuts for the lowest paid. He told them in Coalition: “We’ve had to toughen up. But we will never lose our soul.”

FactCheck: have the Lib Dems kept their promises? 

This was a speech aimed at all those delegates who still find the sight of David Cameron and Nick Clegg together uncomfortable, distasteful even.

“David Cameron hadn’t kidnapped me,” he told them. “I haven’t changed one bit.”

But the Lib Dems are, quite rightly, anxious. They are down to 10 points in the polls, with Scottish, Welsh and local elections in the offing, as well as the crucial (for them) referendum on voting reform.

Their leader urged them to tell voters how much the Lib Dems are influencing Government. But are those voters willing to listen?