Lib Dem conference: Nick Clegg targets tax

In a speech at an evening rally in Brighton, Nick Clegg will launch the Lib Dems’ campaign for fairer taxes. He is expected to tell supporters: “Liberal Democrats will not stop fighting to make this government and this country fairer.

“One of the most important ways we can do that is by making taxes fairer. It’s just wrong that people on low and middle incomes who work hard and play by the rules are taxed so much while Russian oligarchs pay the same council tax as some people do on a family home.”

He is expected to say “I want to reward people who put in a proper shift, not those who sit on a fortune. People for whom a bonus means a few extra quid at Christmas not a million pound windfall.”

As conference starts the Lib Dem leader faces uncertain times. He issued an apology to voters who had backed the Lib Dems because of their pledge not to back a rise in student tuition fees.

Watch: Nick Clegg apology – the autotuned version

Elsewhere in the speech Mr Clegg will point to the successes the party has had while in coalition such as progress on the policy of raising the threshold at which people start to pay income tax.

He will say: “By April we will have lifted two million of the poorest workers out of paying income tax altogether. We have brought in tough new taxes on the very rich and cut taxes for millions of working people by £550. But we need to go further.”

He will appeal to the party’s grass roots campaigners to boost support saying: “I can do my bit around the cabinet table, but most of the seats at that table are occupied by Conservatives, not Liberal Democrats.

“So I need you to do your bit the old fashioned way: getting out there and campaigning. You should have been given a leaflet about our campaign for fairer taxes. By the end of the year I want you to deliver three million of them.”