Under pressure Clegg makes policy peace offers

From polls showing that his party are less popular than UKIP, to others showing that his own approval rating has dropped to minus 63 per cent – the worst since Labour’s Michael Foot – it’s not been the most cheerful weekend for Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg.

There have also been suggestions of secret leadership coups being planned from within the party – although the man linked to the coup, Energy Secretary Ed Davey, denied there was anything to it when speaking to Channel 4 News.

And Mr Clegg himself has come out fighting against the tide of negative coverage at the Liberal Democrat party conference in Brighton with some headline-grabbing policy announcements.

He’s pledged to support young homebuyers with a new scheme allowing parents and grandparents to draw on their pension pots to secure deposits for young family members.

Earlier, Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander announced that anybody worth more than £1m will come under increased scrutiny as part of a fresh crackdown on tax avoidance.

The announcements are part of a wider plan to depict the Lib Dems as the fair party in “tough times”. The pension proposals were described by Clegg as part of efforts to make the economy “fairer”.

But he declined to commit to pushing for any specific wealth tax despite promising activists at the party conference that he would play hardball with the Tories on the issue