Jo Swinson MP has today emailed party members to draw their attention to an interview Nick Clegg gave to The Times over the weekend. I’m not sure that many Liberal Democrat Voice readers will have a subscription to the heart of the Murdoch Empire, but, never fear, Liberal Democrat Voice will do its best to give you the general jist.

Asked about his decision to go into Government with the Tories, Nick was clear that he was in the business of getting things done:

I marvel at some people who think it’s better to have completely clean but entirely useless hands. What’s the point of that? If you are in politics you have got to accept you have got to get your hands dirty.

He also talked about the Coalition’s plans to create new garden cities, talking about rediscovering “the tradition of municipal innovation and  independence.”

Instead of a free-for-all, let’s make an active decision to decide where a whole new community needs to be established. If I was Prime Minister I would probably have made decisions on that a couple of years ago.

He also talked about devolving more powers to cities across England.

Asked about the duration of the Coalition, it would have been a surprise if he’d said that it would end before 2015. He talked about his and Cameron’s cool heads.

We realise we are governing at a very difficult time, there’s lots of ups and downs; both of us are absolutely determined to see this coalition Government through to 2015 by keeping a cool head at times like this. We both, I think, share an ability to keep things in perspective.

He also revealed that his plans to create a state funded  lending facility for businesses who are feeling the effects of the credit crunch are not finding support amongst either civil servants or Tory ministers.

If you have a subscription to the Times websites, you can read the interview here.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social