Nick Clegg fared better than Ed Miliband in his pre-local election grilling today by Martha Kearney on BBC Radio 4’s World at One. You can watch the 18-minute interview here:

(Watch it on YouTube here.)

The Guardian’s excellent live-blog covered it here and summarised the highlights here. Meanwhile the BBC reports it here:

Clegg defends budget ring-fencing amid reported unease among ministers
Nick Clegg has said he is “adamant” the NHS, schools and overseas aid should still be protected from cuts, amid reports colleagues are unhappy about the effect on their departments. The deputy prime minister said ring-fencing budgets was the right decision. … the deputy prime minister told BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme: “I am absolutely convinced that at a difficult time like this, protecting NHS spending, protecting spending on schools, honouring our international obligations to developing countries around the world, was a big decision, was a controversial decision but I think was the right one to take and the right one to stick to.” He added: “I think we are right, and I am adamant about this, to stick to retaining those protections. The consequences are that there are knock-on effects on those departments that are not so-called ‘protected’.”