Nick Clegg - Lib Dem leader

The Liberal Democrat leader tells ePolitix.com what to expect at this year's party conference.

Questions: What are the big themes for this year's conference?

Nick Clegg: The main theme is that at a time of increasing economic anxiety for millions of British families and the prospect of real hardship as the recession looms, to showcase the way in which the Liberal Democrats have, by far, the most imaginative set of policies and proposals to make Britain a stronger and fairer place in the years ahead.

Our policies would allow local councils to borrow against their own assets to build up their social housing stock, recoup the £9bn subsidy from the energy companies for the benefit of vulnerable families, target resources at the most hard to teach children, give people on low and middle incomes a real tax break - on all those fronts I think it's now clear that the government has let people down and the Conservatives have become the flaky party of British politics unable to provide any real concrete answers to any of these things, and that we have the workable, thought-through and radical answers.

Question: How important is the conference vote on tax?

Clegg: It's an important debate. The principal is very, very simple. We have already adopted and agreed as a party one of the fairest tax switches in recent years in British politics.

We have set out in considerable detail how we would lighten the tax burden on ordinary families by closing a lot of the loopholes and exemptions that the people at the top end presently enjoy. That is already established and uncontroversial.

The additional bit that is to be debated is that we want to go even further and give even further tax breaks to people on middle incomes by shaving off a bit off government expenditure and giving it back to people by providing them with a bit of extra money in their pockets.

If you ask a young family struggling to put food on the table, pay for the full tank of petrol, pay for their heating bill whether they want a bit of money back to see them through the looming recession or they want it to disappear into the coffers in Whitehall, I think it is obvious what the answer would be.

Our tax proposal is very much on the side of the people, as opposed to simply giving more money to the centralised New Labour system, and I think that is exactly where our party should be and it is very much in line with our longstanding principles of fairness and also the belief that central government doesn't necessarily know best.

Question: Along with your tax plans you have also said that you want your party to more vigorously contest Labour seats - is this part of a more general repositioning of the party given the rise of the Conservatives?

Clegg: No. If you look at the political map of Britain our increasing strength in areas traditionally dominated by Labour is something that has been going on for years and is not new at all.

One of the things that is not appreciated in the Westminster village is quite how much the political map of Britain has been redrawn largely by us, particularly in the big cities. In the seven big cities of this country the majority are run by Liberal Democrats - that is a complete transformation.

So it was always going to be the case, irrespective of the standing of Gordon Brown or David Cameron, that we were going to make more gains against Labour in the coming years having made gains against the Conservatives over the last 15-20 years.

There will be some Conservative seats that we will continue to target but it is clear that our greatest opportunities are in those areas where Labour is weak, has taken people for granted and where we are increasingly the only rival force and the Conservatives are non-existent.

Question: How do you respond to the Green Alliance's criticism that your party has failed to show leadership on environmental issues as you have done in the past and is it a harder sell in an economic downturn?

Clegg: I think you need to sell it in slightly different terms and that is why I think the Green Alliance have got things a bit wrong. When people are feeling the pinch it's not good enough to carry on with the same old refrains on the environment, you've got to explain to people why they can afford to care about the environment.

The great danger for the environmental movement is that it becomes ghettoised amongst those people who feel wealthy enough to worry about the environment and my absolute passion is to marry our green credentials, which are by far the strongest in British politics, with our credentials as a socially progressive party.

That's why I have campaigned more than any other politician in Britain to help ordinary people become energy efficient, not just because that is the socially just thing to do because poor families spend more of their income than wealthy families on energy, but because it is also the right thing to do by the environment.

It is the first thing that I raised in prime minister's questions in January when I became leader and the last thing I raised in prime minister's questions before we went on holiday in July.

What the green movement needs to understand is that you have to talk about the environment in terms that help people through the immediate difficulties. That means sticking to green principles, which we are doing.

In August I unveiled radical plans to make Britain energy independent by 2050 and that's in part for environmental reasons and in part for geo-strategic reasons so that we don't continue to rely on fossil fuels from unstable parts of the world. This is the kind of thinking you need to keep the environmental cause strong.

Question: Do you enjoy conference?

Clegg: I love it and always have done. In many ways it's quite an old fashioned thing really to gather in seaside towns for several days in the age of IT and home working and all the rest of it, and it's a bit of a throwback.

But what it always reminds me of is that in politics, as in the rest of life, it is important to talk and meet people face-to-face, and particularly for political parties to do so because parties are organisations with thousands of members where it is important to come together and remind each other why we are in politics and set a clear course for the future.