Nick Clegg’s pre-conference salvo

This year more than ever, Nick Clegg is looking around for a policy to ensure he does not, to quote Nye Bevan, go naked into the conference hall when his party meets in Brighton. He does not have Lords reform to rouse his party ranks, the grassroots are nervous about the threat of an extra £10 billion in welfare cuts and there’s a row brewing on airports that will at some stage move from grumpy sniping to something rather uglier. So in his interview with the Guardian, the Liberal Democrat leader decided to talk tax, calling for a ‘time-limited contribution’ from the wealthiest in society. That this was a pre-conference salvo to show Lib Dem members whose ‘side’ the party leadership is on was underlined by Baroness Kramer’s confused interview on the Today programme. ‘I heard the plan for the first time, just as you did, from Nick,’ she said. She added that she was looking forward to learning about the detail on this.