Nick Clegg's speech to the Liberal Democrats' spring conference 2009

Liberal Democrats: today is about a choice for the people and families of Britain;

A choice at a time of immense turmoil and great suffering.

It's about a choice between patching up the old order or building the new one.

You don't have to be an economist to see that the world has been shaken to its foundations.

The ground on which we built our lives - our assumptions, our prejudices, our hopes...

Has shifted beneath our feet.

A family home repossessed every seven minutes.

Two and a half thousand more workers facing the dole queue every day.

And the worst of it is this: there is no quick fix.

I would have liked - of course - to come here with absolute certainty that every problem people face today can be solved, and quickly, by a long-standing Liberal Democrat policy.

But at a time of such uncertainty and such upheaval... no-one should be that dogmatic.

Because of the sheer scale of this recession, we're having to consider ideas way beyond our comfort zone.

I mean, honestly, when you joined a liberal party - did you ever imagine we'd be leading the charge for the nationalisation of some of Britain's oldest banks?

But though we will need to update our policies, our liberal values must endure.

I've had the luxury of a bit of time over the last two weeks - between the nappy changing and the sleepless nights - to do some thinking.

And I have never been so certain that our values and instincts offer the hope, the help that people want and need.

We were founded to fight for a more liberal Britain in which power is dispersed and citizens are free.

Where people of every background have the opportunity to succeed.

We were founded to build an alternative to the dismal choice that was offered in the 1980s between the dog eat dog culture of Thatcherism and the hankering of the left for rigid command and control.

The dismal choice between a right who said there was no such thing as society, and a left indifferent to freedom, privacy and individual choice.

The dismal spectacle of a right and a left united only in their passion for central direction, directing millions of people like pieces on a chessboard from an office in Whitehall.

Thatcher. Major. Blair. Brown.

It isn't hard to see the connections in the chain.

It isn't hard to recognise that today's problems began thirty years ago.

Of course, Labour talked of change in 1997, but they just tinkered at the edges.

They pressed on with the same ideas.

They kept power locked up in Whitehall.

They blew their own hot air into the housing bubble.

They fiddled with public services and messed around with the benefits system even as they gave more tax breaks to the super rich.

And the consequences are all around us.

For a generation, only the Liberal Democrats have stood for something different.

Our ideas - dispersing power;

Giving people the opportunity to get ahead irrespective of the circumstances of their birth;

International engagement;

A balanced economy;

A fierce opposition to monopolies and vested interests.

Our ideas could have averted much of this crisis.

But more importantly, they are simple ideas that can help solve it, and lead the way to a better Britain.

This is the part of the speech where convention dictates I make some jokes about Labour and the Conservatives.

But I'm not going to.

There is a time for knockabout mockery - there's plenty every Wednesday afternoon at Prime Ministers Questions - but this is not it.

People deserve better.

They will rightly not forgive politicians keen only to score points off each other...

When what they desperately need is money in their pockets, job security, a roof over their heads, and hope.

There is only one big dividing line that matters in British politics right now.

On one side, there are people who want to patch up the old way of doing things.

Keep our economy dependent on financial wizardry.

Keep power among the old elites.

Cling to those old 80s ideas with a tweak here, or a nip and tuck there.

And on the other side, there are people who want to build something truly new, truly better.

An economy that's stable, green, diverse.

A society built on freedom, compassion and enterprise.

A politics that puts the opportunity for a better life into the hands of every woman, every man and every child.

There are some moments in history when the unthinkable happens.

When more is destroyed than ever seemed imaginable.

Natural disasters. War. Economic collapse.

But if you look back through the long lens of history, what you see is that some brave, pioneering men and women managed to look beyond the pain and began to think, they began to dream about what must come next.

After the Great Fire of London, it was the architect, Christopher Wren who did that.

The roads were widened, sanitation was improved, Londoners got cleaner and better homes.

Fifty new churches on the ruins of older ones, including the greatest of all, St Paul's.

And after the Second World War - devastation on a far wider scale - great pioneers and thinkers again had a vision of the new.

Great liberal thinkers like Keynes and Beveridge led the world with new ideas for healthcare and insurance for all.

And pioneers like Monnet, Schuman and the founders of the European Union started to forge new allegiances between old enemies for the greater good.

These people, they had a vision.

They saw that even if everything you know has been destroyed, you mustn't go backwards.

When there is a better way just beyond the horizon - we must choose it.

So when, in the coming months, we offer people practical help...

It will not just be sticking plaster solutions - it will be part of a new, better approach.

That's what makes us different from the others.

All parties make promises.

You'll get a policy from each about job security; about repossessions; about help with bills.

The real question is will they be policies to patch up the old order...

Or policies to build a new one?

You know where the Liberal Democrats will stand.

We will not promise just to rebuild what we had before.

We will promise to build it anew, and build it better.

We're going to take this approach to everything.

Look at tax.

We've known for years that Britain has a deeply unfair tax system.

The government still takes a bigger slice of income from the poorest people than it does from the richest.

People on the minimum wage still pay hundreds of pounds in income tax.

At a time of recession, when every pound counts in family budgets, that's not just unfair, it's madness.

Let's change taxes so millionaires don't pay less tax on their capital gains than their cleaners do on their income.

So the highest earners no longer get double the pension relief of everybody else.

So polluters pay for the damage they cause.

And let's use the money to cut the tax bill of people on middle and lower incomes, to help them make ends meet this month, next month, every month.

In President Obama's words:

"At a time when ordinary families are feeling hit from all sides, the impulse to keep their taxes low is honourable and right."

Our tax plans will get help to people today.

But they will also lay the foundations for a truly different tax system.

Not the old order, but a new one.

Where everyone pays their dues and no-one is crippled by the burden of their tax bill.

That's fair, it is honourable, and it is right.

What about banks?

We have a clear plan to solve the immediate crisis.

No wonder, when we have such an incredibly impressive set of front bench economic experts; Led, of course, by our brilliant shadow chancellor: Vince Cable.

We simply don't agree with the government's sham - nationalisation in all but name - where we the taxpayers take all the risks without any control.

It's time to take control of the banks we already own: full, but temporary nationalisation.

It's the only way to give the banks a solid footing from which to start afresh and start lending again.

Some people hate the very idea of nationalisation; others want the banks controlled by government for good.

But if we want strong banks in the future, it will be as vital to re-privatise them as it is, today, to nationalise them.

What makes the Liberal Democrats even more distinctive is our vision for a different banking system altogether.

I want a return to old-style high street banks so people's savings are protected from the big risks of investment banking.

I propose that banks are given a choice.

You can do ordinary consumer business like current accounts, mortgages, business loans, savings.

We will protect you and your customers' money if things go wrong.

But in return, we will regulate you like a hawk, and insist you never do anything risky.

Or, you can take the high risk route, playing the markets to get big returns.

We'll allow you to take those risks as long as you don't get involved in high street services.

But if things go wrong, don't come begging.

We will let you fail.

For those banks which choose the first option - plain vanilla banking - we need a totally different culture of pay.

These simple banks are going to be like utilities, closely regulated and unexciting.

So no more cash bonuses for these bank bosses - in fact, no short-term bonuses at all.

Finally, if anyone's ever going to trust Britain's banks again, those responsible for this crisis need to be brought to account.

They may not be criminals, but they failed.

When a company you're helping to run has to limp to the taxpayer for a multi-billion pound bailout, you have failed.

You know, when Barings bank went belly up in 1995 - the Government banned 10 directors from working in any other boardroom.

This time, when the whole banking system has been torn to pieces, do you know how many people have been disqualified?

None. Not one.

No wonder people have lost faith in a banking system in which the most basic standards of accountability have been forgotten.

I wouldn't trust these directors with my sons' piggy bank, let alone a global financial institution.

When doctors and teachers do something wrong, they're barred from working.

Disqualify them now, right now.

There are two things that matter almost more than anything else to people.

Two things millions of people face losing over the coming months and years:

A job, and a home.

These are beyond important: they're fundamental.

Imagine putting your hand in your pocket, your handbag, taking out your front door keys and handing them over to a bailiff.

Imagine waking up tomorrow morning, work calls and says: don't come in.

We've had to make some cutbacks, and it's you.

It's happening every day.

Now, we can't save every job.

We can't save every home.

I wish we could.

But we can break people's fall;

We can make it easier for people to start over if the worst happens;

And we can offer help that truly paves the way to a better future.

That's why our plan for protecting people's homes isn't just about stopping repossessions - though we will, by giving the courts stronger powers.

It's also about using this moment, with thousands of empty new-built properties available, to rebuild our stock of social housing.

So there's a roof over the head of all those who can't afford a home of their own.

The same for jobs.

At least 3 million unemployed by the end of the year.

That's devastating.

Let me be clear.

We will do everything possible to help.

Everything possible to protect jobs, keeping viable businesses going.

Everything possible to make sure being made redundant does not mean you lose all you have.

And everything possible to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, to get people back out to work as soon as possible.

You know, the government has borrowed twelve and a half billion pounds to finance this year's pinprick VAT giveaway.

That's more than £350 every second of every minute of every hour.

That money alone could have created nearly 100,000 new jobs.

And laid the foundations, quite literally, for a new green economy.

We could have started building 40,000 extra zero-carbon social homes.

We could have insulated two million houses.

We could have bought nearly 700 new train carriages, begun the desperately-needed Liverpool light rail network, and electrified the Great Western and Midland Mainlines. And because the overwhelming majority of this money could be spent this year...

Nearly 100,000 people who today, are looking for a job could have been at work, supporting their families.

The VAT cut was a shameful waste of money borrowed in our name.

It should be stopped, right now.

Labour thinks there are no limits to how much you can borrow and no limits on what you should borrow for.

That's why they made the monumental VAT mistake.

The Conservatives are at the other end of the scale.

They're so opposed to Labour's borrowing they want to slash public spending back to the bone - starting next year.

David Cameron, Ken Clarke, George Osborne: they've all said it.

Immediate cut-backs; no more help.

This would be economic madness.

Next year, just as Britain could be starting to drag itself out of the ditch they want to kick us back down again.

They're putting political point-scoring ahead of the help people need.

Our approach to borrowing is different:

We accept that borrowing goes up automatically in a recession.

Tax receipts go down; benefit costs go up.

But we also accept that you should borrow sensibly on top of that, to try to help.

A so-called fiscal stimulus.

That's what countries are doing all over the world.

The big question is what you spend the borrowed money on.

Under our plan, there would be two simple tests.

First, the investment must genuinely stimulate the economy in a lasting way.

Second, it must give us all a long term return or secure long term savings.

These tests are vital to ensure investment today pays for itself in the end.

And with these principles in mind we can invest with confidence in new public transport and new social homes.

We can find ways to keep people in work right now, and so reduce the cost of long term unemployment in years to come.

And we can, we really can invest in renewable energy to help stop the cost and destruction of climate change.

Our ambition is for a different, better Britain.

That's what this conference has been all about.

As David Laws , our excellent education spokesman has set out:

Educating the next generation, from the first day at nursery to graduation day.

A plan for social recovery to match the economic recovery.

For me, that means making Britain fair for all.

That's been at the heart of my ambition for our party right from day one.

It's why last year, I asked Martin Narey to look at how we can create a socially mobile society with opportunities for every child.

It's why this weekend, together, we've agreed the most ambitious education investment plan Britain has seen in a generation.

And it's why our election manifesto will be about building a Britain where no one is held back by their upbringing, everyone has the power to change things for the better, and anyone who struggles gets a helping hand.

Over the last year, I've travelled all across the country, meeting loads of people, getting involved in a whole variety of different things.

I've planted trees.

I've driven a tractor (badly).

I've helped teach a Spanish lesson. I was a bit better at that.

I've hauled lobster pots out of the sea on a Cornish fishing trawler.

I've visited our troops on the front and here at home.

I've helped build several walls, some of which may even still be standing.

And you know, the people I've met don't want handouts.

They don't imagine government is the answer to all of their problems.

They just need a break.

They just want someone to take a little of the weight off their shoulders.

It's the difference between a burden you can carry with your head held high and one that brings you to your knees.

It's the difference the Liberal Democrats will make.

For as long as I can remember, there has been a movement for progress in Britain.

A movement towards greater freedom.

Greater equality.

Greater opportunity.

The flame of that movement has burned in the hearts of many men and women.

There was a time when it burned for Labour.

But that time is over.

Labour is like a spent match. There's nothing left.

You remember how hopeful people felt in 1997?

Remember the promise of a better future?

Don't you feel the disappointment?

An economy in tatters.

A country more unequal than before.

An illegal war, our government implicated in rendition and torture.

Our environment poisoned.

Our privacy invaded, our freedom curtailed.

If you believe, like I do, in progress.

If you feel let down by Labour, and see the Conservatives will never be a party of change.

Turn to the Liberal Democrats.

We carry the torch of progress now.

We exist to keep the flame of hope alive.

Together we can fight for and win prosperity for all.

The Liberal Democrats remain true to everything we believed 21 years ago, when we first came together.

The dispersal of political and economic power, a belief in individual enterprise...

That's what must replace the failed politics of Thatcher, Major, Blair and Brown.

A belief in our shared responsibility not just to our own children but to all our children...

That's what must replace the doctrine that says there's no such thing as society.

But, you know, there's another big failing of the past we still need to defeat.

Isolationism.

The terrifying lesson of history is that economic turmoil breeds populism.

Extremism, xenophobia.

It starts with an anti-immigrant protest here.

An incendiary speech there.

It grows, day by day, and unless defeated it can tear a country apart.

We mustn't turn in on ourselves, we must turn out - and remain the open, tolerant society we really are.

I asked myself, this week: what on earth is Gordon Brown doing, lecturing the US Congress on protectionism...

When he uses protectionist rhetoric himself?

Who can forget his "British jobs for British workers"?

And when he still hasn't challenged protectionism in Europe.

Does it not occur to him that we'll never get global rules for regulating finance, business, or anything else for that matter, if we don't first secure agreement in the European Union, the largest single market in the world?

Our Prime Minister would rather paw at the feet of a Congressman than shake the hand of a European colleague.

That attitude diminishes Britain and it must stop.

The only thing that could be worse is the Conservative approach.

How on earth do these people think themselves fit to govern...

When at a time of global crisis...

When international agreements and cooperation are more important than ever...

Their foreign affairs' spokesman William Hague's only real contribution was a speech a couple weeks ago where he romanticised about the English-speaking world.

It's time for Labour and the Conservatives to grow up and accept that Britain can only be strong in the world if we are strong in Europe.

Of course, the European Union is flawed.

But it remains our best bet: safety in numbers in an unsafe world.

It's our best bet to push forward the international institutions needed to regulate global capitalism.

Our best bet to promote peace, democracy and human rights across the world.

Our best bet to secure global agreements to stop dangerous climate change.

That's what Liberal Democrat MEPs are fighting for, day by day, on our behalf.

Re-elect them. Elect more of them.

And we'll have a stronger, more confident voice for a liberal Europe than ever before.

I've talked about our plan for help today and a better tomorrow.

You know, people sometimes ask me...

Are you sure it's possible?

Is it really that simple?

Well, it might not always be simple.

But it is possible.

We are too used to being told that the way things are is the way things should be.

That nothing else is even worth dreaming of.

I've been told that our tax and spending plans won't work because there's a recession.

You can't put money in people's pockets.

There's no way we can afford universal childcare right now.

Don't you know there's a recession on?

But it's because of the recession that these things are so important.

The one dim light in a crisis like this is that it makes even the unthinkable thinkable.

It makes the impossible possible.

It makes the idealistic realistic.

It opens the door to a genuinely new way of doing things.

You really can cut taxes and help people if you take the difficult decisions.

Did you know we lose as much as forty billion pounds to tax avoidance every year - the equivalent of £2000 for every family in Britain?

Did you know that more than half of all pension tax relief goes to the richest 10% of earners?

Did you know that if top earners take their income as a capital gain, they pay less than half the tax they should?

Change that, and you really can put money into the pockets of the people who need it.

Recession doesn't make it impossible: it makes it essential.

And you really can invest money in childcare and schools if you take the difficult decisions to stop spending money elsewhere.

Stop building so many roads.

Stop the child trust fund that locks up money for the next 18 years.

Stop giving out means tested benefits to high earners.

Cut spending where it's not needed and move it to where it is needed.

Recession doesn't make that impossible: it makes it essential.

As Vince Cable rightly reminded us yesterday, we will need to take tough decisions to bring restraint back to public spending in the future.

Let us say it loud and clear.

We are the only party that will put money into people's pockets with fair tax cuts.

The only party to offer universal childcare and smaller classes in our primary schools.

The only party that will use Gordon Brown's wasted billions to create thousands of jobs today by investing in homes, hospitals, schools and public transport to build the green economy of tomorrow.

The only party that will rebuild the jobs, homes and hopes this recession has destroyed.

So don't believe the doubters, the nay-sayers, the professional cynics.

This time it can be different.

They say it takes a village to raise a child.

It will take a whole nation to raise us out of these turbulent times.

That's why, if we're to build a better tomorrow.

It must be driven by a different kind of politics.

Winner-takes-all politics will only ever deliver boom-and-bust economics.

So, to make sure growth is driven in every part of Britain, not just London: we will devolve power.

To stop vested interests from controlling the economy and holding back reform: we will bring an end to big donations.

And to create an open balanced politics that includes, engages and involves every citizen of this great country: we will secure fair votes for all.

And you know what else?

We need to give people back their rights.

We need to stop people being bullied and chivvied by a state that invades every corner of our private lives, putting our DNA on a database, fingerprinting our children at school and losing their private data on commuter trains.

Our freedom is a hard-won inheritance: Liberal Democrats will get it back.

I would like to have ended with an instant solution to today's problems.

About how we can all march back to the easy life in the twinkling of an eye if we just stop making the same old mistakes.

But I can't say that.

Because even if we get everything right...

Even if we do all the things I've talked about today, it's going to be a long, slow climb out of this recession.

But I promise you this: we can help today, and we can give hope for the future as long as we do things differently.

We have an opportunity if we are brave enough to seize it.

There is a better life ahead if we take a chance on change.

The new way can be so much better than what we had before.

There will be prosperity again, and it will be for everyone this time.

There will be opportunities again, and our children will grab them with both hands...

Doing more with their lives than we ever dreamed for our own.

Yes, progress has faltered.

But it need not die.

I've heard people's doubts, of course.

Oh, the Lib Dems. You're too young. Too idealistic.

I've heard these doubts and I say: take a leap of faith.

There is hope.

You have everything to gain because we will do things differently.

A never-ending cycle of red-blue, blue-red government has got us into this mess - it is never going to get us out.

Try something new.

Now is the time to think big.

If you want better, choose different.

Choose the Liberal Democrats.