NICK Clegg has suggested only the Liberal Democrats now hold the centre ground in British politics as he accused the Conservatives and Labour of having been dragged to the "extremes" of Right and Left.
Ahead of Thursday's English local elections, the Deputy Prime Minister laid into his Tory Coalition partners over benefits, human rights and the environment, accusing David Cameron of abandoning "compassionate" Conservatism.
He also accused Labour of becoming a "protest" party but admitted he could co-lead a Lab-Lib coalition should there be a hung parliament in 2015.
"The LibDems are different," the party leader said. "We will not be dragged one way or another. In the most profound economic storm in living memory, we will be the anchor Britain needs: a strong and pragmatic check on both extremes."
The DPM said the Tories had abandoned attempts to "detoxify" the party by "hugging hoodies and frolicking with huskies". And he seized on the Prime Minister's refusal to consider cutting benefits for wealthy OAPs. "The Tories are pulling to the right in an attempt to appease their base," he insisted.
Highlighting criticism of Mr Miliband by Tony Blair, he said: "By offering anger rather than hope, Labour are steadily becoming a party of protest."
Elsewhere, Nigel Farage, leader of the anti-EU Ukip, hit back at claim by former Tory Chancellor Ken Clarke that his party was supported by racists and was against foreigners and immigrants.
Mr Farage declared: "They have lost the argument."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article