The Deputy Prime Minister has put distance between the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives.
Nick Clegg denigrated the Tories' stance on Europe and their desire for a tax break for married couples at his first monthly press conference.
With just days to go before Tory MPs line up to demand an immediate in-out referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union, Mr Clegg – whose pro-Europeanism is part of his DNA – let rip at the Conservatives.
Responding to calls from David Cameron to "get off the fence" and turn up to vote on Friday, the LibDem leader told reporters his party would not "waste any of our time helping the Conservatives indulge in their own internal feuds" as he insisted his party had been consistent on the referendum issue while Mr Cameron had "swerved around enormously".
Mr Clegg dismissed the Prime Minister's "ill-defined process of so-called renegotiation", accusing him of plucking the 2017 referendum date out of thin air.
Insisting the Tories were increasingly in thrall to "loopy" ideas from their right wing, Mr Clegg also attacked his Coalition partners on marriage tax breaks.
He said: "This desire of the Conservative Party to hand-pick couples through the tax system who confirm to their image of the way you should conduct your life.
"I don't think it's fair on all those other people who would pay higher taxes to fund this proposal."
The Lib Dem leader said if there were millions of pounds going spare, he would rather spend them on helping working families with child care costs.
Mr Clegg also attacked Nigel Farage's Ukip for wanting to return to a sepia world of the 1950s.
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