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Lib Dems set out leadership pitch
The two contenders for the Liberal Democrat leadership have set out their views on coalition talks with other parties and how they would appeal to the public.
In separate interviews with ePolitix.com, Chris Huhne and Nick Clegg detailed how they would deal with a possible hung Parliament after the next general election.
Asked about what their 'red lines' would be on forming a coalition with either the Conservatives or Labour, they set out differing approaches.
Whilst Huhne said electoral reform was the key to "partnership politics", Clegg said singling out any conditions would be "extremely ill-advised".
Huhne said: "If other parties want to talk about partnership politics, about going into a longer-term relationship, then they have to be on the wavelength that allows that to happen.
"If you look at every other country in Europe bar none you find that you do have partnership politics because of election systems that are fairer, where every vote counts."
But Clegg said: "I think it would be extremely ill-advised to single out a red line here or there - they just become hostages to fortune. You just get trapped by thickness of one red line over another and I am simply not interested in that."
Clegg added that to "start playing Westminster footsie with one party or another now is something the electorate would not like and I'm not going to do it".
"The electorate quite rightly wants to first have their say and then we can see where the parties lie," he said.
The leadership contenders also differed about the qualities they believe they would bring to the job and the what they would focus on if victorious.
Stressing his experience, Huhne said his economics background could prove vital over the coming year.
"One of the things I can bring to this leadership race is the fact that I spent years building up a business employing people; I spent 19 years as a financial journalist winning the financial journalist of the year award, writing a column for 10 years," he told this website.
"Therefore I know I will be very comfortable on the key issues over the next few years as the housing market turns down, we lose the feel-good factor.
"I believe we will be looking at a delayed election probably no sooner than June 2010. In that environment one of the things we have to take on, dissect and deconstruct is Gordon Brown's record on the economy."
And Huhne added: "We need a leader who can take on not just David Cameron, who in many ways is frankly much easier because he has only spent four years in the real world outside the Westminster bubble."
In contrast, Clegg stressed the need to reach out to the wider electorate and communicate effectively with the public.
"It requires the ability to speak like a human being not a Westminster politician, reach out to voters by starting where people are rather than where we want them to be or think they might be," he told ePolitix.com
"We must make sure we're on the side of peoples' hopes, fears, anxieties and aspirations and dealing with them with consistent liberal principles."
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