Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy has said he would work with Labour - with or without a formal coalition - if the next election ends in a hung parliament.

As his party conference opened in Bournemouth after a year of steady electoral gains, Kennedy asserted that all three major parties would, for the first time in decades, be operating on equal terms.

Interviewed in the Times, Kennedy says that Iraq is now as important for the Liberal Democrats as its previous pledge to add a penny to income tax.

"It is not just the issue itself, important though it is, but what it tells people about the general stance and approach of the party," he says.

Meanwhile, a Populus poll for the same paper suggests that a main vote-winner would be putting forward "tough policies on crime and anti-social behaviour", which would make 52 per cent of voters more likely to back the party.

Some 46 per cent of those polled said abolishing council tax and replacing it with a local income tax would make them more likely to vote Lib Dem.