Nick Clegg: the pupil premium was a Liberal Democrat idea

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/jun/07/nick-clegg-no-new-coalition-any-cost

Version 0 of 1.

Nick Clegg will try to bolster flagging morale among the Liberal Democrats on Monday by insisting that his party will not join another coalition "at any cost", as a fresh dispute blew up with the Tories over education.

After disastrous results in local and European elections, and a confidence-sapping sixth place in last week's Newark byelection, the Lib Dem leader will concede that his party has failed to convey clearly enough why it wants to be in power, allowing critics to claim it has lost its soul in government. Clegg will also warn the Conservatives that he will not allow them to rewrite history or "airbrush out our role in this coalition".

In recent weeks – as arguments broke out over free school meals and funding for free schools – there has been speculation that the Lib Dems, if provoked, could even break the coalition well before May to reassert their party's independence.

Clegg's difficulties in promoting Lib Dem successes were underlined again when the education secretary, Michael Gove, on Saturday claimed personal credit for championing and driving through the pupil premium – a key Lib Dem priority and manifesto commitment in 2010, and one of its most prized successes in government.

In terms that infuriated the Lib Dems, Gove told the Policy Exchange thinktank that the pupil premium, which channels extra money to disadvantaged young people, was an idea which "I championed before entering politics and which I am delighted to have delivered in government".

The Lib Dems said the Tories had not wanted to give the pupil premium any extra money during coalition negotiations in 2010, and that the policy derives from work Clegg did in 2002 on education systems in Scandinavia. Gove only became an MP in 2005. A Lib Dem spokesperson said: "For someone who insists on historical fact and accuracy, this is a rather amusing attempt to rewrite history."

A fortnight ago Clegg saw off the most serious threat to his leadership so far, after a group of parliamentary candidates and party activists called publicly for him to stand down. The coup attempt failed to gain any serious support among Lib Dem MPs, but it reflected real anxiety in sections of the party about whether Clegg is the right person to lead it into the election.

In his speech, Clegg will say that the Liberal Democrats "are not and will never be a split-the-difference party", and that he is "not interested in coalition at any cost".

He will add: "I lead the bravest and toughest party in British politics – a party that, back in 2010, despite having never been in power in Westminster before, put the country's interests before our interests to provide Britain with a stable government in extraordinarily insecure times."