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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now Parliament will be officially dissolved tomorrow, it will bring an end to five years of coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats and many said it would never last didn’t they, so why has it?  And with the rise of UKIP and other smaller parties is another Lib Dem/Conservative coalition any kind of prospect?  Well I am joined now by the President of the Lib Dems, Baroness Brinton, Sal Brinton, a very good morning to you.  Well the official position we know is you will keep your options open and decide on the basis of who is the biggest party if no one gets an overall majority but if it is the Conservatives could another formal coalition take place?

SAL BRINTON: Well who knows?  The whole point why this coalition has been successful is that both parties were able to come to agreement on specific things and clearly there were matters that weren’t and they weren’t included in the Coalition Agreement so after May 7th when we see how the numbers lie, that’s the point at which any discussions can take place but I think the important thing for the Liberal Democrats is that the last five years have shown that coalition is possible. All the naysayers right at the start of 2010 who said it wouldn’t last six months, it wouldn’t last two years, have been proved wrong. What’s more it’s been a stable coalition that has helped to spark the recovery that the country needed after the mess that Labour got us into.

DM: Okay but you are meant to be in touch, you are in touch with the Lib Dem grassroots as President and we heard from Lord Steel, the former leader, saying there is no appetite amongst Lib Dems for another coalition.

SAL BRINTON: That’s not the grassroots that I’ve been talking to.  

DM: Well maybe he’s in touch with them as well, would you say there is an appetite for another coalition?

SAL BRINTON: I think there is an appetite at the moment quite clearly to go out and to hold as many seats as we can and if we are lucky to gain some more.  We recognise that the polls nationally may not look good but what’s clear is that even independent pollsters say that the seats where we are strong, we are remaining strong.  

DM: But it has been a searing experience in coalition, it’s the Angela Merkel dictum that the smaller party in the coalition gets it in the neck for the unpopular stuff.  

SAL BRINTON: It’s not just Angela Merkel, it has actually happened elsewhere in Europe but what’s also clear to us on the doorstep is that we’re being recognised for some of the important things that we have championed in government.  The principle one is the increase in the personal tax allowance which has helped people on low incomes at a time of real difficulty in the recession and austerity.   

DM: But you would rather as a party still be in government than on the outside staring in?   

SAL BRINTON:  I think that’s too early to say because it will depend completely on what the voters want and what the voters say so that’s why we are not going to make predictions about what will happen, it’s not up to us, it’s up to the people of this country.  

DM: Well the SNP clearly are, as you may have heard Nicola Sturgeon telling me, the SNP leader. If it came down to that side of the equation, because as you said there you are keeping your options open, you are going to wait and see, there is talk isn’t there of some kind of rainbow coalition of perhaps the SNP and the Lib Dems joining Labour.  What do you make of Nicola Sturgeon’s and Alex Salmond’s red lines?

SAL BRINTON:  They can have as many red lines as they want but they seem to contradict themselves every other week so we need to see what happens next week.  There is just no point in getting into any detailed discussions about them at all.  Nicola Sturgeon yesterday suddenly becoming the friend of those that want to retain the union seems slightly peculiar but if she is prepared to bend then whoever has to negotiate after the 8th May will obviously want to do that.  

DM: Well the real point she is making is that she wants to be the friend of those who deem themselves to be progressive in England who don’t have a voice and there are a lot of people within your party who would term themselves that way wouldn’t they?

SAL BRINTON: Well we are certainly a progressive party and that’s been one of the interesting things in the coalition, that quite a lot of our achievements which have been very progressive and remain so, for example Labour’s reduction of the tuition fees is extremely regressive, will only help the most well-off graduate students so how on earth Nicola Sturgeon can suddenly say well Labour are going to be progressive when the only evidence we’ve seen so far from them is the exact opposite, will be interesting.  We need to see the detail of people’s manifestos, it is far too early for any party to know whether they can work because we don’t know what’s in the details.  

DM: Would that be red lines for Lib Dems when it comes to discussions with Labour?  Tuition fees, you opposed them but you had to do them, is that something you are now quite proud of and would defend?  

SAL BRINTON: We are very clear and we’ve been saying this now for two and a half years, the new arrangement on fees has got to bed in.  We haven’t had one student graduate from that, we need to review how it’s working and clearly any party that doesn’t want to do that with a new system is going to find themselves ridiculously trying to re-alter the whole of higher education at a stroke. Let’s just take things steadily, see what’s happening and if Labour want to spend money on that, if it becomes a red line for them that’s fine, that is their red line.  We’re going to negotiate on the basis of our manifesto and our key priorities.   

DM: Okay, you are opposing that.  Now tell me about the polling, we can’t ignore that, 8% in the latest poll, it is looking pretty bad for the Liberal Democrats, you could finish as the fifth, sixth party.  

SAL BRINTON: I think what is going to be interesting is the number of seats that we retain and many, many political pundits are saying we are going to do much better in terms of seats so for once, first past the post might actually benefit the party but what we do know is that where we can get out message out directly to voters and not mediated through the local press and the national press, actually people like what we’ve been doing and that’s why we are very strong in the areas.  They also like our MPs, there is a strong incumbency factor, so I suspect we will have more than 8% of MPs in the next parliament.  

DM: But do they like your leader?  He’s an MP of course, has to be, some of the polling is not looking too good for Mr Clegg, are you planning, well okay making let’s say contingency arrangements for a post-Clegg future?

SAL BRINTON: Labour’s claims on Sheffield Hallam are great fun, I have absolutely no doubt that Nick will be re-elected for Sheffield Hallam.  As far as the party is concerned, of course we will not be the only party looking at every scenario because all of us will.  It is quite clear there is going to be a balanced parliament despite what the Conservatives and Labour are saying, unless something dramatic happens in the last two or three weeks but we’re not seeing that at all at the moment, so of course we have to plan for everything.

DM: Including leadership and there are some strong contenders, whether Mr Clegg goes on after the election or not?

SAL BRINTON: It’s far too early to say.  I would hope there would be strong contenders, we have always been a party that has had strong leadership battles as and when they have happened, there isn’t an election at the moment.  

DM: Okay, leader and deputy Prime Minister for the time being and taking part in a debate on Thursday, would Mr Clegg like to have taken part in more debates?

SAL BRINTON: Well clearly Nick Clegg and the party wants to be able to defend our record in government and the problem with a two headed debate is asking David Cameron to defend the Lib Dem part of what we’ve achieved in government so whilst the seven leaders’ debate is going to be sound bites squeezing each other the whole time, actually what’s important is that we do have an opportunity to do that and Nick will be able to do that …

DM: But how much of his fire does he turn on David Cameron?  We hear that the two men got on very well, you were just telling me that is part of the reason why the coalition has lasted those five years after all the naysayers.  How does he then turn round and criticise a lot of what David Cameron has done?

SAL BRINTON: Well it’s not about what the Conservatives have done, it’s what the Conservatives propose and therein lies the big difference between the two parties.  

DM: But hold on, the Lib Dems are proposing the same thing when it comes to paying down the deficit, just in a different way.  

SAL BRINTON: But the key thing is the different way.  The Conservatives want to do it by extra cuts, they don’t want to increase taxes at all to cover that.  We’ve made it clear that we will certainly support the extra eight billion a year in the NHS, now the statement that came out yesterday from the Conservatives said that they would make it happen.  Is that going to be cuts, is it actually going to be extra income?  We absolutely need it, it’s good that the Conservatives have said something’s going to happen but we need to see that.  

DM: Well tell us more about that, VAT and income tax and the red lines, whether you are going to put them up or not.  We know about the mansion tax, what other taxes are the Lib Dems going to propose?

SAL BRINTON: Well in order to provide the extra funding for the NHS we want to start by increasing, making sure the dividend tax is equal for income tax for people earning over £150,000 a year and that’s going to produce nearly half a billion pounds.  We also want to get rid of the shares for rights which the Conservatives insisted on introducing, a very small amount of £100 million.   

DM: We need a lot more than that but no move on VAT and no move on any of the income tax rates?  

SAL BRINTON: No.  

DM: Okay, Sal Brinton, very good to see you, thank you very much indeed.  The Lib Dem President there