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Clegg: 'Compassionate Conservatism is dead or dying'

The panel on tonight's Agenda - Nikita Lalwani, Nick Clegg, Julia Hartley-Brewer and Dom Joly. Credit: The Agenda

Nick Clegg has said that the Budget is one the biggest questions facing politicians at the moment and that: "compassionate Conservativism is dead or dying."

Speaking on The Agenda with Tom Bradby, the Deputy Prime Minister said:

One of the big question for all politicians my party included to explain is as you have to carry on balancing the books of whoever is in power - how do you do that as fairly as possible?

The Conservatives have taken really quite a radical approach. ..They have said they won't ask anyone for a single extra penny in tax to start balancing the books. The only people who will pay the extra burden to fill the black hole in the public finances are the working age poor and the public services they rely on. Now I think that is socially unsustainable and it's very difficult to justify and it doesn't make much economic sense either.

– Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister

Other guests on tonight’s programme are comedian Dom Joly, broadcaster and columnist Julia Hartley-Brewer and novelist Nikita Lalwani.

The Agenda with Tom Bradby to be broadcast on ITV at 10.35pm tonight.