Clegg: May comments mark 'new low' for coalition

Nick Clegg has hit back at Home Secretary Theresa May's "appaling" claim that the Liberal Democrats had put "children at risk" by rejecting the "snooper's charter" bill in Parliament.

The Deputy Prime Minister said he had written to May demanding an apology for the "false and outrageous" claim during her speech at the Conservative Party conference this week.

In the address, May said the move by the Liberal Democrats to vote against the draft Communications Data Bill had meant the National Crime Agency had to drop "at least twenty cases" - including some where children's lives were at risk - due to missing communications data.

Clegg said the comments marked a "new low" in coalition government relations - adding that Home Office "inactivity" had instead been to blame.

"To say [...] 'you are putting children at risk' when it's not true is a level of outrageous misinformation I have not witnessed in the four and a half years I have been in this government," he said on his regular LBC phone-in.