LIBERAL Democrat leader Nick Clegg says that the marginal Mid Dorset and North Poole seat will be crucial in deciding who forms the next government.

The Lib Dems won by just 269 votes in 2010 and this time around candidate Vikki Slade has the task of not only keeping the seat, but taking over from the retiring Annette Brooke, who won it from the Conservatives in 2001.

If the Conservatives want to win a majority in the House of Commons, it is a seat that they must win – it has the fifth-lowest majority in the UK.

On Thursday afternoon, Mr Clegg paid a whistle-stop visit to Broadstone, stopping at Molly’s Cafe in Lower Blandford Road.

It came just three days after Conservative leader and Prime Minister David Cameron visited the constituency.

 


Speaking to the Daily Echo, Mr Clegg said: “I think people know how hard the Liberal Democrats work for folk locally, whether it’s making sure that the transport links are better, that apprenticeships are coming into the area, making sure that the colleges are properly supported, making sure that there’s money coming into the NHS.

“That contrasts with a Conservative candidate that represents a party that wants to cut money for our nurseries, schools and colleges, that has not guaranteed the £8 billion that we’re told the NHS needs in the next Parliament and, most extraordinarily of all, wants to say to lower-income families in the local area that they’re going to have to make sacrifices to balance the books and the richest are not.

“If you vote for the Conservatives here what you’re going to get is David Cameron on the coat tails of Nigel Farage in Downing Street in a Conservative minority government.

“If you like the way that we’ve kept this government in the last five years anchored in the centre ground, balancing the books and balancing them fairly, the only way to do that (again) is to vote for Vikki.”

Mr Clegg said that working with Mr Cameron for five years as Deputy Prime Minister and now vigorously campaigning against him was “the nature of coalition”.

He said the Conservatives wanted to take services, homes and transport “back 50 years”.

Mr Clegg added: “I think a lot of people here want a local MP that works her socks off for the local area and wants to continue the work balancing the books and balancing them fairly.

“Ed Miliband and David Cameron are not going to win a majority. They’re going around the country saying they will win a majority, but they know in their heart of hearts that they’re not going to.”

The Conservative candidate in the seat is Michael Tomlinson, alongside Patrick Canavan (Labour), Mark Chivers (Green) and Richard Turner (UKIP).