Clegg refuses to rule out second coalition with Tories

Nick Clegg has set out his final conditions for any coalition involving the Tories, but pledges not to defy the Liberal Democrats’ “collective will”.

Speaking to The Independent on Sunday, Mr Clegg revealed the sixth and final of his “red lines” with which he will arm himself in any negotiations next weekend.

He said he was “wary” of a coalition this time, because of the way in which they had behaved in the last parliament, particularly over issues such as environment and climate change.

Asked whether he would go into a second coalition with the Tories, however, Mr Clegg said they were the most obvious option on the table adding: “I will not go against the collective will of my party.

“You can’t weather all the pressures, you can’t hang tough, you can’t stay the course unless you’ve taken a collective decision. At all levels of the party, including the leader, there is wariness, of course there is.”

Revealing his “red line”, he said: “Liberal Democrats will not enter a coalition with a party not prepared to back pay rises for people working in the public sector.”

Mr Clegg confirmed that he could foresee a Labour-Lib Dem minority government that then relied on vote-by-vote support of SNP MPs, saying: “I have had so many questions on this I am now going to let rip: it’s astonishing we’ve got to the point where – shock horror – one party can’t control how another decides how to vote. Of course not: it’s called parliamentary democracy.”