The Lib Dem manifesto shows how far apart the parties are on a new agenda for Britain’s future.
Their policies are vague and hopeful and, like the Tories, it is clear they have little understanding of the values of mutuality and co-operation and how they can be used to deal with the major challenges of the day.
Michael Stephenson, general secretary, Co-operative party
The Liberal Democrats are putting a huge amount of emphasis on honesty about future spending cuts and fairness, drawing a distinction between themselves and what they call Labour’s ‘broken promises’ and the Conservative’s ‘fake change’. They are likely to continue to have their largest representation in local rather than national government, where they have made large in-roads in recent years. While they are closely associated with localism, they have less to say than the other main parties on local governance, focusing on national issues of tax, parliamentary reform and economic rebalancing.
Paul Swinney, Centre for Cities