DC: We should try and work together when we can
I think we should try and work together where we can. I've always though that's important in politics. I helped Tony Blair get his Education Bill through Parliament because I thought it was a good bill, even though a lot of Labour MPs weren't backing it, that helped it go through. On the issue of Trident, which we've covered already tonight, we put the possibility of defeating Labour aside, backed them to do the right thing. Obviously, if there is a hung parliament, we must be responsible, we must try and deliver the best government we can for this country. But I actually, if you want my frank and honest answer, I don't think a hung parliament will be good for Britain because I think we do need quite decisive government to take some of the difficult decisions for the long-term. We've set out some of the things that need to be done to get the debt and the deficit under control. I fear if we put them off, we could have a situation where we see interest rates rise, we see confidence taken out of our economy. I think we need change to get to top of the deficit, to start solving the problems so we get our economy moving.
Well, I said very frankly, if it is a hung parliament, we will do our best to make it work. If we win the election outright, I'd do everything I can to take the country with us on some of these difficult decisions and also try and take other politicians with us because there will be some hard times before we get out of this, actually get the deficit sorted. But there is a problem in that you do need to have agreement. There is a fundamental disagreement between me and the other two parties about what we do this year. I think we badly need to roll up our sleeves and make some savings this year so we can stop the jobs tax, the national National Insurance tax rise, that is coming down the road. When you've got an economy that is trying to recover, the worst thing you can do is put tax on every single job in our country. That's why it's over 1,100 business leaders have said don't do this. They've said very clearly the threat to our recovery is not cutting waste, the threat is the jobs tax. The others don't agree about that, but I badly think we really, really need to stop this tax that could kill our recovery and kill jobs.