"No-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity"

Responding to a letter published in the local press last week Michael Headley said, "The letter lumps the Liberal Democrats in with the Tories and Labour in its claim that none of the parties' policies offer what the writer is looking for. I suspect that he harks back to Old Labour, which I agree the Liberal Democrats aren't and never have been. But if you are looking for a party that stands for fairness, freedom and trust then the Lib Dems do offer a different approach and it's one that attracted me to the party many years ago."

"We want to help build a society where 'no-one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.' This is not a narrow definition of freedom. We don't believe in an overbearing state as old Labour did - people should be free from unnecessary state control. But to help people increase our positive freedom from issues such as poverty, ill health and crime then democratic government is crucial and its role must not be undermined by any illogical obsession with privatisation. Working together in community is of benefit to us all."

"If you want to see this in action take our new green tax switch proposals. Here we have a bold approach of reducing income tax and switching instead to taxing pollution. This must make sense - switching from taxing a good thing like work to taxing a harmful element such as pollution. And this can be done without changing the total tax burden, correctly using green taxation to replace existing taxes not to increase the tax burden of people."