>> he founded several labor unions and represented the socialist party of america. he lost. he changed political history. he is one of the 14 men featured in the weekly series "the contenders." friday at 8:00 p.m. eastern. >> next a speech from the clegg on the british economy. the liberal democratic leader made these remarks anduring a conference. this is about 40 minutes. >> thank you. >> thank you.

>> friends, we have now been in government for 500 days. it is not easy. none of us thought it would be a walk in the park. i suspect none of us predicted just how tough it would turn out to be. we have lost the polls. we lost seat. we lost the referendum. i know how painful it has been to face anger and frustration. some of the may have even wondered if it will all be worth it in the end. it will be. today i want to explain why.

above all, i want to pay tribute to you. your resiliency. your grace under fire. i have been genuinely moved by your spirit and our strength. thank you. thank you for never forgetting this. one of our defeated members said that of losing was part payment for ending child protection, he says i except it in my heart. that is the liberal spirit. that is something we will never lose.

it is the spirits it is the same spirit -- is the same spirit they gave birth to our party a century and a half ago. the other two parties tried to kill us off. our fights will always be the future. dell and westminster, we have been together like never before. like is a whole lot less if we were in government. they accuse us of being powerless puppets. the right accuses us of being us reduce of being sinister. i wish to make their minds. it has been hard. adversity test the character of

a party just as it tests and a person. we have shown immense strength. after being hit hard. we have picked ourselves up. we cannot fight him. fighting to protect human rights. fighting to create jobs. fighting for every family. not doing the easy thing and doing the right things. it is not easy. but it is right. as for all of those seats, let me tell you this. we will not rest until we have won every single one of those seats.

these may not be easy times. these are not easy times for our country. economic insecurity in terrorism is flaring up on our streets. times like these can breed protectionism. times like these are one liberals are needed most. our poverty has fought for a century and a half. justice, optimism. we're not about to give up now. this center is on the side of

the old hall where williams stood 130 years ago to found the national liberal federation. he observed that birmingham had shown him no place for liberalism. we are strong. back in government and on your side. in government, you are faced with hard choices every day. the question is how you make them. some ask how we can get a market. others help can give us more votes, what will the press think.

it is not doing the easy thing. it is doing the right thing. and that takes a certain kind of character. one which we've seen on display over the last few months. and indeed the last few days here in birmingham. brave. principled. awkward. resolute. optimistic. unstoppable. no i'm not just talking about paddy ashdown. i am talking about everyone in this hall. but i think people still need to know more about the character of our party. not just how we govern, but why. we proved something about ourselves last year, when we faced a historic choice, whether or not to enter government in coalition with the conservatives. the easy thing would have been to sit on the opposition benches throwing rocks at the government as it tried to get control of the public finances.

it might even, in the short run, have been more popular, but it would not have been right. at that moment, britain needed a strong government. alistair darling's recent book is called back from the brink - in reality labour left us on the brink. teetering on the edge of an economic precipice. so we put aside party differences for the sake of the national interest. people before politics. nation before party. and while other countries have been riven by political bickering, we have shown that a coalition forged in a time of emergency could be a different kind of government, governing differently.

because let me tell you this, you don't play politics at a time of national crisis. you don't play politics with the economy. and you never, ever play politics with people's jobs. our first big decision was to clear the structural deficit this parliament. to wipe the slate clean by 2015. this has meant painful cuts. agonisingly difficult decisions. not easy, but right. because handing control of the economy to the bond traders, that's not progressive. burying your head in the sand, that's not liberal.

saddling our children with the nation's debt, that's not fair. labour says, the government is going too far, too fast. i say, labour would have offered too little, too late. imagine if ed miliband and ed balls had still been in power. gordon brown's backroom boys when labour was failing to balance the books, failing to regulate the financial markets, and failing to take on the banks. the two eds, behind the scenes, lurking in the shadows, always plotting, always scheming, never taking responsibility. at this time of crisis what

britain needs is real leadership. this is no time for the back room boys labour's economy was based on bad debt and false hope. labour got us into this mess. but they are clueless about how to get us out. another term of labour would have been a disaster for our economy. so don't for a moment let labour get away with it. don't forget the chaos and fear of 2008. and never, ever trust labour with our economy again. government has brought difficult decisions.

of course the most heart wrenching for me, for all of us, was on university funding. like all of you, i saw the anger. i understand it. i felt it. i have learned from it.

and i know how much damage this has done to us as a party. by far the most painful part of our transition. from the easy promises of opposition to the invidious choices of government. probably the most important lesson i have learned is this, no matter how hard you work on the details of a policy, it's no good if the perception is wrong. we can say until we're blue in the face that no one will have to pay any fees as a student, but still people don't believe it. that once you've left university you'll pay less, week in week out, than under the current system, but still people don't believe it.

that the support given to students from poorer families will increase dramatically, but still people don't believe it. the simple truth is that the conservatives and labour were both set on increasing fees, and in those circumstances we did the best thing we could. working tirelessly to ensure anyone who wants to go to university can. freeing part time students from up front fees for the first time. ensuring fairer repayments for all graduates. but we failed to properly explain those dilemmas. we failed to explain that there were no other easy options. and we have failed so far to show that the new system will be much, much better than people fear. so, lessons learned. but the most important thing now is to get out there and show that university is for everyone.

we should all take a leaf out of simon hughes' book - who has been busting a gut as the government's advocate for access. travelling the country, explaining the new system and finding ways to get young people from all backgrounds to apply to university. simon didn't like the decision we made, and for reasons i respect. but rather than sitting back he has rolled up his sleeves and got on with making the new system work. simon, thank you. right now, our biggest concern is of course the economy. the recovery is fragile. every worker, every family knows that. there is a long, hard road ahead. in the last few days alone we have seen a financial storm in the eurozone. rising unemployment. falling stock markets.

so we were right to pull the economy back from the brink. it is clearer now than ever that deficit reduction was essential to protect the economy, to protect homes and jobs. deficit reduction lays the foundations for growth. but on its own it is not enough. that's why we're already, investing in infrastructure, reducing red tape, promoting skills, getting the banks lending. but the outlook for the global economy has got worse. so we need to do more, we can do more, and we will do more for growth and for jobs.

because we're not in politics just to repair the damage done by labour, to glue back together the pieces of the old economy. we are here to build a new economy. a new economy safe from casino speculation. that's why a liberal democrat business secretary is putting a firewall into the banking system. protecting the people who have worked hard and saved. a new economy that safeguards the environment. that's why a liberal democrat environment secretary is creating the world's first green investment bank, spending three billion pounds to create green jobs. a new economy where the lowest- paid get to keep the money they

earn. that's why a liberal democrat chief secretary to the treasury has put two hundred pounds into the pocket of every basic rate taxpayer and taken almost a million workers - most of them women - out of income tax altogether. a new economy based on skills. that's why one liberal democrat minister is creating a quarter of a million new apprenticeships, and another is investing in schools and early years education. a new economy that works for families. where men and women can choose how to balance work and home. that's why liberal democrats are bringing in shared parental leave and more flexible working. and a new economy run for ordinary people rather than big finance. after the so-called masters of the universe turned out to be masters of destruction instead.

which is why when we come to sell those bank shares, i want to see a payback to every citizen. your money was put at risk. your money was used to bail out the banks. and so the money made by the banks is your money, too. an economy for everyone, in scotland, wales, in every part of the united kingdom. for women and men. young, old. town, country. north, south. a new economy for the whole nation. because as liberal democrats we act for the whole nation. in our long, proud liberal history, we have never served, the media moguls, the union barons or the bankers.

we do not serve, and we will never serve, vested interests. we are in nobody's pocket. that's why we can make decisions in the national interest, not easy, but right. that's why we speak up, first and loudest, when the establishment lets the people down.

in the last three years, we've seen establishment institutions exposed one by one. the city of london, shattered by the greed of bankers. the media, corrupted by phone hacking. parliament, shamed by expenses. i was brought up to know that it is not polite to say 'i told you so'. but i'm sorry, we did. in 2006 when vince cable warned that "bad debts were growing" and that bank lending levels were "recklessly irresponsible". in 2002 when tom mcnally said, "the government must guard the public interest as assiduously as mr murdoch guards his shareholder interests." and in 1996 when paddy said

that parliament had become "a rotten mess. a dishevelled, disfigured old corpse of what was once called the mother of parliaments." free to tell it like it really is because we are in nobody's pocket. of all the claims ed miliband has made, the most risible is that his party is the enemy of vested interests. while we were campaigning for change in the banking system, they were on their prawn cocktail offensive in the city. while we've led the charge against the media barons, labour has cowered before them for decades.

the most shocking thing about the news that tony blair is godfather to one of rupert murdoch's children is that nobody was really shocked at all. and today labour is in hock to the trade union barons, after their government stipend, 95% of labour's money comes from unions. most of it from just four of them. let me be clear, the values of trade unionism are as relevant as ever. supporting workers. fighting for fairness at work. but i don't think the unions should be able to buy themselves a political party. ed miliband says he wants to loosen the ties between labour and the union barons who helped

him beat his brother. let's see him put his money where his mouth is. let's see if he'll support radical reform of party funding. every previous attempt has been blocked by the vested interests in the other two parties. we are all stuck in a system that we know is wrong. we've all been damaged by it. but if we learned anything from the expenses scandal. it is surely that if the system's broken. we should not wait for the next scandal. we should fix it and fix it fast. so whether it is securing the economy, sorting the banks or cleaning up politics, we are making the big, difficult decisions. not easy, but right.

that's what it means to be a party of national government again. not just making arguments, making change. in a coalition, we have two kinds of power, the power to hold our coalition partners back and the power to move the government forwards. so we can keep the government to a liberal path. anchor the government in the centre ground. we were absolutely right to stop the nhs bill in its tracks. to ensure change on our terms. no arbitrary deadlines. no backdoor privatization. no threat to the basic principles at the heart of our nhs. we are right to stand up for civil liberties.

no retreat to the illiberal populism of the labour years. we are right to insist on keeping the tax system fair. asking the most of the people who have the most. and we will always defend human rights, at home as well as abroad. the european convention on human rights and the human rights act are not, as some would have you believe, foreign impositions. these are british rights, drafted by british lawyers. forged in the aftermath of the atrocities of the second world war. fought for by winston churchill. so let me say something really clear about the human rights act. in fact i'll do it in words of one syllable, it is here to stay. so we will always hold the liberal line.

but much more important is the positive power of government, not just stopping bad things but doing good things. last year i walked through the door of no 10. but we all walked through a kind of door together. to being, once again, a party of national government. so we must move now beyond the reflexes of opposition to the responsibilities of government, and the opportunities of government, too. new social housing.

criminal justice reform. fixed term parliaments. keeping our post offices open. house of lords reform. better mental health care. safer banks. income tax down for ordinary workers. capital gains tax up for the rich. compulsory retirement scrapped. pensions protected by a triple lock. id cards, history. child detention, ended. just look at what we've announced in the last five days. after decades of campaigning, and thanks to lynne featherstone, equal marriage, straight or gay. more power for consumers over the energy companies. calling time on rewards for failure in boardrooms. investing in education for girls in developing countries. new powers to turn empty homes back into family homes. a five hundred million pound

investment in growth. liberal achievements from a liberal party of government. and we have stood by our commitments to act on the environment. the pollsters tell us that climate change has dropped down people's list of worries. that people have more immediate concerns. i understand that. so the politically convenient thing would have been to put this off to another day. instead we have acted immediately. not easy, but right. ambitious carbon targets. energy market reform. councils generating renewable energy. energy.