An evening with Nick Clegg

10.49.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 11th Jul 2008

Nick Clegg with Cllr Claire Darke after the meeting

Lib Dem Leader Nick Clegg is spending at least one evening a week meeting people all round the country. He was in the Forum Theatre in Malvern on Thursday evening. The 450 seat theatre was packed and in the audience was a group from Wolverhampton. There were no set speeches as Mr Clegg discussed the issue of the day with the audience and answered their questions.

This was a genuinely open event, with no hand picked audience, no planted questions and no spin. One Conservative supporter in the audience said Nick Clegg came across really well; was not afraid to say when he wasn't sure but very clear and passionate about what he stood for.

Questions ranged from the need for respite care and better mental health services, which he said were chronically under-funded, to the treatment of asylum seekers, who he said were desperate human beings, protected under international law, and should be dealt with efficiently and fairly by an independent body instead of inefficiently and cruelly by government agencies.

Responding to complaints about council services, he said that more money should be raised locally by councils with a corresponding reduction in money raised by national taxation, giving more control to local people. He said the unfair Council Tax should be scrapped and replaced with a local income tax to raise money for local services.

Nick also condemned the government's cynical post office closure programme and called on Gordon Brown to float just under half of the Royal Mail on the stock exchange, raising £2billion to invest in the post office network.

On Europe, Nick said that with all its faults, membership of the EU was still the best way for Britain, together with the rest of Europe, to exercise real power and influence in the world today. On the environment, Nick said that the tax system must hit pollution but not income, citing the need to cut unnecessary flights by empty planes and cutting tax to low income families through the green tax switch.

The conversation also ranged across fuel prices, flooding and Iraq and lasted for an hour and a half. Nick Clegg was given a huge round of applause by the audience and although he had to catch a train to Sheffield he stayed behind to have a chat with people including our own Cllr Claire Darke.