Today the Liberal Democrat General Election Manifesto was launched.

There are four key elements are:

1) Fair taxes: Raising the personal tax allowance to £10,000 which would reduce taxes for everyone earning £10k or more by £700. This is not an overall tax cut – but a redistribution with those on  high earnings paying more. They will do this as result of a reduction in tax loopholes they currently exploit, for example reducing pension tax relief to the basic rate. There will also be a new mansion tax on houses worth more than £2m and some extra environmental taxes. 

2) A fair start for our children: Extra funding will be found for education which could allow schools to cut class sizes or provide extra one-to-one tuition for those that need it

3) Building a green economy with much greater investment in insulating our buildings, low carbon transport and renewable energy generation. Meanwhile the banks will be reformed and split into safe, well regulated high street banks on the one hand and high risk investment banks which can make high returns but can also be allowed to fail without bringing down the whole banking system.

4) Real deep rooted reform of our political system, with fair votes – ending the corrupting influence of safe seats, and  allowing voters to vote for what – and who – they want without the fear of wasting their votes. We will give the public the right to recall corrupt MPs and will fight to preserve our hard won civil liberties. 

I believe this is a radical, fair and unique platform that deserves strong support. I’ll be doing all I can to maximise the number of Liberal Democrat votes and Liberal Democrat seats so as much of it as possible gets implemented after the General Election.