Nick Clegg visits Oxford
28 April 2010, 15:07 | Updated: 29 April 2010, 12:56
Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg's been in Oxford as campaigning continues ahead of the General Election.
The Lib Dem leader met students at Oxford Brookes University on Wednesday 29 April 2010.
More than 400 students turned up to see Mr Clegg and questioned him on a range of issues, including graduate jobs, tuition fees and the Iraq War.
Mr Clegg said: "One of the most exciting things to have happened in this election campaign'' was that young voters "who have been turned off for years from the tired old politics of the past are getting stuck in, getting engaged''.
He said the Institute for Fiscal Studies had done a "great service" by requiring politicians to "come clean about how bad and how difficult these decisions are going to be for the future."
He acknowledged that the Lib Dems "will need to do more'' but, unlike the other parties, they were not promising "phantom, fantasy efficiency savings."
Mr Clegg said: "When you hear David Cameron or Gordon Brown talking about billions of so-called efficiency savings, don't believe a word of it."
The Lib Dem leader, who has faced weeks of repeated questioning by journalists about his intentions in the event of a hung Parliament, was pressed on the issue by a student at the university.
Mr Clegg said the "potty political system'' could see Labour coming third but if no party had an overall majority they would still be able to have first claim on the keys to No 10.
"It seems to me it would be incompatible with that action by millions of people... to then have Gordon Brown continuing in No 10," he said.
He added: "Only in the weird, wacky, Alice in Wonderland world of Westminster politics, old politics does any of that sound normal."
* Picture by Alex Folkes
The full list of candidates standing in the Oxford East constituency are as follows:
Edward Argar - Conservative
Roger Martin Crawford - Equal Parenting Alliance
Sushila Dhall - Green
Julia Margaret Gasper - UK Independence Party
Steve Goddard - Liberal Democrats
David Andrew O'Sullivan - Socialist Equality Party
Andrew Smith - Labour