This is a manifesto you can trust. We have stripped our priorities back to the essential, fundamental changes that Britain needs to make it fair:

• Fair taxes that put money back in your pocket
• A fair chance for every child
• A fair future, creating jobs by making Britain greener
• And a fair deal by cleaning up politics

These are deliverable, practical plans to make your life better, and they are right there on the front cover of our manifesto. Instead of rhetoric and razzmatazz, we are saying what we will do and how we will pay for it.

Elections should be a competition of ideas, not marketing budgets. They may have the bigger budgets but we have the bigger ideas.And you can trust us to deliver because unlike the other parties, we have spelt out, line by line in the manifesto how every single policy is paid for, and how we will reduce the deficit.

We have set out £15bn of details spending cuts and just £5bn a year of new spending, meaning £10bn for the deficit every year. We are the first party to put detailed spending plans into a manifesto.

Four key pledges

1. Fair taxes: We will ensure no-one pays income tax on the first £10,000 they earn. Most taxpayers will get a tax cut of £700 a year. We’ll pay for it by closing loopholes that unfairly benefit the rich, a new tax on mansions worth over £2m, a crack down on tax avoidance and higher aviation duty.
2. A fair start for all our children: We will get every child the individual attention they need by cutting class sizes. We will spend an extra £2.5bn on schools, targeted at children who need the most help. The average primary school could cut class sizes to 20. An average secondary school could see classes of just 16.
3. A fair future: a rebalanced, green economy: We will break up the banks and rebalance the economy away from unsustainable financial speculation. We will be honest about where savings must be made in government spending to balance the books and protect our children’s future. And we will create new jobs with a £3.1bn green stimulus and job creation plan in our first year in office, fully funded by cut backs elsewhere.
4. A fair deal from politicians: We will introduce a fair voting system. We will ensure corrupt MPs can be sacked by their constituents and stop non-doms from donating to parties or sitting in Parliament. We will take power from Westminster and give it to communities, with local power over police and the NHS, and introduce a freedom bill to protect and restore civil liberties.

We also have the following commitments:

• Protect front line NHS services. We will help the NHS work better with the money it has and protect front line services by re-investing the savings we find back into healthcare
• Recruit 3,000 more police officers to keep our streets safe and scrapping ID cards
• Scrap student tuition fees to reduce the burden of student debt immediately and eliminate fee debt altogether over 6 years
• A pay rise for our brave service men and women together with cut backs of bureaucrats and top brass officers in the Ministry of Defence
• Uprate the basic state pension in line with earnings immediately so that pensioners do not fall further behind when the economy starts to grow again

YOU CAN READ NICK CLEGGS MANIFESTO LAUNCH SPEECH HERE

YOU CAN READ OR DOWNLOAD A COPY OF OUR MANIFESTO HERE: libdem_manifesto_2010.pdf

ALTERNATIVELY YOU CAN VIEW OUR MANIFESTO IN FULL OR SECTIONS ON OUR WEBSITE HERE

Prestwich Festival will take place for the first time in 2009. It is intended to be an annual four week calendar of events running from 17 May to 21 June. The festival will provide the opportunity to showcase as many events as possible during a four week period and will build on its success year on year, similar to existing events like Prestwich Clough and Prestwich Carnvial.

Click here for an first look at the packed events listing.

In the wake of the announcement that dozens of post offices in and around Greater Manchester, 11 across the Stockport Borough, are scheduled for closure, Liberal Democrats from across the area have launched a petition to ‘Save our Post Offices’.

Cheadle Constituency Mark Hunter MP, Hazel Grove Constituency MP Andrew Stunell, Manchester Withington MP John Leech and Rochdale MP Paul Rowen, along with Lib Dem Councillors and activists launched the petition today in central Manchester by holding a demonstration to oppose the plans and asking local residents to sign up in support of the protest.

Speaking after the launch Mr Hunter said: “It’s not too late for action on this issue. I hope local people will speak out and sign our petition to save their local post office. Many are under threat now and many more will surely follow if the Government gets is way.

“Post Offices are a vital part of the community; they often help to keep local other shops afloat and are relied on by a very wide variety of people particularly the elderly and young mums. It seems to me that Labour is fast becoming a Government that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. The Liberal Democrats are committed to the future of the Post Office and we will keep up our campaign to show the Government that local people want to keep their Post Offices open.”

Mr Stunell added: “We lost a lot of Post Offices in this area when the Conservatives were last in Government, and now we are faced with a Labour Government that does not understand how strongly people feel about their local Post Office.

In fact the situation could soon get even worse - the Post Office Card Account that many pensioners rely on for drawing their pensions and benefits is being reviewed and if that work is lost by Royal Mail than even more Post Offices will surely be closed in the future.

The Liberal Democrats have a viable plan to prevent further closures and help to sustain the network; a plan that wouldn’t cost the earth that would invest in our local Post Office network not chop it up. Post Offices should be local and should be supporting our communities and we will continue to fight with our local community to save them.”