THE Tories are "relishing" forcing the working poor to pay for the UK budget deficit, the Deputy Prime Minister has said.

As the LibDems gather in Glasgow for their annual conference for the second year in a row, Nick Clegg launched an attack on Chancellor George Osborne and the Conservatives, and insisted that Labour's economic policy was "nonsensical ".

Mr Clegg hopes to convince people that the Liberal Democrats have made a difference in Government and once people see that, they will recover from the humiliation at the 2011 Holyrood elections.

Speaking to the Evening Times, Mr Clegg said he was looking forward to returning to the city where he said he had spent a lot of time in both "joyous and tragic" circumstances in the last year.

He was at the Commonwealth Games, but also represented the Government following the Clutha helicopter tragedy.

The LibDems will attempt to establish the difference between themselves and the other two parties - with his strongest attack reserved for his Tory coalition partners.

He said: "Labour has nothing to say on economy and the Conservatives want to beat up on the poor.

"We will borrow less than Labour and cut less than the Conservatives. None of the others can say this.

"George Osborne is relishing that the people who will pay the price is the working age poor. We don't accept that.The only people they are asking to make sacrifices are the working age poor.

"It is economically illiterate. I don't know how any country can do this sort of deficit reduction.

"We have Labour drifting to the nonsensical left and the Conservatives to the socially punitive right."

He was hopeful that the party could reverse its disastrous showing in the 2011 Scottish election, the year after they went into coalition with the Tories and reneged on the leader's no tuition fees pledge.

However, Mr Clegg said: "What can go down can go up.

"We have had a tough time over the last few years. People will see our basic judgement has been right.

"We have delivered huge tax cuts to low and middle earners, expanded apprenticeships and protected pensions.

"The more people see that, they will see we made the right choices.

"Even if they were not happy we went into coalition, they will accept we did the right thing."

He was adamant that more powers would be delivered to Scotland following the No vote last month.

He said: "They will be met in full. We are not going to allow back sliding by the Conservatives. We are the guarantee in Government ."

He said it was not dependent upon English votes for English laws.

He added: "The Tory leadership is in a blind panic about Ukip. It is a separate debate.

"They are absolutely and emphatically not linked to the commitment to give huge swathe of more powers for Scotland."

stewart.paterson@eveningtimes.co.uk