Nick Clegg: I still want to govern with either party We meet in the aftermath of George Osborne's Autumn Statement, on an awayday in and around Bristol and Cheltenham. To see Clegg on the stump is to witness him at his best - engaged, enthusiastic and candid. His strategic message is twofold: first, that the greenhouse of economic recovery was political stability, provided by the Lib Dems" decision to enter Coalition with the old enemy. Second, that the Coalition will not decouple next year, as some still assume, but will carry on the work of what Clegg calls "bicephalous" (two-headed) government. A Cameron, like a puppy, is not just for Christmas. Naturally, the two parties have continued to "lock horns" on specific issues. Clegg declares himself "one of the leading advocates" of some of Iain Duncan Smith's welfare reforms but laments that "there was a tendency for my Conservative partners to take every opportunity just to lop more and more off welfare for the working age population - [but] welfare for the retired wealthy was completely off-limits." This led Clegg into a Twitter spat with Lord Sugar in October over the Apprentice star's pensioner entitlements. "George gets terribly upset with me," he reflects of this continuing argument. Clegg has also clashed with Michael Gove, publicly over teacher qualifications, and privately over a range of issues. At a public meeting, he refers drily to the Department for Education, "parts of which are resistant" to the free-school-meals-for- younger-pupils policy. Most draining for Clegg has been keeping the Coalition on - as he sees it - the straight and narrow on green issues. Osborne, eager to remove barriers to recovery and much influenced by Nigel Lawson's sceptical writings, has grown increasingly impatient with the green agenda. Yet even this, Clegg presents as an example of how the Coalition works successfully. For me, it was very simple - if we can deliver a carbon- neutral package. We've literally sat going through tables working out how much carbon is lost or gained with each individual measure - these incentive schemes, the stamp-duty rebate [to spend on energy-saving in the home] and so on. Not everything in the Autumn Statement pleased Clegg equally - or at all. He refers, for instance, to the new married tax allowance as the "unmarried tax penalty." But, considered in the round, the Chancellor's announcements were, in the eyes of the Deputy Prime Minister, "one of the most fully co-authored fiscal moments of this coalition government." The emerging theme of the Conservative election campaign is that the task of repair has advanced but is not complete: there is more work to do, and it cannot be trusted to Labour. It is striking that Clegg's pitch is so similar. There are big differences between the Tories and Lib Dems on the balance between tax rises and spending cuts in the years ahead. But the language of the Statement was carefully hammered out to emphasise the degree of convergence on fiscal strategy. What I was trying to do, beyond the individual measures, was say to Labour, 'Look, we may have our differences, Conservatives and Liberal Democrats, but we both agree that you have to clear the decks by 2018. What's your [Labour's] point of view?"" Throughout the day, at public meetings and in conversation, Clegg says that coalitions are here to stay, as the grip of the two main parties slackens, and new forces, including Ukip, emerge. More striking is his determination - if the electorate allows it - to stay in government after 2015. Oh no, absolutely. I don't hesitate for a minute. I want the Liberal Democrats to be in government. I can't predict which combination, whether it be the Conservatives or Labour [but] I think both [for] myself individually, personally, and the party, that we're good at governing now - we are good at governing from the Liberal centre ground. We fight tenaciously where we think there's a danger of the Government lurching off in the wrong direction. However, this is not a plea for the existing Coalition to be given a second term. It is a declaration of Clegg's readiness to play the same role again, with the prospective prime minister of the day. Remarkably, this includes Boris Johnson. Clegg responded fiercely to the Mayor of London's recent remarks about IQ, accusing him of "unpleasant, careless elitism" and recoiling with particular vehemence from the use of the word "species." When I ask whether he could see himself performing a similar role for Boris, there is not a moment's hesitation. Yes, of course. I'm quite un-precious about the idea that someone who has a much stronger democratic mandate than me but hasn't got an outright mandate has every right to be a prime minister, and for me to be a deputy. I want my party to punch above its weight, and indeed we do. Already, subtle preparation for 2015 is under way. It may be that voters elect a single-party government, in which case the Lib Dems will have to wait for a hung parliament. In 1997, Tony Blair had planned to offer Paddy Ashdown Cabinet seats. In 2007, Ashdown turned down a similar offer from Gordon Brown. Clegg has no interest in serving in a government with its own Commons majority ("the Liberal Democrats are not going to be like some insurance policy"). But if the 2015 result is again indecisive, he will be ready to negotiate. David Laws, the Cabinet Office and education minister, is preparing the Lib Dem manifesto, and Clegg wants to make clear the party's priorities - he balks at the term "red lines," but that is what he means. It is intriguing to learn that the Lib Dems" current opposition to Cameron's proposed in-out referendum on EU membership will not be one such non-negotiable position. I feel that the Liberal Democrat position on a referendum on the European issue is already far more forward-thinking than people give us credit for. We've legislated, we've marched through the lobbies in the House of Commons to put into law the circumstances in which a referendum will take place. Clegg will not let Cameron have a referendum before the election, but he is open to negotiation thereafter. Labour strategists assuming that Europe would be an insuperable stumbling block to a second Cameron-Clegg alliance should take note: the Lib Dem leader is Dave's flexible friend. In the dark days of 2010-2011 - tuition fees, defeat in the AV referendum - it seemed that Clegg's greatest achievement (getting the Lib Dems into office) might also destroy him. If his party had lost the Eastleigh by-election in February, a plot to replace Clegg with Vince Cable would certainly have been launched. But it didn't and he wasn't. Like Osborne, Clegg is now collecting the wages of resilience, but he takes nothing for granted about the election. The theory that he is preparing for a polite exit in 2015 is certainly wrong. Not only am I up for it, I'm genuinely, personally, more committed to what I'm doing and actually enjoy what I'm doing more than ever before. He permits himself a smile. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.