I believe the way things are is not the way things have to be.
You're going to be told tonight by these two that the only choice you can make is between two old parties who've been running things for years.
I'm here to persuade you that there is an alternative.
I think we have a fantastic opportunity to do things differently for once.
If we do things differently, we can create the fair society, the fair country we all want: a fair tax system, better schools, an economy no longer held hostage by greedy bankers, decent, open politics.
Those are the changes I believe in.
I really wouldn't be standing here tonight if I didn't think they were all possible.
So don't let anyone tell you that the only choice is old politics.
We can do something new; we can do something different this time.
That's what I'm about; that's what the Liberal Democrats offer.
Gerard, you talked about a fair, workable immigration system.
That's exactly what I want.
What's happened over the last several years is almost precisely the reverse.
You have had lots and lots of tough talking about immigration from both Conservative and Labour governments, and complete chaos in the actual administration of the system.
It was a Conservative government that removed the exit controls so we knew who was leaving as well as who was coming in.
It's what the Labour government followed up on as well.
What I think we need to do is, firstly, make sure we restore those exit controls, so we have borders so we know exactly who is coming in but also when they are supposed to leave.
The second thing I would do is this.
At the moment under the immigration system, if you want to come and work in this country, you have to show two things: firstly, that you've got a sponsor who is sponsoring your arrival in this country, and secondly, that there is a job for you to do.
I want to add a third element: that you also only go to a place, to a region, where you are needed.
So that we only send immigrants to those places where they can be coped.
The truth is that there is good immigration and there is bad immigration.
I was in a hospital, a paediatric hospital in Cardiff a few months ago, treating very sick premature young babies.
I was being shown around and there were a large number of babies needing to be treated.
There was a ward standing completely empty, though it had the latest equipment.
I said to the ward sister "What's going on?
Why are there no babies being treated?"
She said "New rules mean we can't employ any doctors from outside the European Union with the skills needed".
That's an example of where the rules are stopping good immigration which actually helps our public services to work properly.
That's where I want to see, not an arbitrary cap.
We can't just say a cap, what is it? 10, 10,000? A million?
What if you reach the cap in the middle of summer and someone wants to come and play football for Manchester United or Manchester City?
Do you say they can't come?
No, let's have a regional approach where you only make sure the immigrants who come go to those regions where they can be supported.
I think this is partly what's been going wrong for so long.
We have had both major parties running governments over the last 20 years talking tough about immigration and delivering complete chaos in the way in which it's run.
I'm like anybody else.
I just want a fair, workable immigration system that counts people in, counts people out, only makes sure immigrants come here if there's jobs for them to do in parts of the country where they don't place unreasonable strain on housing, public services and so on.
I think the regional approach that we're putting forward, which would be a major innovation, they do it in Canada, they do it in Australia, it would be a major innovation here, which I think would restore public confidence in an immigration where people feel it's complete chaos.
Oh, very easily.
No, no, no.
Very, very easily.
They do it in other countries.
Basically it means if you're an employer and you're employing someone who's got a work permit, then you will need to make sure that in that work permit, they're only able to work in the region where you are offering them work.
And if you offer them work when they don't have a work permit which says they're entitled to be in that region, then you're acting illegally.
They do it in other countries, we should do it here.
Because the truth is that our country has lots of different needs in different parts of the country.
That's not being reflected in the immigration system in which the public has lost any confidence.
Jacqueline, you asked, what can we do to stop burglary happening over and over and over and over again.
Two things: firstly, quite simply, more police on our streets.
This government wants to waste billions of your money on an ID card system so you have to pay for the privilege of having lots of your own details on a piece of plastic card that you carry around.
For pretty well exactly the amount of money, your money, that the government is pouring into that, we could put 3,000 more police officers on the streets.
That is the absolute priority for me.
The second thing is this: there are too many young offenders who start first getting into trouble with low-level nuisance anti-social behaviour who become the hardened criminals of tomorrow.
What we've got to do is stop the young offenders of today becoming the hardened criminals tomorrow.
In my city of Sheffield, where I'm an MP, we've done some great things to do exactly that.
That's the way to get burglary and crime down.
I think, as I say, it's how do we make sure the youngsters of today don't become the hardened criminals of tomorrow?
It's that conveyor-belt from nuisance at the beginning, anti-social behaviour in our communities, yobs on on the street corner who then become the hardened criminals of tomorrow.
I think what makes me so angry is that again, it's like the immigration debate: so much tough talk from different governments of different parties for so long has turned our prisons into overcrowded colleges of crime.
Do you know that young men going into prison now on short-term prison sentences now come out, and nine out of ten of them reoffend, so we are reproducing more crime than actually cutting it.
What I've seen in my city of Sheffield is that you get these youngsters not when they've done serious crimes, but when they're first starting to get into trouble, to face their victims, explain why they've done what they've done to their victims, apologise for what they've done, make up for what they've done in the community, cleaning up parks and streets.
It has a dramatic effect on their behaviour.
I want to change people's behaviour before they become the criminals of tomorrow.
Well, it's all very well to stay these things, but if what actually happens in practice is that we produce, as I say, these colleges of crime, where we have now, what, about 4,000 people going into our prisons on short-term prison sentences, they sit around, they learn some extra tricks of the trade from some more experienced criminals, and then they go out and nine out of ten of the young men on short-term prison sentences just commit more crime.
I think that's what Jacqueline is talking about, this desperate, hopeless feeling.
It keeps happening over and over again.
I met a young man in London the other day.
His flat had been burgled five times, and one of them, would you believe it, Jacqueline, was when he was away at his father's funeral.
He said to me "Why can't this stop?"
Unless we do something different, not the same old remedies, but do something different to stop the youngsters today who are getting into trouble from becoming the hardened criminals of tomorrow, I don't this stuff will make the difference that they say it will.
I'm just slightly surprised that there's any discussion going on between you about what money you can put into public services, because I read your manifestos this week.
In neither of them are you coming clean with people about what anything costs, because you haven't got any figures in your manifestos.
We've set out clearly not only what we will do, but how we will pay for it.
I don't think that any politician deserves your trust - and you talked about credibility - deserves any credibility until everybody has come clean about what has gone wrong.
Now, there have been some changes to the rules and all that, the changes to the expenses rules.
But, you know, there are still people who haven't taken full responsibility for some of the biggest abuses in the system.
There are MPs who flipped one property to the next, buying property, paid by you, the taxpayer, and then they would do the properties up, paid for by you, and pocket the difference in personal profit.
They got away scot-free.
There are MPs who avoided paying Capital Gains Tax.
Of course, you remember, what was it, the duck houses and all the rest of it.
But actually, it's the people, the MPs who made these big abuses, some of them profiting hundreds of thousands of pounds.
I have to stress, not a single Liberal Democrat MP did either of those things, but they still haven't been dealt with.
We can only turn round the corner on this until we're honest about what went wrong in the first place.
I have to say to both David Cameron and Gordon Brown, what bothers me is that I hear the words, they sound great.
But, you know, it's not just what you say, it's what you do.
Why is it that when I put forward, Liberal Democrats put forward, a law which would have given all of you and everyone watching now the right to sack their MP if their MP is corrupt, the Labour MPs voted against it, the Conservative MPs didn't even bother to vote.
Why is it when we supported a deal to clean up the really murky business of party funding which has affected all parties, you blocked it, you blocked it.
You wanted to protect the paymasters of the trade union.
Paymasters, you wanted to protect Lord Ashcroft in his offshore haven in Belize.
It's not good enough to keep talking about how we need to change politics, if when you've got an opportunity to change, you actually block it.
I think that's a betrayal, I think that's a con.
I think you deserve the right to sack your MPs when they're corrupt, but you also deserve a politics where we finally get the big money out of politics altogether.
Hang on a minute.
Before we bandy about these things, let's be absolutely clear.
We were completely exonerated for that, it was years ago.
I'm talking about what's been going on now.
Listen, none of this will make any difference if we allow this rotten system in Westminster to carry on where MPs have jobs for life, where they basically only need to get 20, 30% of your votes in their areas, then no questions asked, they don't even need to bother until the next time there's an election.
There is a direct correlation between the hundreds of Labour and Conservative MPs who have got these safe seats, these jobs for life, and the levels of abuse in expenses.
Neither of you want to clean up the system from top to toe in the way that...
There was absolutely nothing to support.
They did nothing for 13 years.
No.
I mean...
What I support is something I've supported all my adult political life, which is a complete clean-up from top to toe of politics.
Direct elections to the House of Lords.
They shouldn't be there just because they've done favours to politicians making the rules that you need to abide by... ..getting big money out, fair votes for everybody.
But you haven't offered it.
I'm absolutely dismayed by this.
This is something I actually put forward in the House of Commons.
We already could have had that law, people already could have had the right to sack corrupt MPs.
Labour MPs voted against it.
Conservative MPs didn't turn up.
It's great we're saying the same thing.
You've also got to do the right thing to clean up politics.
John, I think everyone will recognise what you're talking about, this feeling that you have to constantly jump through hoops.
The symptoms are everywhere.
Our National Curriculum is 600 pages.
The curriculum in Sweden, which has generally got a fairly good education system, is 16 pages.
I just read the other day that head teachers now by e-mail over the last year, have received - get this 4,000 pages of instructions from on high from Whitehall.
This is crazy.
We've got to let head teachers teach, we've got to let teachers teach.
We've got to reinstil a sense of enthusiasm and creativity in the way that you are taught.
That's why we want to do, the Liberal Democrats, is to put on to the statute book an Education Freedom Act which literally bans government from micromanaging what happens every minute of the day with every single test in every classroom in the country.
That's what I'd like to see.
I think it would make a big difference to you and other people who are at school.
I think discipline is important, of course.
I think creativity, which I think is the point you're saying, Joel - I'm not allowed to ask you questions, that's against the rules, but just nod if - good!
I think creativity is important in the classroom, and think freedom for teachers and head teachers.
One thing which I think would really help in all of those things - discipline, creativity, freedom for teachers - is quite simply good old-fashioned smaller class sizes.
We have 8,000 infants in this country now between the ages of five and seven who are in classes which are so big, they're illegal, technically illegal.
It's just logical.
If you're a teacher, friends of mine who are teachers say they can't really keep an eye on the troublemakers, but they also can't support the brightest children if the classes are huge.
That's why we've got a plan, fully costed, to provide schools with additional resources so that they can bring down the average class size in a primary school, for instance down to 20, and the average class size in a secondary school down to 16. I'm not sure if you're like me, but the more they attack each other, the more they sound exactly the same.
Look, Joel's question - let's go back to the question.
Joel asked, why are you being tested so much?
How can all pupils in our schools feel they're being supported and getting the best out of education?
I come back to this need to combine two things: firstly, more freedom for teachers and head teachers.
Remember this crazy thing I told you about head teachers getting 4,000 pages of instructions by e-mail, and secondly, smaller class sizes, more one-to-one tuition, Saturday morning classes, evening classes, so that you can help those children in particular who perhaps aren't being supported at home as much as anybody else.
I know from my two sons, who go to an excellent local state-funded school in my area, if a whole class can move together, then that enriches all children.
I think what goes wrong is when classes get so big and classes actually fall apart.
Well, Gordon Brown mentioned spending - absolutely, too right.
I don't think we're really going to get those smaller class sizes, that one-to-one tuition that I think Joel agrees is necessary, the catch-up classes, unless we find the money from savings elsewhere.
We've spelt that out in our manifesto, so we can provide under our plan £2.5 billion extra to our schools.
Where are you, Robert?
I can hear your voice, but...
Ah, there you are, right at the back.
Sorry.
Behind the camera.
Now I can see you.
Robert, I think we need to just be open with you, straight with you, and we've sought to do that.
We've specified - I think we're the only party in politics now, in our manifesto, look at the back of our manifesto, which says, here are the figures, this is the way that we would find cuts and savings of £15 million.
How would we do that?
By things like removing tax credits for the top 20% of recipients of tax credits, ending the child trust fund, which gives £250 to all 18-year-olds. I'd love to give everybody £250 but I don't think we can afford it right now.
Putting a cap of £400 on any pay increases in the public sector for the next two years.
But also some long-term choices.
I'm the only leader here who is saying very clearly I don't think we can either justify or afford the like-for-like replacement of the Cold War nuclear missile system, the Trident missile system, over the next 25 years.
It will cost you, all of us, £100 billion.
We can't afford it.
These two constantly argue about waste as if we can create...or we can fill the black hole in public finances by saving money on paper clips and pot plants in Whitehall.
Of course we can get rid of a bit of waste.
But that isn't the big...
That doesn't really address the big questions we need to ask ourselves.
I think we need to be clear with you, open with you, straight with you.
We've tried to do that.
We've set out £15 billion worth of savings.
I've listed some of them.
We have one specific tax that we want to introduce to help fill the black hole.
We would impose a 10% tax on the profits of the banks, these banks who have got us into the trouble in the first place.
I think they should pay you back because you, the taxpayer, have bailed them out, and use that money to deal with the black hole in the finances.
Let's not get obsessed about mythical savings and waste, which is the oldest trick in the book, to pretend that you can square a circle like that.
Or get obsessed about when you deliver these cuts.
The crucial thing is, are we going to be open with people, with you, about how we're going to save money in the long-term?
We all know we've got this great black hole in our public finances.
That's obvious.
We all know we're going to have to save money; we all know we're going to have to make cuts.
The question at this election is who is trying to be straight with you about the scale of those cuts, how long they'll take?
As it happens, this is one area where I would like for once to see politicians put people before politics.
What I'm suggesting - I don't know whether Gordon Brown and David Cameron will take up this invitation - is that regardless of the outcome of the general election, that we get the Chancellor and the shadow Chancellors together, the governor of the Bank of England, the head of the Financial Services Authority, to come clean with you about how big this structural deficit is.
It's estimated to be somewhere around £70 billion.
And straight with you, finally, about how long it is going to take to fill that.
We've spelt out exactly where that money would come from.
We would, for instance, stop this grotesque spectacle of this unfair tax system which has been built up under a succession of Labour and Conservative governments, where right now, a greedy banker in the City of London pays a lower rate of tax on their capital gains than their cleaner does on their wages.
We have a tax system...
All I would say is this argument I think just doesn't address the fundamental issue.
There are going to be big things over the next few years, and neither will come clean on this with you, that we simply can't afford to do.
Trident, I don't think we can afford it.
A tax on banks I think is now unavoidable.
Tax credits.
We need to look at public sector pensions.
These are big decisions we need to take.
I would like us for once to get politicians together...
You're right, Nick.
They are under-equipped and they are underpaid.
I think there's something seriously wrong when you've got 8,000 bureaucrats in the Ministry of Defence who work on communications.
When we have too many top brass in some of the services - there are, I think, two admirals for every warship.
We have 17 brigadiers for every brigade.
And we also, of course, have this consensus from the Conservative and Labour Parties that we should spend £100 million renewing the Cold War nuclear Trident missile system.
I say if we change our priorities, we can provide our brave servicemen and servicewomen, who do the most astonishing job in the most extraordinarily difficult circumstances, we can give them proper pay.
I think it's a scandal that someone who starts in the army on a junior rank now gets paid £6,000 less than someone starting as a firefighter or in the police service.
I want them to have the same pay, and I also want them to have proper body amour, proper helicopters, proper vehicles.
You can only do that if you cut out spending elsewhere which isn't being well spent.
I think it's also what kind of equipment we provide.
I was in a factory in my own city where I'm an MP in Sheffield just a few weeks ago.
There was a great British company there, a manufacturing company, that produces great metal braces with these huge rollers, which apparently are sold to the American army.
They attach them onto their vehicles, and when the rollers move over mines, the mines blow up, but of course, they destroy the rollers and not the soldiers.
The American army says that those rollers, diesigned, manufactured by a great British business in Sheffield, have saved 140 lives.
Why is it they're not being used by the British army?
Apparently they don't somehow fit on to the vehicles that our soldiers use.
So I think it's not only that we've got to make sure that we don't waste money on bureaucrats in the Ministry of Defence and all the rest of it, and instead spend that on equipment for our brave servicemen and servicewomen, we should also use the knowhow and the manufacturing brilliance expertise in this country to provide our brave soldiers with the equipment which saves lives on the front line.
I actually agree, strongly agree, and it's something I've been calling for for years, that we should have a complete review about whether our military equipment is right for the job that we are asking our brave soldiers and brave servicemen and women to do.
Because of course the world is changing and the threats to this country are changing with it.
What I simply don't understand is if we hold that review, as I think is going to be likely after the general election, whoever wins that election, both David Cameron and Gordon Brown want to rule out one of the biggest items of defence expenditure of all, which is the Trident nuclear missile system.
This was a system that was designed at the height of the Cold War to flatten St Petersburg and Moscow.
Is it really that important?
All I'm saying is, I don't think we should kid people into thinking we can either justify or afford £100 billion over 25 years on a nuclear war system...missile system, which was designed explicitly to flatten St Petersburg and Moscow at the press of a button.
I think the world has moved on amd I think you two need to move with it.
We're not in the Cold War any more, and we shouldn't be spending billions of pounds of taxpayers' money on a Cold War missile system when, as Nick said in his original question, we have people on the frontline of Afghanistan without the right equipment and without the right protection.
It's a question of priorities.
Of course, the easy thing is to say how much we all love and depend and rely on the NHS.
The difficult question, which I think is the one you're addressing, is, how do we protect the NHS which we all rely on, maternity services, A&E departments, GP services and so on, when money is tight?
I think it's a bit like the earlier discussion about equipment for the army.
The priorities at the moment are all wrong.
The last year under this government, they've employed 5,000 more managers in the NHS, yet the maternity ward in the NHS hospital where my third son was born just over a year ago is threatened with closure.
This government spent £12 billion on a computer testimony in the NHS which doesn't work, yet I was in Burnley the other day, I think Jacqueline was saying you come from Burnley.
As you know, they've closed the A&E department there.
I think you now have to travel 25 miles to Blackburn.
What is going on?
We're closing A&E departments and maternity wards and wasting money on computer systems and bureaucracy.
I want to turn that on its head so we can protect the NHS we all rely on.
This is a phoney debate.
This is pretending that somehow there are billions and squillions of pounds around that we can continue to pour into our NHS. Every man, woman and child in this country spends £2,000 on the NHS through our tax system.
I want to judge the NHS about how it helps me and my family when we're ill, sick and in need of NHS care, not just by numbers plucked out of thin air.
David Cameron, you simply cannot seriously suggest that we should believe that you can cut the deficit immediately as you want, then have a whole blizzard of tax breaks, including a great big tax break for double millionaires in the inheritance tax system, and provide huge lashings of extra money to the public services.
You might be able to do one of those things.
You can't do all three.
I want to say to people, let's be straight with you.
We have to find savings in the NHS.
I want to see strategic health authorities, which is a layer of bureaucracy, stripped away altogether and use that money on the frontline NHS services which are so important to us.
All I would appeal for is just a bit of honesty in this debate.
People know that money is tight.
People know that you can't promise something for nothing.
You can't say you're going to fill the deficit tomorrow and you're going to give lots and lots of tax breaks to people, inheritance tax breaks for double millionaires, tax breaks for one in three hand-picked married couples, and also extra, extra money to the NHS without explaining how you're going to do it.
I say again there's something wrong...
Shall I tell you how we pay for it?
I'll tell you how we pay for it.
We would, for instance, stop the huge unfair loopholes that only benefit the very wealthy at the top of the tax system.
At the moment, the top 10% of earners in this country get twice as much tax subsidy from all the rest of you when they make contributions to their pension pot than everybody else.
We say give everybody tax relief on their pension contributions but make sure they're the same.
And use that money... ..so no-one pays any income tax on the first £10,000 they earn.
I think, Alan, this is one of those rare issues where the issue is so big, and the costs are potentially so great, and it affects every family, it affects every individual, that I think this is one of those issues where I would say, it is worth the politicians setting aside their political differences for once and trying to come up with a solution everybody can agree with.
We've all got different ideas.
We have ideas, proposals, that there's a contribution from the individual and the state.
David Cameron's ideas, which helps some but doesn't help people in their home.
Gordon Brown has some ideas which help some of the most needy, but not others.
Why don't we for once, given this is something which I think is bigger than any other party, actually work together?
There are some things, however, that I think we can do immediately.
I, for instance, would like to use the money that the government has allocated for its latest, I think slightly flawed, proposals, to give respite care to the carers who look after loved ones, those who looked after loved ones for the greatest amount of time, give them respite for at least a week every year.
That's something we can do now.
Let's come up with a longer term proposal together.
Of course, I agree with that.
There are about a million carers in this country who care, I think, for 50 hours or more for their loved ones, for members of their family who need care.
They are the unsung army of heroines and heroes that keep our society together.
They desperately need time for themselves, time to go on holiday.
Under our plans, what we could do immediately is give those million carers who care for the greatest length of time at least a week off - at least a week off - just to have a breather, spend some time on their own, visit friends, go on holiday, have some time to themselves again.
But as I say, I think we've all got some ideas, but I don't think any of us - and you don't hear this from politicians very much - I don't think any of us, if we're really honest with you, have got the perfect solution.
That's why I think this is so important.
Let's for once put people before politics and come up with a solution that works for you and your family in the long run.
I think everybody will be surprised that the last question of the evening should actually have flowed into so much consensus.
I think it is one of those issues, a bit like public sector pensions.
I also think the scale of the public sector deficit is one of those issues where I think if we could introduce a new kind of politics in this country, not the old style of politics, we could actually come up with a solution that everybody could agree to, because I think you and your family would benefit from it so much.
Well, thanks for starters, for sticking with us for a full 90 minutes.
What I've tried to show you this evening is that there is an alternative to the two old parties.
I know many of you think that all politicians are just the same.
I hope I've tried to show you that that just isn't true.
Whether it is on the questions from Alan on care, Jacqueline on crime, Helen on politics, Joel on schooling, Robert on the deficit, I believe we can answer all of those questions.
I believe we can rise to all of those challenges if we say no to the old parties and yes to something new and something different.
That's what I offer and that's what the Liberal Democrats offer.
So don't let them tell you that the only choice is between two old parties who have been playing pass the parcel with your government for 65 years now - making the same promises, breaking the same promises.
Making the same old mistakes over and over again.
I think, despite all the challenges, all the problems we have, I think we can be really hopeful about the future.
I genuinely believe we can have a better fairer country if we do things differently.
So give real change a chance.
Trust your instincts.
Support fairness.
Choose something different.
And that will give you and your family a better, fairer life.
Thank you.