Not an easy ask since every day has thrown up a new surprise, and doubtless there will be more today with the first round of spending cuts.

But here is what I wrote:

Most constituencies had their own local hustings apeing the television spectaculars.  Our last was with local sixth formers.  It was the Friday before polling day and still glad confident morning for Liberal Democrats.

But every day, every week, every year that Deputy Prime Minister Clegg is beamed into the nation’s living rooms alongside Prime Minister Cameron, the more it will mean good riddance to old politics.

Under Labour, the tax system is complex, unwieldy and, most of all, unfair. This has to change. The Liberal Democrats will rebalance our tax system to make it fair once and for all.

Under the Liberal Democrats the income tax threshold will be raised to £10,000, meaning most taxpayers will see their income tax bills cut by £700.

Nick and Vince set out where every last pound of the money will come from: clamping down on tax avoidance, closing tax loopholes for the wealthy, a ‘mansion tax’ on homes worth more than £2 million and making sure that airlines pay for the pollution they cause. You can learn more in the video recorded by Nick.

It’s the biggest tax switch in generations. A radical overhaul to make sure those at the top pay their fair share in order to put money back in the pockets of people who need it.

First, Tory A-lister and high profile parliamentary candidate Zac Goldsmith was revealed to have used non-domicile status to protect some of his considerable wealth.  Clearly one law for the rich, one for the rest of us.  About the only firm Tory tax pledge is to raise the inheritance tax threshold to £2 million precisely to protect people like Mr Goldsmith.  It’s bad enough having all the MPs who have abused the expenses system.  But how can politicians dream of proposing spending cuts, tightening belts and raising charges – all inevitable after the next election whoever wins – if they are using tax avoidance loopholes in a way unimaginable to ordinary constituents?

Second, the Fabian Society briefed yesterday’s newspapers on its soon to be published and painfully honest study of rising inequality in Britain and how Labour’s strategy for tackling poverty had reached the end of the road.

Third, Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats announced costed plans to cut taxes for millions of people by closing tax loopholes and removing tax breaks which disproportionately benefit the wealthiest in our society, by taxing polluting activities, and by introducing a “progressive property levy” (aka the “mansion tax”) on the the value above £2 million of any home.

Fairness is a fundamental tenet of Liberalism.  As Nick Clegg has said, “If you want to know how committed a government is to fairness then look at its tax system.”  I speak at schools in St Albans of my concern that we live in a country where the bottom ten percent of UK income earners pay more tax as a percentage of income than the top ten percent.  What does that say about us as a society and our values?

Under Nick Clegg and Vince Cable’s plan nobody rich or poor will pay a penny on the first £10,000 of annual income.  It’s the same deal for everyone which seems fair.  It will put £700 back in the pockets of the vast majority of taxpayers, and take millions of people on low pay including those on minimum wage out of paying income tax altogether.

The plans represent the most radical, far-reaching tax reform in a generation and embody everything the Liberal Democrats stand for: fairness, protecting the environment, rewarding hard work.

It is not about raising the overall tax burden, it’s just asking those with the broadest shoulders to bear a fairer share.

The so-called mansion tax has attracted the most attention.  Actually the number of homes worth more than £2 million in St Albans constituency is minimal – and the one percent levy is only on the value of properties above the £2 million threshold.  But the people who live in the huge houses worth more than £2 million are the ones with accountants most adept at tax avoidance.  The advantage of taxing bricks and mortar in this way is that it cannot be dodged.

For the full story on the Liberal Democrat tax plans, click here.

We were slightly worried that the Thursday before Bank Holiday would not be the ideal time to attract a crowd to a political meeting. We should not have been concerned. Three hundred people packed into the Marlborough Road Methodist Church to hear Nick take questions from all comers.

He uses no intermediary to pick the questioners. My role was simply to introduce the meeting and then close it, and in the interim try to look graceful. Nick chooses the questioners in batches of three and of course he does not know who anyone is – so he really is putting himself on the line.

He has done nearly 50 meetings like this round the country, and told me this was one of the best ever. The audience was nicely mixed and the questions came fast and furious from a forest of hands – MP expenses, getting young people interested in politics, the future of the health service, drugs, Trident, parliamentary reform, restoring power to local government, Afghanistan, Europe, the euro, what makes a good MP, and many more.

People were hugely impressed with his relaxed approach and his willingness to give straight answers. Nick was hugely impressed with St Albans (no surprise there) and by the quality and depth of the questions. I am sure he will be back soon.

PS My thanks to Gary Shore for the excellent photographs – he is a St Albans based professional photographer and can be contacted at gaslights@googlemail.com

Given his current superstar status and his universally admired success as High Representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina, it is worth recalling how much he was sneered at and patronised by his opponents and the media when he first became LibDem leader.

Nick Clegg is being similarly under-estimated today. They were wrong about Paddy then and they are wrong about Nick today.

Of course Paddy and I were fellow candidates in Conservative seats back in 1983 and have remained friends ever since. He has come to St Albans on several occasions and is very impressed by the LibDem progress over recent years. He sees the similarities with his first stunning victory in Yeovil and has promised to come to help whenever the general election comes.

The Government wasted the opportunity to help people in last week’s Pre-Budget Report and now with the Queen’s Speech they’ve wasted it again.

The measures announced are little more than cosmetic sticking plaster given the real problems we are now facing.

We need legislation to change the way energy tariffs work to make sure people get the cheapest prices for their essential fuel and power and changes to taxes to put money back in people’s pockets.

With the massive discounts on offer in the shops at the moment, the short term trimming of VAT will make little difference and what we need are income tax cuts targeted at low earners and paid for through closing loopholes.

We need action to force the banks to lend money on fair terms to small businesses and families – and make it quite clear that if the banks cannot be made to act, the government will lend directly itself.

As Nick Clegg said in the House, “How on earth can the Government justify a 26th criminal justice Bill – more tough talk, more criminal offences, yet public fear of crime still on the rise – while it doesn’t mention the word ‘housing’ once in the Queen’s Speech, an area of policy crying out for urgent Government action?

St Albans in particular would benefit from LibDem plans to allow councils to keep all their council tax revenues and buy up stalled housing developments to provide much needed social housing.