NICK CLEGG was forced to deny a deal with his wife that would see him quit as Liberal Democrat leader by 2015, at his party’s conference in Birmingham.

Mr Clegg described the claim – in a new book about the deputy prime minister – as “drivel”, insisting: “I intend to see it through, well beyond one term.”

The denial followed suggesthat Mr Clegg might resign to become a European Commissioner and that his Spanish wife, Miriam, feared the impact of fierce public criticism on her husband.

But, interviewed by the BBC, Mr Clegg added: “I am in this because I believe it is the right thing to do. Miriam supports me fully in this. And I want to see us succeed in the Coalition government and beyond.”

Meanwhile, in Birmingham, a Lib-Dem activist heckled Treasury chief secretary Danny Alexander from the conference floor, when the minister defended the government’s deep spending cuts.

And start-of-conference polls brought little cheer. One found that only 15% of people believed the Lib Dems have a lot of influence in the Coalition – although that was up from 8%, in May.

Lib Dem ministers unveiled a package of measures, to illustrate Mr Clegg’s claim that his party was prepared to “fight tooth and nail” for its priorities. They included:

Recruiting more than 2,000 tax inspectors, to ensure the very rich paid their “fair share” of tax.