George Osborne and David Cameron blocked plans to build more social housing because it would "produce more Labour voters", Nick Clegg has claimed,
According to the former deputy prime minister, the chancellor and prime minister rejected repeated Lib Dem attempts to get more money to build homes for people on low incomes.
Clegg quoted the chancellor and prime minister in an interview with The Independent today as telling him: "All it does is produce more Labour voters."
The former Lib Dem leader also said Osborne blocked his attempts to expand childcare provision for two-year-olds for poorer families in favour of offering 30 hours of free childcare for older children as it would score a political victory over Ed Miliband.
Clegg claims the chancellor told him at the time: "All we want to do is to shoot Labour’s fox".
Labour MP Jess Phillips MP told The Huffington Post UK: "Nick Clegg complaining about a Tory government which he propped up for five years would be funny were it not so serious for the millions of working people who have suffered at the hands of him and David Cameron.
"That said, amidst all the self-serving bluster Nick Clegg has stumbled upon one truth: the Tories are trying to rig the rules of the game in their favour.
"Whether its attacks on opposition funding or changing constituency boundaries to help themselves, David Cameron’s is a government which puts its own interests before the country and it’s Britain that is paying the price."
In the interview, Clegg also accused the Conservative Party of "rigging the rules” in its favour in such a way that could lead to a Tory "one-party state".
He said: "If you look at the way the Conservatives seek to hobble and neuter Westminster, the bullying swagger with which they treat the BBC, the general air of hubris, there is a feeling that politics is being reduced to the whims and mood swings of one political party. That is not healthy.
"A combination of US-style game playing by the Conservatives and Labour’s self-indulgence is conspiring to leave millions of British voters completely voiceless."
His criticism comes as officials have announced details of how the UK’s electoral map is to be re-drawn, but an analysis of the Boundary Commission’s proposals suggest it could cost the Labour Party 10 MPs to the Conservatives at the next election.