'I am looking for a serious direction for the party'

MARTIN TURNER, election candidate in the West Midlands
The party's biggest asset is credibility. We have intelligent policies like local income tax, but we also have policies like the use of pornography which are completely daft. I am looking for a serious direction for the party, not a silly direction with silly policies.

JULIAN BRAZIL, candidate for Falmouth in the 2001 election
We should be debating the left-right issue - and in public. I am delighted we are doing this. I prefer direct taxation rather than more indirect taxation. But I am worried by the policy of breaking up the Post Office. The state could be left propping up the unprofitable bits.

CHARLES ANGLIN, candidate in Vauxhall at the election
We need to rediscover our Liberal voice and our need to be the champion of people who use services rather than the providers. I am attracted by the 40 to 50 per cent tax rate for high earners and a 25 per cent tax rate for everyone else.

PETER VALENTINE, councillor in Market Harborough
I totally agree with Charles Kennedy that left-right labels are a thing of the past and nonsense now. We need to go forward with the policies we believe in. They don't need a label on them ... any succcessful party is constantly renewing and refreshing its policies.

SUSAN KRAMER, MP for Richmond Park
We are a centre-left party. That is the spirit of the party. We are viewed as a left-of-centre party. Let's claim that label and then define what it means.

DUNCAN BRACK, chairman of the federal conference committee
What the party needs to do now is work out a way of converting people's views of Lib Dem values into a coherent story so people understand instinctively what Liberal Democrats are about.

JEREMY BROWNE, MP for Taunton
The party needs to draw on its historical liberal roots and formulate new policies which increase social mobility and encourage aspiration. That means modernising public services and reviewing our tax commitments.

CHRIS HUHNE, MP for Eastleigh and treasury spokesman
This left or right agenda is the wrong agenda. Since the 1970s the Lib Dems have refused to be pigeon-holed in that left-right divide. The electorate want solution-based politics.

BRIAN SEDGEMORE, former Labour MP
The Liberal Democrats cannot go to the right of the political spectrum. You had Labour voters switching to the Lib Dems at the election. But you can't start labelling, politics is defined by the issues.

JUDY HAYMAN convener, Scottish Lib Dems
There is too much talk about right and left, which is a very out-of-date concept. There is quite a division of opinion at the moment, but I don't think [the party] is split.