The Liberal Democrats released their manifesto for the May general election on Wednesday.

The nation’s third largest political party for almost 100 years, and junior member of the current coalition government, the Liberal Democrats have seen support wane recently - the party saw its share of the vote halved in the 2014 European elections.

Hoping to be elected as part of a coalition in May, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said “It is obvious once again that neither Labour nor the Conservatives will win a majority. The era of single party government is over.”

Clegg said that either David Cameron or Ed Miliband will be elected Prime Minister, but added that one of the two larger parties will need to enter into a coalition with his party, the SNP or UKIP to gain a majority. He claimed that the Liberal Democrats would “Add a heart to a Conservative government and a brain to a Labour one.”

Both Labour and the Tories have said they are confident that they can win the election outright.

The Lib Dem manifesto promises both fresh cuts and taxes on the rich to bring down public spending. Highlighting education, Clegg unveiled plans to spend £2.5bn more than Labour and £5bn more than the Tories on education over the next five years.

Reacting on Wednesday, Harriet Harman, deputy Leader of the Labour party, and SNP leader Nichola Sturgeon both accused the Lib Dems of breaking promises, after the party went back on commitments on the NHS and tuition fees made before entering into the incumbent coalition government in 2010.

The Lib Dems' other policy commitments include:

Environment:

• Introduction of a Nature Law to protect the UK’s wildlife, green spaces, trees and plants;
• Improving the ‘Right to Roam’;
• Increase the number of national parks;
• Implementing a package of measures to protect bees and other pollinating insects;

Rural life:

• Completing the roll out of high speed broadband to every home in the UK, and creating an innovation fund to protect local GPs, libraries and post offices;

Food and farming:

• Introducing legally binding targets to ensure sustainable use of natural resources;
• Ensuring that support targets sustainable food production and seeing that CAP payments go to active farmers rather than inactive land-owners;
• Introducing a national food strategy to ensure healthy eating, sustainable food production and better public procurement;
• Working to develop country of origin labelling at EU level;
• Guaranteeing continued support for the Food Standards Agency to enforce food safety standards;
• Reviewing the use of cages, cares and routine preventative antibiotics to improve standards of animal welfare;

The Lib Dems also pledged that they would reduce the administrative and regulatory burden on farmers and would only continue to support badger culling if ongoing trials in the southwest show it to be effective in combatting bovine TB.