History will judge us more kindly

Councillor Robert Brown believes history will judge the Lib Dem’s record in Government more kindly than the electorate did.

The Lib Dems slipped into fifth place in Rutherglen and Hamilton West, falling behind UKIP.

Candidate Tony Hughes had braced himself for a poor return, but Councillor Brown believes his party can recover and said: “On the one had you had David Cameron striking up English nationalism and on the other, the SNP doing the same with Scottish nationalism.

“We’ve ended up with the worst of both worlds. A majority Conservative Government and a powerless group of SNP MP’s.

“Thursday went pretty much like how we expected. We had a favourable response to our message but there was an issue with people trying to stop the SNP.

“I’m pretty confident we will see a different result next year (in the Scottish election). This time, votes were lent to the Labour party.

“It’s disappointing, but it reflects the situation we have been in with the coalition government, which I think will reflect better from a historical perspective.

“We have achieved a lot, we helped to stabilise the economy and without us it would not have been as fair.”

Councillor Brown also said the result showed the needfor proportional representation to be used in UK elections and said his party was still best placed to reform Britain.

He said: “We have argued for PR and it’s more relevant now than ever. In Scotland, the SNP have all but three of the seats, and that’s not justified in their vote share.

“Broadly speaking, you have more than half the population who want to remain in the UK and they are not being represented.

“Right now we will need to heal the divisions and we are best placed to do that.

“We have always supported a federal UK, a more pluralistic UK.”