Could Clegg still be the king-maker?
NICK Clegg could still be the king-maker in a second coalition despite an exit poll giving his party just ten MPs.
In his own seat, the Liberal Democrat leader had faced a strong challenge to his 15,200-vote majority from Labour – which had hoped to capitalise on his tuition fees U-turn and a backlash against his party’s role in the Coalition.
But a survey by ICM this week gave Mr Clegg a significant lead, with nearly half (48 per cent) of those who said they wanted the Tories to win nationally revealing they planned to vote for him in the seat he has held for a decade.
The Lib Dems won 57 seats in 2010, on a tide of ‘Cleggmania’ following their leader’s performance in TV debates. Party sources say their best hope for this election is to finish in the ‘low 30s’.
But victory for Mr Clegg would be a boost for David Cameron’s hopes of securing a majority, as the Lib Dem leader has given a strong hint he would prefer to join with a Conservative-led government. This week, Mr Clegg attacked Labour for ‘vilifying’ him over the past five years, and said Ed Miliband’s party had not gone through the ‘pain barrier’ of realising it would not win outright.
Labour has ploughed resources into Sheffield Hallam, in the hope deposing Mr Clegg would scupper the prospect of a second coalition with Mr Cameron – by plunging the Lib Dems into a leadership contest in which left-wing MP Tim Farron would be frontrunner.
Two polls in the past few months have the constituency, which was a safe Tory seat for nearly 80 years before the Lib Dems won it in 1997. But the ICM poll this week put Mr Clegg on course to get 42 per cent of the vote, ahead of Labour’s Oliver Coppard on 35 per cent and with the Conservative candidate, Ian Walker, languishing in third place with just 12 per cent of the vote.
The English Democrats are fielding a candidate named Steve Clegg, with some speculation that confusion about his name could help the party, which won 586 votes last time.
Despite being set to lead a much smaller party, Nick Clegg believes the Lib Dems will be a strong hand as the king-makers in a second coalition and he will demand that one of his MPs is made Education Secretary.
He has also set out a series of other ‘red lines’ he will insist on, which he claims would give a ‘heart’ to a future Conservative government and an economic ‘brain’ to a Labour-led one.
The demands include protecting the education budget from cuts, raising the income tax threshold to £12,500 a year and spending an extra £8billion a year on the NHS by 2020. Mr Clegg would also stipulate a firm timetable for deficit reduction and would veto the Conservatives from cutting £12billion from the welfare budget, by imposing more taxes on the wealthy instead.
‘Hinted at second coalition’