Could this defeat cost Clegg’s job?
NICK Clegg’s political future appeared in tatters last night with his party expected to keep just ten MPs.
The Liberal Democrat leader had insisted his party would defy the odds and be the ‘surprise’ of the election, doing better than numerous negative polls had predicted.
But the official exit poll had the party on course to retain just ten of the 57 seats they won in 2010.
This would be the Lib Dems’ worst showing for 45 years, with significant losses to the Tories as well as Labour.
The former Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown reacted in fury and disbelief last night, calling the poll a ‘certain error’. He told the BBC: ‘If this exit poll is correct, I will publicly eat my hat.’
Lib Dem President Baroness Brinton said: ‘I would be astonished if we only had ten seats at the end of the night. Our feeling on the ground in some of the key seats is much more positive.’ Former party leader Sir Menzies Campbell told ITV: ‘Of course it’s disappointing. We had hoped to do very much better … We need to sit back and digest it.
But he added that the Lib Dems were fighting ‘65 by-elections with regional and local variations which an exit poll doesn’t pick up’.
The party had been braced for heavy losses. But the result suggested by the exit poll would be their worst since Jeremy Thorpe’s Liberal party won only six seats in 1970. It would be devastating for Mr Clegg who hoped his party would keep enough seats to serve as king-makers in a second coalition.
Party sources had expressed hopes of finishing in the ‘low 30s’. But the exit poll result would be a major collapse for a party which won 23 per cent of the national vote five years ago, on a surge of ‘Cleggmania’ following his performance in TV debates.
A separate YouGov poll last night put the Lib Dems on 31 seats and predicting they would win a number of close races with the Tories. However, this poll is from a much smaller number of voters.
Last night, the Lib Dem leader expressed confidence he would retain his own seat in Sheffield Hallam against a strong challenge from Labour.
Mr Clegg has faced a battle to retain his 15,200-vote majority from Labour, which had hoped to capitalise on his tuition fees U-turn and a backlash against the Lib Dems’ role in the Coalition. Two polls in the past few months gave Labour a small lead in Mr Clegg’s constituency, Sheffield Hallam – a safe Tory seat for nearly 80 years before the Lib Dems won it in 1997.
But a party spokesman said last night: ‘Nick is confident that we’ll see off the challenge from Labour.’
The Lib Dems could still help the Tories to a majority, but their hand in a second coalition would be notably weakened compared with 2010.
‘Had hoped to do very much better’