Liberal Democrats paid the price for 2010 coalition with Conservatives, writes STEPHEN GLOVER. Liberal Democrats reduced from 57 MPs to eight after worst ever defeatFormer Lib Dem leader Lord Steel said it would take 'decades' to recoverThe failure is not just down to Tory-led government, Stephen Glover says'Voters grew tired of moral superiority of Lib Dem politicians,' he writes By Stephen Glover for the Daily Mail Published: 22:50 GMT, 8 May 2015 | Updated: 23:08 GMT, 8 May 2015 The electoral wipeout of the Lib Dems, and the resignation of Nick Clegg as leader, mark a stunning watershed in modern British history.
The former Liberal leader Lord Steel rightly said it would take the party 'decades' to recover. Among the 49 Lib Dems jettisoned by the electorate — leaving only a feeble rump of eight MPs in the Commons — were Cabinet 'big beasts' Energy Secretary Ed Davey, Business Secretary Vince Cable and Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander. Already a script is being written by senior Lib Dems to explain this collapse. Scroll down for video It's mostly nonsense, of course. Lib Dems are a bunch of 'nutters and cockroaches', says the party's president who fears one day they will be stamped on. Tim Farron warns party is in a 'critical state' ahead of spring conferenceSurvey says just 29 per cent of 2010 Lib Dem voters would do so againOther 71 per cent say they would vote for another party, or don't knowBut a quarter of those who would vote Lib Dem, did not do so in 2010 By Matt Chorley, Mailonline Political Editor Published: 09:58 GMT, 8 March 2013 | Updated: 14:00 GMT, 8 March 2013 The Liberal Democrats are a 'bunch of nutters and cockroaches', the party's president Tim Farron has claimed in an astonishingly frank interview about their future prospects.
Mr Farron admitted the Lib Dems are in a 'critical state' but he was trying to 'breed and train a bunch of nutters' willing to work tirelessly to defy the opinion polls and win elections. Despite being rocked by sex and court scandals, he claimed the party had the resilience and ability to survive of 'cockroaches' but warned: 'One day someone will stand on us if we are not careful. Nick Clegg: Women claim Lib Dem's Chief Executive Chris Rennard molested them. Former boss Chris Rennard allegedly groped string of female party membersControversial claims that senior party officials 'silenced' the womenClegg claims not to have known about allegations, and has ordered inquiryBridget Harris claims she was groped and invited 'upstairs to his room'Former party activist Alison Smith says his hands 'moved down her back to places they didn't belong' By Jason Groves and Ryan Kisiel and Gerri Peev Published: 22:12 GMT, 22 February 2013 | Updated: 18:18 GMT, 23 February 2013 The Deputy Prime Minister has been dragged into the sex scandal surrounding a top Liberal Democrat accused of molesting women.
Amid mounting claims of a cover-up, it emerged Nick Clegg’s private office was made aware of the claims as long as five years ago. Aides to the Lib Dem leader refused to say how much he knew about the allegations that former party chief Chris Rennard had groped a string of female activists. 'I took action and ensured that others took action. By RYAN KISIEL. I'm so very, very sorry. How could I have once praised Nick Clegg - now exposed as an arrogant and monumentally dishonest buffoon? By Tom Utley PUBLISHED: 22:04 GMT, 20 September 2012 | UPDATED: 22:06 GMT, 20 September 2012 First, a profound apology to all my readers.
In an article I wrote during the 2010 election campaign, I described Nick Clegg in the following terms: ‘He is clever, polite, plausible and presentable.’ I hang my head in abject shame. In my defence, I can only say that this was my honest impression at the time. The broadcast was judged almost universally to have been a triumph for Mr Clegg. If Nick Clegg had any knowledge of British history, he'd know that Liberals always lose out in coalitions. By Nigel Jones PUBLISHED: 15:15 GMT, 11 July 2012 | UPDATED: 16:22 GMT, 11 July 2012 The complete collapse within two years of Nick Clegg's two most cherished political dreams - changing the way we vote and 'reforming' the House of Lords - should surprise no-one with a knowledge of British political history.
But since this subject is one of the many on which Clegg displays profound ignorance (despite his professing expertise in them) the crumbling of his pet projects may have come as something of a nasty shock. The Delusion of Nick Clegg. Nick Clegg Captures the Mandarins Castle. Power grab: Civil servants are helping Nick Clegg force constitutional changes which will assure the Lib Dems blocking power (PA) Last month's report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life on party funding reform is only the latest example of the doleful influence of a pro-Clegg mandarin.
It is no pleasure to have to write that the report is the most flawed study this important committee has produced since it was created in 1994. It bears the hallmark of its chairman, Sir Christopher Kelly, a former permanent secretary to the Department of Health, who was selected in 2007 to replace the usefully troublesome trade unionist Sir Alistair Graham. Under the chairmanships of Lord Neill of Bladen, the Warden of All Souls College, Oxford, and Graham, the committee produced effective, empirically robust studies on party funding (1998) and problems of electoral administration (2007). Nick Clegg: The smug elitist who hates democracy. UPDATED: 21:54 GMT, 6 November 2011 A referendum on Europe?
Human rights reform? Cuts in welfare handouts? An increasingly puffed-up Nick Clegg, like the EU commissars he so admires, holds the views of ordinary Britons in contempt. There is still something of the pretend politician, the student on work experience about Nick Clegg. This week our Deputy Prime Minister visited RAF Waddington, Lincolnshire. Mr Clegg, whose party trailed a poor third in last year’s general election, swept into the air base like the President of the United States. Inflated ego: Is Nick Clegg starting to believe his own publicity?
He was dressed in a boxy-shouldered suit, shoes even shinier than his sixth-former chin. Alongside the uniformed men and women who recently conducted air sorties over Libya, Mr Clegg looked teenagerish, spongy-palmed. Then, without a scintilla of self-knowledge, he made a patronising speech, describing the airmen as ‘the guardians of freedom’.