NICK Clegg’s first visit to Scotland for the General Election campaign was overshadowed by the results of a Lord Ashcroft poll which predicted that the Deputy Prime Minister would lose his seat on May 7th.
The Ashcroft poll showed Clegg trailing behind his Labour rival by two per cent.
Clegg, who was visiting Bishopbriggs in the East Dunbartonshire constituency, was attempting to announce his party’s policy to triple statutory paternity leave. However, the poll suggests that it may be Clegg who is spending more time with his family.
The Liberal Democrat leader was dismissive of Ashcroft’s results: “The poll, as it happens, didn’t even mention the candidates’ names,” he said, “and in our own polling where it does it always shows a significant uplift in our support.
“And just if you look at the way people have voted rather than what they’ve said to Lord Ashcroft since 2010, people in Sheffield have consistently voted Liberal Democrat.”
The poll showed that 16 per cent of the electorate in the constituency would vote Conservative and six per cent would vote for the Greens. The Liberal Democrats fear that this poll will ultimately lead to tactical voting in a bid to unseat a high-profile government minister. The peer’s analysis also showed that of all the parties in Clegg’s Sheffield Hallam seat, the Conservatives had been campaigning the least, leading to speculation that David Cameron was trying to help save his coalition partner. Labour’s Tom Watson, who is standing in the seat of West Bromwich East, said: “[Sheffield Hallam] is winnable for Labour.
“I have never encountered such animosity on the doorstep against an incumbent MP – particularly one as high-profile.
“There are two issues that come up time and again: his position on tuition fees and Sheffield Forgemasters, which has not been forgotten.”
Before the 2010 General Election Clegg’s Liberal Democrats had pledged to oppose an increase in tuition fees. Within months of forming a coalition with the Conservatives the party voted to increase the maximum limit of tuition fees in England from £3,200 to £9,000. Students make up 17 per cent of the electorate in Clegg’s seat.
Clegg has also been dogged over failure to secure a loan through one of his government’s initiatives for the Sheffield Forgemasters factory in his constituency, despite promises to the contrary.
Constitutionally, if Clegg did lose his seat he would remain Deputy Prime Minister until a new government was formed.
Clegg was visiting the constituency held by Liberal Democrat Jo Swinson. Recent polling has suggested that the Liberal Democrats vote has all but disappeared in Scotland. In a ComRes poll conducted for ITV, the Liberal Democrat vote had fallen to two per cent from 14 per cent in 2010. At that General Election, the party returned 11 MPs.
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