Nick Clegg warns of ‘perilous moment’ for UK as he steps aside
Nick Clegg, unlike Nigel Farage, resigned without a threat to come back.
He said it was a “very dark hour” for his party, but the party would come back and win again.
While his coalition partner David Cameron fished out a fresh shirt to see the Queen, Nick Clegg was making a public announcement that he was quitting his job and warning that the country was at a “perilous moment”, a time of “grave jeopardy”, as the “politics of grievance and fear” dominated the scene.
Nick Clegg looked shattered and his mood wouldn’t have picked up if he’d heard what a predecessor said on the BBC straight after he’d finished speaking.
Lord (David) Steel said the results overnight had “set back the progress of Liberalism for several decades”, and that the party needed to return to Paddy Ashdown’s progressive coalition agenda and away from the image of propping up the Tories.
He continued his criticism of Nick Clegg’s leadership, saying: “You can’t campaign on one thing, do something else and expect to get away with it.”
He also piled in saying that Nick Clegg should have given old hands like Malcolm Bruce and Ming Campbell ministerial jobs.
He’d been a good deputy prime minister but not so good a Lib Dem leader, he added.
Lord Steel dubbed Tim Farron the “favourite” to succeed Nick Clegg.