It was the nadir: in January 2006, a YouGov poll put Lib Dem support as low as 13 per cent. The party looked at though it might tear itself apart. The unlikely and unexpected victory in the Dunfermline & West Fife by-election the following month, for which Mr Kennedy himself returned to the spotlight to campaign, helped to steady the ship.
The front-runner to replace him was Sir Menzies Campbell, the deputy leader, who made his name articulating the party’s opposition to the Iraq war. Any hopes of a coronation were dashed when Chris Huhne, a former MEP and one of the sharpest of the party’s new MPs, entered the race despite previously pledging to support Sir Menzies. Mr Huhne’s audacity enraged senior colleagues who had risked their reputations to topple Mr Kennedy but quickly won the admiration of many party activists, who mistrust anything that smacks of a stitch-up.
Sir Menzies won the election but Mr Huhne finished a strong second, after a vigorous campaign. Despite claims from supporters that Sir Menzies would bring a statesman’s authority to the role, his opening appearances in the Commons proved to be disastrous, as he struggled to be heard in the bear pit of Prime Minister’s Questions. In one early outing, as acting leader, he asked why one in five schools were without a permanent head. As his own party was itself without a leader, this provoked uproarious hilarity. Rapidly he was portrayed as too old, at 64, and out of touch. A determined man, he received coaching and his Commons performances improved but too late to rescue his reputation as an assured parliamentarian. Recriminations over his role in the traumatic resignation of Mr Kennedy also poisoned the well of the party’s body politic.
This was the Lib Dems’ awkward predicament as David Cameron, in his first year as Conservative leader, set about a re-branding exercise seeking to bite chunks out of their support. In a speech in Hereford, a precarious Lib-Con marginal constituency, Mr Cameron declared himself a “liberal Conservative” and appealed to Liberal Democrats to back him. His skilful championing of green issues threatened to wrest the mantle of environmental campaigning from the Lib Dems’ complacent grasp: plans by Mr Cameron for a wind turbine on the roof of his house and travelling by husky sled to view melting glaciers in Norway were vivid pieces of political positioning, although his environmentalism proved short-lived.
Another Conservative overture, seeking to field the former BBC Director-General Greg Dyke as a joint Tory-Lib Dem candidate for London Mayor, was more deftly rejected by Sir Menzies. The Lib Dems’ eventual candidate, Brian Paddick, proved to have questionable judgment and trailed in third place.
The following year, when Gordon Brown succeeded Tony Blair at No 10, the Lib Dems’ defences were tested again. Mr Brown wanted to appoint two Lib Dems to his Cabinet: Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon and another peer who he hoped would defect to Labour, as he tried to construct a broad-based “government of all the talents”. His plan leaked and was scuppered; oddly, Mr Brown assumed that Lib Dems would serve in a Labour administration, not a coalition with agreed policy concessions. The new Prime Minister settled on advisory posts for several Lib Dems: Lady Neu-berger (on volunteering), Lord Lester of Herne Hill (on constitutional reform) and Baroness Williams of Crosby (on nuclear proliferation). Matthew Taylor, a former front-bencher, conducted an inquiry on rural housing.
The impact was deeply unsettling for the Lib Dems. It smacked of a crude attempt to divide the party’s senior ranks, signalling to its left-of-centre supporters to return to Labour’s embrace. Like many of Mr Brown’s initiatives, the strategy soon unravelled but it again called into question the judgment of Sir Menzies and his closest adviser, Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope, both of whom had presented his long-time friendship with Mr Brown as an asset.
Another unnerving factor for the Lib Dems was the unfolding narrative of the prosecution of their biggest donor, Michael Brown, whose donations of £2.4 million doubled their 2005 election budget. He was later convicted of money-laundering and theft and some wealthy investors who were his clients demanded that money be returned to them by the Lib Dems, who insisted that they had taken, and spent, the money in good faith. The episode severely damaged the Lib Dems’ attempts to portray themselves as political reformers.
Under Sir Menzies’ leadership, his party’s poll ratings drifted slowly downwards, from 20 per cent in March 2006 to 15 per cent in the summer of 2007 and even 12 per cent that autumn, according to Populus, although they rose before and afterwards. When Mr Brown flirted with but abandoned a snap autumn election, Sir Menzies saw his chance and announced his resignation, knowing that his party had breathing space to elect his successor. His 18-month tenure, while difficult, saw important advances. Most notably he promoted to key spokesmanships and party positions a new generation eager to inject credibility on policy and greater professionalism into its organisation at Westminster: MPs such as David Laws, Ed Davey, Norman Lamb, Vince Cable and Nick Clegg. The forthcoming leadership election gave them a chance to complete their grip on the party’s levers of power.
There was little doubt that this new generation would choose as its champion Nick Clegg, a former MEP who entered the Commons in 2005, took an erudite interest in policy, was articulate and effective on television but had a restless disrespect for convention and a keen appetite for reform. As Sir Menzies had, Mr Clegg began in the uncomfortable position of front-runner and, like him, faced a formidable challenge from Mr Huhne. Mr Clegg’s campaign was cautious, holding back from his instinct to offer a bold, modernising agenda for fear of jeopardising his lead; Mr Huhne’s was slightly populist and overtly aggressive, attacking his rival for “flip-flopping”. His supporters at one point issued a rebuttal document entitled Calamity Clegg. The result was uncomfortably close, with Mr Clegg winning by about 500 votes.
Another by-product of the campaign was that the Lib Dems emerged with a new celebrity. Vince Cable, who was elected the party’s deputy leader in place of Sir Menzies, found himself standing in at Prime Minister’s Questions during the interregnum that followed his resignation. Dr Cable, who harboured leadership ambitions of his own before reluctantly ruling himself out because of his age, seized the moment.
His first attempt, when he cracked a joke, fell slightly flat: humour in the charged atmosphere on the floor of the House requires split-second timing and the ability to catch a mood. Undeterred, he tried again the following week. Mr Brown, having cancelled the autumn election, was embroiled in a scandal of hidden donations to Labour and the loss of child benefit records for 25 million families. “The House has noticed,” Dr Cable began, “the Prime Minister’s remarkable transformation in the last few weeks from Stalin to Mr Bean, creating chaos out of order, rather than order out of chaos.” The Commons collapsed into laughter. Vince Cable became a household name almost overnight.
Mr Clegg, like all new Lib Dem leaders, struggled to make an impact with the electorate, often finding himself in the shadow of his energetic deputy leader, whose profile rose throughout the financial crisis that engulfed Britain’s banks from autumn 2008. To frame the party’s response to the economic crisis Mr Clegg convened a small group of experts and advisers; Vince Cable was a prominent member but Mr Clegg insisted on chairing it himself, asserting his authority rather than deferring to his more experienced deputy.
He took care to stay close to Mr Huhne, seeking his counsel often and holding him close rather than allowing any rift to open between them; Mr Huhne repaid him with loyalty. Meanwhile, Mr Clegg’s allies were given key roles: David Laws played an increasingly key role in policy development, Ed Davey took charge of communications and Danny Alexander, who impressed Mr Clegg while working on his leadership campaign, became his chief of staff. Among backroom allies, he relied most on John Sharkey, a former advertising executive, for language in interviews and speeches; Polly MacKenzie to write his speeches; Jonny Oates for strategic media advice; Leana Pietsch on how issues would play in the press; and Alison Suttie to organise his office. This latter role was key: Mr Clegg, with three young children and impatient with the after-hours culture of the Commons, was ruthless in prioritising his diary and insisted on having time to take his boys to school or put them to bed, even if it meant returning to the Commons later. Much key party business was decided in conference telephone calls, with several advisers asked to ring a number with a PIN code at a given time for a focused discussion with the leader. It meant that the demands of managing a difficult