Lib Dems: From Cleggmania To Catastrophe - Sky News

4:42am UK, Saturday April 16, 2011

David Crabtree, Sky News correspondent

The Liberal Democrats will be assessing the effects of joining the coalition government a year on from Nick Clegg's spectacular success in the televised leaders' debates.

What a difference a year makes

The polls show a wholly different picture to the one enjoyed by the Liberal Democrat leader exactly 12 months ago.

An approval rating survey taken at the time suggested that he was the most popular party leader since Winston Churchill.

But a sounding gathered earlier this month showed that the Liberal Democrats suffered one of their lowest poll ratings in the party's history, with just nine points to Labour's 42 and with the Conservatives on 37.

Peter Kellner, from the polling organisation YouGov, said: "All down the line Nick Clegg has behaved perhaps as a very competent deputy prime minister, but as a fairly orthodox government politician, doing deals and making compromises.

Clegg came off well in the leaders' debates

"This was not what the people who voted for him wanted."

A number of big issues, including health reforms, VAT and spending cuts have torn him between party and the coalition.

Perhaps the most controversial and damaging was Mr Clegg's backing for the government's plans to increase tuition fees having previously signed a pledge to oppose any rise.

He lost the respect of students, something which he is desperate to win back.

There is a whole load of things they can boast about. The trouble is at the moment people don't really want to listen. 

Toby Helm, political editor of The Observer

Toby Helm, political editor of The Observer, said that when Nick Clegg was wowing people in the leaders' debates he was already sowing the seeds of a spectacular decline in popularity. But he did see some positives.

"There is a whole load of things they can boast about. The trouble is at the moment people don't really want to listen.

"But if, over time, the confidence is restored, the list gets longer, people stop having such a go at Clegg, you can get back to a situation in which I think he can pull it round."

For a man torn between the demands of his own party and the good of the coalition the pressure is never likely to cease.