Originally Posted by Earthling:
From what I can see Clegg is using the fact they beat Labour into 2nd place to hide behind the poor results

You are right Earthling.

The europhile Liberal 'Democrats' got rid of their last leader (Sir Menzies Campbell) because they thought he did not do well in last year's local elections - yet their replacement leader (pro-EU Clegg) did worse in the local elections on 1.5.2008 (1% less votes for the Liberal 'Democrats' than under the leadership of Sir Menzies a year ago).

Serves them right - apart from the fact that they are an unpleasant party with dreadful political views: I do not like the way they treated Sir Menzies regarding his leadership.

Support for the Liberal 'Democrats' in this month's local elections was lower than in any local elections for the last decade.

The europhile Liberal 'Democrats' only got 9% of the vote in the London Mayoral Elections (lower than in 2004) and it is expected (and hoped :-)) that they will not do well at the Crewe-Nantwich By-Election on 22.5.2008.
[Rep]

I hope not, their pro-EU stance is just sickening :-)
Plus I agree... they are ageist for a start but the way they treated Sir Menzies Campbell is unacceptable in my view, he was actually a pretty good leader for them, but I still think they would be doing a lot better if they kept Kennedy, even if he only spoke sense after a few drinks!
[Rep]

Unless I missed something, the May 1st elections left the Lib Dems with a net gain in seats and councils. This compared with 2004 when they made huge gains after the Iraq fiasco.

I don't know about whether they went up or down (within any margin of error) on vote share from last year, but the same places weren't up for election this year so it's comparing apples and oranges anyway.
[Rep]

As Benjamin says, considering these wards were last fought when the Lib Dems benefited from an anti-war vote, to hold and even improve on that result was quite an achivement. With our FPTP voting system it was good to see in the areas they have MPs they did really well.
[Rep]