NewsBreakingOnline

Former Lib Dem leader Lord Ashdown turns on prime minister for ‘breach of faith’ in alternative vote campaign Liberal Democrats were facing an electoral wipeout in Scotland and the north of England early on Friday morning as Lord Ashdown, one of Nick Clegg’s closest allies, accused David Cameron of a breach of faith, condemning the prime minister’s refusal to dissociate himself from a “regiment of lies” poured out by the no to AV campaign. As the recriminations began over the almost certain defeat of the yes campaign over changing the voting system for MPs, Ashdown said Cameron’s behaviour set him apart from every British prime minister of the postwar period. Ashdown told the Guardian: “So far the coalition has been lubricated by a large element of goodwill and trust. It is not any longer. The consequence is that when it comes to the bonhomie of the Downing Street rose garden, that has gone. It will never again be glad confident morning.” The former Liberal Democrat leader was joined by the party’s deputy leader, Simon Hughes, who accused the Tory-funded no campaign of running a “fundamentally fallacious campaign that will reduce trust between the Tories and his party”. Faced by a clear rejection of the Liberal Democrat involvement in the coalition by voters, Hughes said “in future if it is not in the coalition agreement, it will not be tolerated”. Clegg’s party had to absorb crushing double-digit losses in council elections in Leeds, Liverpool, Hull, Manchester and Clegg’s adopted hometown of Sheffield, the cities that had symbolised the Liberal Democrat advance in the past decade. In Sheffield, defending 15 seats, and running a minority administration, the Liberal Democrats lost nine councillors to Labour. In Liverpool, the Lib Dems were facing wipeout, where they won only two of the 30 seats being contested. The Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition running Birmingham city council just managed to retain its grip on power, but lost a combined total of 13 seats to Labour. The Liberal Democrats saw their share of the vote in the city plunge to just 14.7%, according to initial estimates, as voters apparently railed against the national Government’s programme of cuts. One dissident Liberal Democrat MP, Mike Hancock urged Clegg to take a tougher stance with his coalition partners: “We have to make the price of our support a lot higher. We need to twist David Cameron’s arm a lot harder.” John Leech, Lib Dem MP for Manchester Withington, said: “We’ve taken a real kicking in the ballot box tonight.” In Scotland, the nationalists were heading for their best ever result in a Scottish parliament election, having gained 24 seats by 7am, which puts them in touching distance of a majority. With the backing of the Scottish Greens, they may have enough votes to push through a referendum on independence. A disconsolate Labour in Scotland said its vote share had stayed the same in the central Scotland belt, but a Lib Dem collapse had benefited the SNP. Michael Moore, the Lib Dem Scottish secretary, said: “We always knew this would be a tough gig. I am not going to duck the fact that this is a very disappointing evening for us in Scotland.” In Wales, Labour was making gains, suggesting it was close to an overall majority. The party said on the basis of early results it was making gains in Exeter, Swindon and Gravesham. The ferocity of Ashdown’s attack, made after consultations within the party, followed what looks like certain defeat in the referendum on the alternative vote due to be announced on Friday. Senior figures in the yes campaign were predicting a 60%-to-40% defeat on a desultory turnout. Ashdown is furious with the no campaign for personalised attacks on Clegg that accused him of broken promises on tuition fees and spending cuts, and arguments that AV was a “Lib Dem fix”. Ashdown said: “The bottom line is that Liberal Democrats are exceedingly angry. We believe there has been a breach of faith here. If the Conservative party funds to the level of 99% a campaign whose central theme is to denigrate and destroy our leader, there are consequences for that. “What that means is that this is a relationship that is much less about congeniality, it becomes a business relationship, a transactional relationship, and maybe it will be all the better for that.” He went on: “David Cameron is the prime minister. He sets the tone of politics in this country. It is an unhappy fact that when he was asked to dissociate himself from a campaign that was run on the basis of personalisation and personal attacks, and messages that were far more than some subtle bending of the truth, he refused to do that. “I have to say that he did not dissociate himself from a campaign whose nature I believe every previous British prime minister in my time would have disassociated himself from. That is a grave disappointment. This is a triumph for the regiment of lies. We live with pretty strenuous political campaigns in Britain, but these were downright lies.” Ashdown also accused Cameron of panicking after demands from his backbenchers to step up the referendum campaign. “In backtracking, to use no stronger a word than that, on what was a private agreement he had with Nick Clegg about the way this campaign was conducted, I think the prime minister panicked in the face of his rightwingers. I regret that.” Ashdown said it would be right if his party now highlighted its differences within the coalition. He insisted the Lib Dems would not leave the coalition until the end of the five-year parliament, saying: “We have set our hands to this task and now it must be completed so the purpose of the coalition has not altered, but the mood music, the atmosphere of the coalition most assuredly has as a result of what has gone on in the past three weeks. “I think we should be much more straightforward where we disagree. That is not a criticism of Clegg. “I have always said when asked I did not think the result of the referendum could affect the coalition, but I did think the way it was fought could.” He seemed to imply that the party’s willingness to enter another coalition with Cameron may be affected. “I am very clear that the nature of this coalition and the way that it ends, the mood between the two parties when it ends and therefore what happens afterwards, may well be affected by this.” Ashdown said: “The central proposition of this parliament stands: ‘Is George Osborne’s economic judgment right?’ I believe it is. The whole of British politics now rests on that single proposition. The fortunes of the coalition, the fortunes of the two parties in the coalition and the fortunes of the Labour party rest on that.” Ashdown also challenged Cameron to show that he was the reformer he had claimed to be, by pressing ahead with an elected House of Lords. Liberal Democrats Elections 2011 Paddy Ashdown Local elections Liberal-Conservative coalition David Cameron Scottish politics Local politics Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk