Lib Dems divided as former minister brands Inverclyde 'a humiliation'

NICK Clegg was at war with members of his Scottish party last night after lashing out at a former Holyrood minister who described the Inverclyde by-election as a "humiliation".

Ross Finnie, a former Scottish Lib Dem MSP who was environment minister for eight years, warned that voters north of the Border had lost trust in the Deputy Prime Minister.

He gave the damning verdict after his party lost its deposit, picking up just 627 votes and dropping from third to fourth place behind the Tories in the vote, which was declared in the early hours of yesterday.

His comments reflect wider discontent in the Scottish party, with many senior figures privately blaming their loss of support for the coalition deal with the Conservatives in Westminster. The worst result for Lib Dems in a Scottish by-electionsince the Second World War comes after a dreadful Holyrood campaign, where the party dropped from 16 MSPs to five.

But last night a source close to Mr Clegg suggested that the result had more to do with the fact that the Lib Dems in Scotland tried to disown the Deputy Prime Minister and the coalition, and that voters had seen through the tactic.

He compared the Scottish approach with the one in Wales, where Lib Dems had been more supportive of the coalition and lost far less ground.

Inverclyde Lib Dem candidate Sophie Bridger saw her party's vote collapse from 5,007 in 2010 to 627.

Mr Finnie, who was born in Greenock in the constituency, said: "For Liberals to lose their deposit in the way in which we have, and be down to 600 votes - I'm embarrased by that.

"I think it is a humiliating result. The public have decided that they didn't like the offering we made them.

"There were clear issues of trust in the leadership of the Liberal Democrat party, and there was an issue about whether we were articulating a case for people to vote for us. These are very fundamental issues."

But a source close to Mr Clegg said: "In Scotland, it is obvious that the fact we are with the Tories does have a big impact on how people see you.

"In Scotland, the party almost disowned Nick Clegg, but people still see that you are the same Lib Dems."

He said that the case for the coalition needed to be made more forcefully. "We have to be straightforward about why what we are doing is the right thing for the country. We are not going to help ourselves by beating ourselves up about the fact that we have made a decision to go into power."

On Mr Finnie, a second source close to Mr Clegg added: "Clearly, people are going to be upset after this result, following so soon after what happened in the Scottish Parliament election. But we have a strong new leader in Scotland in Willie Rennie, are remarkably united and can build for the future."

The by-election result was a huge relief for Labour leader Ed Miliband, with his party's candidate, Iain McKenzie, the local council leader, winning by 5,838 over the SNP, more than ten times the margin of Labour's victory over the Nationalists in the Holyrood constituency in May's Scottish Parliament election.

Although the SNP's Anne McLaughlin, a former MSP, increased her party's share of the vote by 15.5 percentage points from the 2010 Westminster election, the result seemed to bring the SNP's domination of Scottish politics to an end.

And despite the Scottish party being in disarray, Labour's share of the vote dropped by a mere 2.2 percentage points from its 2010 Westminster result.

Meanwhile, the Tories vote dropped by just 2 percentage points and their candidate, David Wilson, moved up into third place with 2,784 votes.Speaking after the count, Mr McKenzie said: "With a result like this I think we can safely say the SNP bandwagon has ground to a halt. Labour won this election because we listened hard and took nothing for granted. This is the start of Labour's fightback."

SNP campaign manager Kenny Gibson said party activists were "absolutely worn out after the Scottish election".

He added: "I would have been absolutely delighted if we won the seat, but unfortunately we didn't. However, I think we had a very good result in that we had the best percentage share that the SNP has ever polled in this constituency since the SNP was formed in 1934."

"This is a serious blow to Labour. In just three weeks, the SNP has slashed Labour's lead in their heartlands by over half.".