Ashdown backs Clegg as leader

PADDY Ashdown has backed Nick Clegg’s leadership of the Liberal Democrats and hit out at the “personal manoeuvring” of other senior figures in the party.

Lord Ashdown said the Deputy Prime Minister had challenged the Lib Dems to move from a party of perpetual opposition to one willing and able to grapple with the hard choices of government.

He urged the party, which he led between 1988 and 1999, to continue with the job that it began in 2010 when it endorsed Mr Clegg’s decision to enter into a coalition with David Cameron’s Conservatives.

Rumblings about a challenge to Mr Clegg’s leadership of the Liberal Democrats have grown since House of Lords reform was abandoned over the summer. Lord Oakeshott, an ally of Business Secretary Vince Cable, suggested yesterday that the party should consider a change of leadership before the next ­election.

But Lord Ashdown said: “We will be judged at the next election by one fact and one fact only.

“Whether we have had the mettle to stay the course in delivering effective government for our country at a time of crisis.

“That is the only thing that matters. All the rest is the froth.”