Liberal Democrats leadership election, 2007

The 2007 Liberal Democrats leadership election was held following the resignation of Sir Menzies Campbell as leader on 15 October 2007, after 19 months as leader of the Liberal Democrats, the third-largest political party in the United Kingdom. Vincent Cable, the deputy leader of the parliamentary party, was acting leader until the conclusion of the leadership election. The result was announced on 18 December 2007 with Nick Clegg winning by a narrow margin of 1.2%.

Background

The resignation of Menzies Campbell came after a period of speculation about his future as party leader. This was seen as due to media-inspired concerns over his age and poor poll ratings for the party. This speculation mounted after Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced he would not be calling a General Election in 2007. The resignation was announced by the party president Simon Hughes and the deputy leader of the parliamentary party Vincent Cable.

Election rules

The timetable for the election was announced on 16 October 2007 with the new leader to be announced on 18 December. Liberal Democrat leadership elections use the Alternative Vote system, the single-winner version of the Single Transferable Vote, although, since only two candidates contested this election the contest effectively became a simple plurality vote.

Nominations for candidates opened on 16 October 2007 and closed at 16:00 (UTC+0) on 31 October: each candidate needed the support of at least 10% of Liberal Democrat MPs (''i.e.'' 7 MPs) and at least 200 party members from at least 20 different local parties. MPs could only nominate one candidate, unlike the previous election.

A series of online and offline hustings meetings were held around the country, and were listed on the party's official news page for the contest.

Balloting of members commenced on 21 November with the distribution of ballots to party members, the deadline for their return being 15 December and the victor to be announced at around 2:30 p.m. on 18 December 2007.

Campaign

Opening

In media reports and the betting markets, the front-runners were friends Nick Clegg (Home Affairs spokesperson) and Chris Huhne (Environment spokesperson). Huhne ran in the 2006 leadership election, coming second to Campbell, whom Clegg had supported.

After Campbell's surprise resignation, there was speculation as to who would run. Various contenders ruled themselves out early on (including notably Vincent Cable, Edward Davey, Lynne Featherstone, Julia Goldsworthy, Simon Hughes, Susan Kramer, David Laws, Sarah Teather and Steve Webb), leading to the possibility of only two candidates achieving sufficient nominations. Huhne launched his campaign first on Wednesday 17 October, with Clegg launching his on Friday 19 October.

John Hemming announced on his blog that he wished to stand, and that he was taking soundings from colleagues, but he went on to acknowledge that it would be too difficult for him to obtain sufficient MP nominators. Former leader Charles Kennedy initially said he was "highly unlikely" to run again, and that it is not part of his "game plan", but did not completely rule out the possibility. He later more clearly rejected the idea.

Huhne and then Clegg submitted their formal nomination paperwork. Clegg attracted most support from fellow MPs, although both candidates had high-profile supporters, including former Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown for Clegg and former Liberal leader David Steel for Huhne.

Nominations closed at 16:00 (UTC+0) on 31 October 2007.

Policy differences

Nick Clegg took a more multilateralist line than Chris Huhne, who was opposed to the Trident ballistic missile system. Nick Clegg favoured retaining half of Trident's arsenal to use as a bargaining chip in 2010 negotiations; Chris Huhne saw saving money on the nuclear deterrent as being a viable means of raising money to fund greater spending on army equipment and conventional weaponry with the possibility of a smaller deterrent system.

Chris Huhne emphasised his opposition to voucher systems in the provision of public services. Nick Clegg denied supporting voucher systems, and has gone on record as ruling such systems out.

Nick Clegg stated that he saw the Liberal Democrats' role in a hung parliament scenario as being to support whichever party is most likely to be able to form a government; however, he said that the other two main party leaders and their parties were both conservative and that he was neither an heir to Blair nor a Cameron clone. Clegg also stated that he saw liberalism as being more important than ever, and accused Chris Huhne of entering "an unholy alliance" with the SNP and Conservatives over the environment and his supporting the principle of elements of the Conservative Party's plans to have English only voting for English only matters.

On most issues the two candidates shared common positions on the environment, identity cards, counter-terrorism and the war in Iraq.

Hustings

Both candidates appeared at several hustings organised by the party. There were also joint appearances on the BBC
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