ALMOST half of Liberal Democrat members want Nick Clegg to resign as the party's leader before the 2015 General Election, according to a poll.
Ahead of the LibDem conference next month, the Liberal Democrat Voice website surveyed 500 party members at the beginning of the month.
While 47% said they wanted Mr Clegg to remain leader up to the next election, 46% said they did not. Some 70% said they wanted him to stay as Deputy Prime Minister up to 2015.
Stephen Tall, the website's co-editor, said the findings would "make deeply uncomfortable reading for Nick Clegg".
He suggested that unhappiness with the Coalition, particularly after the "omnishambles" Budget, and a growing sense there was a "plausible alternative to Nick", making reference to Vince Cable's hints of a possible leadership bid, were leading party members to consider "whether life would be any easier for the party without Nick at the helm".
However, Mr Tall also pointed out that there was little immediate danger to Mr Clegg's leadership, noting how only 14% of respondents wanted him to stand down this year.
Having lost the AV referendum and seen House of Lords reform fall away, Mr Clegg will use next month's party conference to regalvanise his troops.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article