THE Tory election fear strategy of talking up an alliance between Labour and the SNP "really chilled the English heart" and helped spur the Liberal Democrat crash, Nick Clegg has admitted.

The former party leader , whose party lost 49 Westminster seats, 10 in Scotland,"totally" rejected suggestions the Lib Dems did not reach out to Charles Kennedy, who died earlier this month following the loss of his Highland seat after 32 years in the House of Commons.

Mr Clegg argued on LBC radio that he had not destroyed his party and stressed he did not regret going into coalition for "one millisecond" despite the near wipe-out at the polls.

The former Deputy Prime Minister declared: "I haven't destroyed the party. Liberalism will survive; the Liberal Democrats will bounce back."

Mr Clegg explained that he would have stood last October after the disastrous European and local elections.

But he stressed: "Changing leader a year before the election wouldn't have made much difference to, for instance, whether we would have been able to withstand Scottish Nationalism north of the Border."

The ex-Deputy Prime Minister felt the Conservative strategy of talking up the prospect of Labour/SNP Government had a big effect in England.

"Ten days before the election day all of us really felt a Labour government dancing to the tune of the SNP really chilled the English heart and you could see lots of people that would traditionally have voted for the Liberal Democrats playing it safe and saying the best guarantee(against) that was to vote Conservative," he explained.

Mr Clegg said Mr Kennedy, who he kept in touch with by text, was "amazingly resilient and was already thinking about how he would play a role in the European referendum campaign."