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.
In his first interview since his party lost 49 Westminster seats, 10 in Scotland, the former party leader also "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.
In an interview on the LBC radio channel, where he had a weekly phone-in, Mr Clegg argued that he had not destroyed his party, made clear that quitting as leader before May 7 would not have helped the fortunes of the Lib Dems and stressed he did not regret going into coalition for "one millisecond" despite the near wipe-out at the polls.
Admitted he was "blind-sided" by the disastrous election result, 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 aside last October, when the Lib Dems lost all but one of its MEPs and more than 300 councillors, if it would have helped the party.
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-DPM described the election campaign as "strange" and although the party had not remotely expected to do as badly as it did, the Lib Dems felt the Conservative strategy of talking up the prospect of Labour/SNP Government was having 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.
Voters had expected the party to "get a slap on the wrist" but, argued the former Lib Dem leader, "they didn't expect that we would be thrown to the bottom of the stairs and they regret that."
In response to one caller, Mr Clegg said he "totally" rejected suggestions the party had not reached out to Mr Kennedy.
"Charles was an inveterate texter. He was always much better at texting than picking up his phone so I couldn't get hold of him on the phone but we texted each other.
"He was actually amazingly resilient and was already thinking about how he would play a role in the European referendum campaign. He was very much looking forward," stressed the Sheffield MP.
The ex-party leader pointed out that he had no plans to disappear in a "puff of smoke" but refused to commit to standing again at the next election.
Meantime, Tim Farron, the frontrunner to succeed Mr Clegg in the party leadership contest, claimed the party's bad election result, which saw the worst losses in its history, was a consequence of forming a government with the Conservatives.
He told the IPPR think-tank in London: "We did the right thing by our country, and I am proud of Nick and all that we achieved, but our party was hugely damaged by the perceived submerging of our identity and by the tuition fees issue, which undermined the electorate's trust in us."
The Cumbrian MP suggested the Lib Dems, who were behind significant hikes in the income tax personal allowance, could back tax increases under his leadership.
"There will come a point potentially where the party and parties may need to consider that their offer is about increasing tax," he added.
This weekend, Mr Farron's rival, Norman Lamb, will be campaigning in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen.
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