Nick Clegg Says He Made "Mistakes And Miscalculations" During Election

    But the Lib Dems are the "comeback kids of British politics", the former party leader insisted.

    Nick Clegg has admitted he made "mistakes and miscalculations" in the run-up to the general election.

    In his first major speech since he resigned in May after his party's crushing election defeat, the former Lib Dem leader said he accepted criticism – from former minister Jeremy Browne among others – that clinging to the centre ground made the party "a little insipid".

    And he confessed that his argument of the Lib Dems acting as Labour's head and the Tories' heart sounded "too much like a tactic" rather than one of "conviction".

    But he insisted the Lib Dems would be the "comeback kids of British politics" and they would bounce back – starting at next year's council elections.

    At the general election in May, the Lib Dems went from the 57 seats they won in 2010 to just eight. The ex-deputy prime minister was given long standing ovations and cheers before and after his speech to the Lib Dem conference in Bournemouth.

    He told how one woman had come up to him on the street to "embrace me in sympathy" the day after he quit as leader – but then admitted she had actually voted Green.

    "It's as if lots of voters experienced some kind of buyers' remorse in the wake of such an unanticipated result," he said. "Of course, one sympathetic reaction doesn't tell the whole story and I certainly don't tell it to absolve myself of my own mistakes and miscalculations."

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    Clegg said he was fully aware that some believe his "centre ground" stance during the election did not give the Liberal Democrats a strong, independent voice of their own.

    "I realise there are some who feel that pinning our colours to the centre ground risks sounding a little insipid, a neither-on-the-one-hand-nor-on-the-other kind of party," he said.

    "As it happens, I accept the observation that has been made that by talking about the centre ground in relation to the other two larger parties at the last election – you know, head and heart and all that stuff – we made the centre ground sound a bit too much like a tactic, rather than a place rich in values and conviction.

    "I'm not sure we had an obvious strategic alternative – but I accept that criticism and take full responsibility for it."

    But Clegg was adamant that the Lib Dems could turn around their fortunes over the next few years.

    He told activists: "As searing as it was to be beaten as badly as we were, as difficult as it is to make our voice heard when we've been reduced in size, I firmly believe that under Tim [Farron]'s leadership we can be the comeback kids of British politics – starting at next May's elections. It won't be easy, it won't be instant, and it won't come without setbacks along the way. But we will bounce back."

    He ended his speech by declaring that as "dawn follows the darkest hour", there was "now space in British politics for a great fightback by the most resilient political party of our times, the Liberal Democrats".