Nick Clegg doesn't want to go, and regicide is never easy

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/may/25/nick-clegg-parties

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Can everyone lose? In theory, politics is a zero-sum game so one party's loss is another's gain. In practice, four parties – including Ukip – have reason to worry about Thursday's votes. The Liberal Democrats must worry most.

Ukip may boast local and European gains, but its national vote share fell back by six percentage points in a year to 17%. The balloon is hissing. This is not a good augury for the 2015 general election, when it would still be surprising if they won a single seat.

The Conservatives lost heavily on Thursday, and Lord Ashcroft's poll of marginals also put Labour uncomfortably ahead. Moreover, their hurdle is high. The Nuffield Foundation's 2010 general election study showed that the Tories need a lead of about 4% over Labour to be the biggest party, and an 11% lead for a majority.

However, the sane Tories know that they would not do better under another leader. David Cameron is the only mainstream leader to outpoll his own party, and Cameron-Osborne are more trusted with the economy than Miliband-Balls. At a time of recovery, those two factors are the key to a respectable result in 2015.

Behind Labour's professional surface, people are queasy but not sure what can be fixed. Ed Miliband may discomfit some supporters, but he is a long way from the levels of rejection that cause a party – and particularly herbivorous Labour – to withdraw his option to fight at least one general election.

Labour's gains in the local elections were too modest for an opposition party that wants to win outright in a year's time, but the party is still, on the rational calculus of bookies' odds, the most likely winner in 2015 – even if it is falling short of the 3% lead over the Conservatives needed for an overall majority.

For the Lib Dems the outlook is worse. Activists report that Nick Clegg is toxic among Labour switchers whom the party needs back. A petition calling for his resignation has gone online. For some, the Nigel Farage debates proved that "no one is listening to Nick". Two MPs, Adrian Sanders and John Pugh, have broken ranks with disobliging comments, though not all-out calls for resignation. Both are part of the Lib Dems' awkward squad, and are not yet a signal that MPs will oust Clegg.

One option being discussed is to keep Clegg as deputy prime minister, but elect a caretaker – Vince Cable – to lead the party into the general election. Another is for a clean shift to a new leader and deputy prime minister, possibly with a staged withdrawal from the coalition to distance the Lib Dems from the Tories.

And then there is soldiering on under Clegg – still the most likely option. Regicide should never be undertaken lightly. It is rarely surgical, and Clegg does not want to go. He can argue that the local elections were on a low poll, that it would be crazy to change when another hung parliament is the most likely 2015 result, and that the party's support always increases in the general election campaign.

An analysis of the local election results by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher points to Labour falling short of an overall majority, and needing just 37 Lib Dem MPs to put them back in. That is a loss of 20 Lib Dem MPs, all worried about next year's paycheck. Clegg's problem now is that many councillors and MPs care more about their seats than being in government.

In my own sample of the Lib Dem seats with local elections, which excludes big blocs in Scotland and the south-west, there are three groups. MPs fighting Labour are in trouble and will be hoping that good local records compensate. That includes well-known names like Simon Hughes in Bermondsey and Lynne Featherstone in Hornsey, where Labour outpolled the Lib Dems. Burnley and Cambridge also fall into this category.

Tory-facing MPs seem to split into two camps: outside London, Solihull in the West Midlands was bad, but generally there were some good local results in MPs' seats such as Southport in the north-west, Cheltenham in the south-west and Eastleigh in the south-east. In some cases, Ukip's intervention clearly helped: two Lib Dem councillors in Southport probably owe their election to the Ukip effect on the Tory vote. Even in trouble-racked Portsmouth, the Lib Dems won most votes in the Portsmouth South constituency. This should encourage all those Tory-facing MPs in Somerset, Devon and Cornwall; the anti-Tory wagons circled.

But in London, where Ukip floundered, the Tory-facing Lib Dems had mixed fortunes. In Sutton, they did well. But in the seats of two cabinet ministers, Cable in Twickenham and Ed Davey in Kingston, the Lib Dems failed to outpoll the Tories. Given the pull of incumbency neither are at real risk, but it may complicate a succession.

Cable is the most likely caretaker leader, but he will remember Sir Menzies Campbell's roasting by the ageist press. He will also be unable to sidestep criticism on student tuition fees, which were his ministerial responsibility. Yet younger candidates would probably trigger a fully fledged leadership contest too close to the election.

There are no easy options for the Liberal Democrats, which is often the situation in which beleaguered leaders lead on.